Business And Backstage Diplomacy

Leader's Book shelf

Humour, the finer things in life, and a desire to create the organisation of the future, mark Aptech-CEO Ganesh Natarajan's approach to books

Plums of Wodehouse - By PG Wodehouse

You need humour, it helps you keep your balnace in life. Apart from Wodehouse. I read the likes of Dilbert and Calvin and Hobbes. What I like about Wodehouse is that he is irreverent. He doesn't exert your cerebrum, and is very readable. He is the best way to chill out. I like the way he takes the most ordinary situation to the strangest conclusion. I think my favourite Wodehouse character is Baxter - Lord Emsworth's secretary. He is the classical harassed guy - somewhat like the man of the nineties - who is entirely devoid of humour. I think it was Wodehouse's trip to make fun of people like him.

The Rubaiyat of Omar - Khayyam

Then we come to Omar Khayyam. I used to read a lot of poetry at one time - Browning, Keats and so on. But I haven't been doing that lately. Khayyam talks about the finer things in life - a glass of wine, a loved one. what he does is take a mundane facet of everyday life, and use that to derive a principle of existence. Things like how to get along with people, and so on. Prosaic things that really come through with Khayyam's poetry.

Enterprise.com - By Jeff papows

This book and the one below help you create the organisation of the future. While Competing for the future talks about building opportunity by identifying tomorrow's trends, this book details a step-by-step approach to building the organisation of the future. In this book, the articulation is very good. It is very readable. In that sense, it is a little low-level. I imagine some technical people might find it a little low on the jargon and all that. But, if you are looking for a book that explains knowledge management. Then, this is the book.

Competing for the future - By Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad

This book as I said, changes the way one looks at the future. Tomorrow's organisation can't be built with existing thinking and competencies. This book tells you to worry about your opportunity share. It is quite a book, I have read it about four times, and everytime I read it, I lern something new.

So that is the way it is, this book and Enterprise.com help me prepare for the future, the Wodehouse and the Khayyam help me keep my balance.