百忙之中倾心推荐，财富500强CEO 2018最佳书单

首席执行官并不是最适合推荐图书的人群，因为他们几乎没有闲暇时间读书。尽管如此，《财富》杂志在最近调研《财富》美国500强企业首席执行官时提出问题：过去一年你读过最好的一本书是什么？答案还挺丰富，我们收集到约40本书，既有《曼德拉传：漫漫自由路》（Long Walk to Freedom）之类自传，也有经典如《圣经》（The Bible），还有虚构小说《朝圣者》（I Am Pilgrim）和《美国的灵魂》（The Soul of America）等非虚构文学作品。

调研中有七本书被多次提起，所以在此特别介绍一下。七本书中有两本都是罗恩·彻诺的作品，分别是三位首席执行官提到的《格兰特》（Grant）和两位首席执行官提到的《汉密尔顿》（Hamilton）。七本书中只有两本获得三位首席执行官推荐，除了《格兰特》，另一部是对冲基金经理、亿万富翁瑞·达利欧所著的《原则》（Principles），他在书中向世人分享了成功的秘诀。值得一提的是，有一位首席执行官推荐了《坦诚相待》（Radical Candor），作者是前谷歌高管吉姆·斯科特，他也认同达利欧的一个关键思想。

其他四本得到两位首席执行官推荐的书分别是：

——经济学家罗伯特·戈登所著《美国经济增长的起伏》（The Rise and Fall of American Growth）（我们没问受访者读没读完这部785页的大部头。）

——华裔心理学家李惠安所著《毅力》（Grit），这本书据说提供了各领域皆适用的成功秘诀。

——J.D.·万斯回忆录《乡下人的悲歌》（Hillbilly Elegy），相当值得一读，特朗普当选美国总统后冲上了畅销书排行榜。

——关于商业成功的经典指南《从优秀到卓越》（Good to Great），尽管是吉姆·科林斯将近二十年前的作品，今天仍然吸引着商界读者。

既然到周日了，看看读者的评论吧：

我曾在报道里提到，将近15%的《财富》美国500强企业首席执行官描述自己的领导风格为“仆人式领导”。从事招聘工作的读者D.M.讽刺说：“不是故意挑刺”，“别看仆人式领导提得多，理论上也挺高级，但现实生活中很少有，也极少人能真正做到……倒是希望‘说到做到’变成新潮流。”

我曾报道，虽然大部分首席执行官都确信人工智能对企业“很重要”，但实际投资很少，另一读者P.B.评论称：“这些企业紧跟潮流并不是很适合。”（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审校：夏林

The CEO crowd isn’t the best place to go for book suggestions because they have so little free time to read. Nevertheless, we asked in our recent survey of Fortune 500 CEOs: What’s the best book you have read in the last year? And we got a grab bag of answers–some 40 different books, ranging from autobiographies (Long Walk to Freedom) to classics (The Bible) to fiction (I Am Pilgrim) to nonfiction (The Soul of America.)

Only seven books got mentioned more than once, so I’ll highlight those here. Author Ron Chernow wins the prize for writing two of the seven: Grant (3 mentions) and Alexander Hamilton (2). The only book besides Grant to get three mentions was Principles, which is billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio’s effort to share the secrets of his success with the rest of the world. Worth noting that a fourth CEO cited Radical Candor, by former Googleexecutive Kim Scott, who shares a key element of Dalio’s philosophy.

Four other books got two mentions:

— The Rise and Fall of American Growth, by economist Robert Gordon (we didn’t ask whether they actually finished the 785-page tome.)

— Grit, by psychologist Angela Duckworth, which claims to offer the secret to success in any field.

— Hillbilly Elegy, the highly readable memoir of J.D. Vance, which rocketed on the bestseller lists after Trump’s election.

—And the classic guide to business success, Good to Great, written by Jim Collins nearly two decades ago, but still captivating business readers today.

Meanwhile, since it’s Sunday, a bit of reader feedback:

D.M., who works as a recruiter, took a cynical view of my report that nearly 15% of Fortune 500 CEOs used the term “servant leadership” to describe their own leadership style. “Not to sound cynical,” he said, but “servant leadership, while noble in theory and widely proclaimed, rarely exists in reality and/or execution…Here’s hoping we see a new trend of ‘practicing what they preach.’”

And P.B. commented on my report that most CEOs, while convinced AI is “very important” to their business, are making only modest investments in it. “The fast follower approach does not bode well for these companies.”