A “Desire to Learn” is one of our Core Values here at Align.  With more relaxed family schedules, longer days and lots of travel, summer is a great time to broaden your knowledge base. Now that the dog days of summer are here, we thought it was time to compile a recommended summer reading list for scale ups. These books will challenge you and push you in the way you think about yourself, your teams and your organizations.

Summer is a great time to read from this selection and pick up a few tips to help guide you through your strategic planning and goals you will be setting for your business in 4^th Quarter. For those who prefer to listen to podcasts, we have included a few of our favorites  of those as well. We hope you have a great summer!

Recommended Books:

• Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up by Verne Harnish
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
• Joy Inc. by Richard Sheridan
• The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
• Any of Jim Collins’ books (Good to Great; Built to Last; Great by Choice; Turning the Flywheel)
• Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail
• The Sumo Advantage by Bernie Brenner
• The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney
• Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits by Greg Crabtree
• Built to Sell by John Warrillow
• Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet
• The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
• Awesomely Simple by John Spence
• Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal
• 2 second Lean by Paul Akers
• Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini Ph.D.
• Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Recommended Podcasts:

• Masters of Scale hosted by Reid Hoffman
• How I Built This with Guy Raz
• Scaling Up Business Podcast with Bill Gallagher
• YPO 10 Minute Tips from the Top
• HBR Ideacast
• Marketplace Tech

Thanks to Chuck Kocher and Petra coach for their contributions to this list!