World Book Day - Recommended Reads from Leaders in the Accounting Industry

By Oriana Gorrin

Today, to celebrate United Nations World Book Day, we’re sharing a selection of books that impacted the Cloud Stories podcast guests. The podcast guests are from the accounting technology world, and the podcast shares the stories behind the people who build or use Accounting and Business Apps. In a delightful plot twist here are the stories or books that changed their way of thinking, books that helped them in business, books they wanted to share with listeners.

“Never Split the Difference” by Rutger Bregman, recommended by Daniel Kniaz, DiviPay.

 “From a business operations perspective, hands down this one that does actually stick in my mind,” says Daniel. “It is a negotiation book called Never Split the Difference and it’s probably the most practical book I’ve ever read,” he highlights. “You can essentially negotiate anything and everything in life.” 

“The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy” by Bill Wash, recommended by Celso Pinto, Pixie.

 “ I absolutely love that book. Primarily because, again, it’s one of the things that is very core to Pixie,” says Celso. “And one of the nicest things I’ve learned about his management style was it was micromanagement.” “Walsh created bullet lists, checklists for everyone to follow, from the coaches to the players to the receptionists, everyone had a checklist on how to communicate, what would they need to achieve, how to perform their job, et cetera.”

"Scaling Up" by Verne Harnish recommended by Aaron Wittman, XBert

“I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to grow their business. I love that it gives you practical tips and techniques about how to scale your business effectively. When you’re growing, especially at an accelerated rate, it can be easy to let certain things go unchecked or just ‘get it done’ – but this book helps you understand that even though you might feel like you’re going slower to start, you are setting up for consistent, long-term growth when you do it properly. For us, company culture and team satisfaction at work is so important, and this is a great guide to help you put into place strategies to ensure your company stays in line with its values, as it grows.”

“Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, recommended by Amreeta Abbott, Annature.

 “My father was quite inspirational in terms of wanting me to succeed and I was always interested in the stock market [...] so my father brought me this book and said let’s just start now,” she mentions. “I was always interested in financial planning and investments and hence why I just related to it.”

“The Chimp Paradox: The Acclaimed Mind Management Programme to Help you Achieve Success, Confidence, and Happiness” by Steve Peters, recommended by Kelly Goss, Solvaa. 

“The book is really about trying to understand and manage your inner chimp,” tells Kelly. “It really just helped me to be a more balanced person. I think I learnt a lot about myself and what things trigger my behaviour and my emotions,” she confirms. “It made me think a lot about the way that I do things and how I interact with people. It also helped me with confidence.”

“Dare to Lead” by Brené Brown, recommended by Alexandra Bond Burnett, Speaking Ambition.

 “I really liked when she spoke about vulnerability, and also she talked about rumbling,” Alexandra says. “There’s a brilliant process she’s called rumbling, so having a meeting and the rumble means that you’re just going, ‘Right, we’re going in. We’re diving in,” she recalls. “In a safe space, [this attitude] is going to be growth and help us all be better. But I’m going to call you out on what you just said because I don’t think that’s what you meant.”

“Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” by Cal Newport, recommended by Meryl Johnston, Bean Ninjas. 

“I’m a massive personal productivity fan. I love thinking about it [...]. And I love the book Deep Work, “ she confesses. “It talks about the value of uninterrupted, hard thinking, hard production time where you’re creating something, and how that is becoming rare as we have constant interruptions or social media,” she explains. “It’s difficult to get into that zone where you’re doing that hard thinking and hard creating. And the author, Cal Newport in the book is talking about the value of that.”

“Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions” by John P. Kotter, recommended by Aynsley Damery, Clarity.

“Our Iceberg is Melting is a beautiful parable,” comments Aynsley. “It’s very easy to read, probably two and a half hours and[...] it does facilitate that discussion on organisational change and what’s stopping changing sticking really good,” he comments. “So I think that book is a very simple read. It’s very easy to understand those eight steps and it’s great for helping people make change stick.”

“Notorious RBG” by Irin Carmon, Shana Knizhnik recommended by Heather Smith host of the Cloud Stories podcast.

Notorious RBG is a tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsberg a lady who’s been a pioneer for gender equality throughout her distinguished career. In 2013, Knizhnik started the blog “Notorious R.B.G” referencing the hip hop artist The Notorious BIG. It went viral and was the catalyst for social media morphing Ginsburg into a national liberal icon, who transcended generations. Heather shares, “Along with the incredible achievements of RBG, I find it fascinating that taking something, and putting it in a different medium, can help share a message, and impact a new audience.”

Hopefully, you have been inspired by this list and found a few books to add to your reading list. In case you need more to add to that list, back in early 2021 the accounting and bookkeeping community came together to discuss business books and voted on the top 50(ish) that they have read or plan to read. Click through here if you need more inspirational books to add to your reading list.

What do you think of these titles? Do you have a favourite read to share?