The Personal MBA Manifesto
Mastering Business Through Self-Education
2008 Edition: Revised and Updated
by Josh Kaufman
Top MBA programs don’t have a monopoly on advanced business knowledge: you can teach yourself everything you need to know to succeed in life and at work. The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List features only the very best business books available, based on thousands of hours of research. So skip b-school and the $100,000 loan: you can get a world-class business education simply by reading these books.
What is the Personal MBA?
"You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library."
– Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon), Good Will Hunting
"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
– Isaac Asimov
The Personal MBA (PMBA) is a project designed to help you educate yourself about advanced business concepts. This manifesto will show you how to substantially increase your knowledge of business on your own time and with little cost, all without setting foot inside a classroom.
The PMBA is more flexible than a traditional MBA program, doesn't involve going into massive debt, and won't interrupt your income stream for two years. Just pick up one of these business books, learn as much as you can, discuss what you learn with others, then go out into the real world and make great things happen.
If you're interested in educating yourself about business, the Personal MBA is the best place to start.
Introduction to the 2008 Edition
"Was getting an MBA worth it? On a personal level, it was a truly great experience. One that has given me a lot of confidence, motivation, purpose, and energy. On a business and pure learning level, I am not so sure. I think something like the Personal MBA or selected great texts from Amazon and a mentor would have been more useful and practical."
- Frank, graduate of Drexel University's Lebow College of Business
It's been over three years since the first version of the Personal MBA Manifesto was published on ChangeThis.com. What began as a list of books inspired by Seth Godin led to an article in BusinessWeek, an active community of members around the world, and a broad re-examination of the value business schools actually provide. The Personal MBA has been a remarkably rewarding project, and I'm happy and excited that so many people have found it valuable.
This new edition of the Personal MBA recommended reading list reflects what I've learned since the first PMBA manifesto was published in 2005. Since the original list was published two years ago, I've discussed the PMBA with hundreds of business professionals, students, and business professors around the world. I've continued my reading and research, and I've now spent over five years working in a Fortune 50 corporation. Through it all, I've learned a lot about what businesspeople really find useful.
The 2008 edition of the Personal MBA reading list has been systematically overhauled to guide you through the self-education process. The wide world of business literature changes quickly, and there have been quite a few stellar books released since the first manifesto was published. In addition, my research has led me to older texts that I wasn't aware of when I created the list in 2005, or when I updated the list in 2007. As the Personal MBA grows, PMBA members continue to bring books to my attention, and as a result this list will continue to evolve and improve over time.
As a result of my work with the Personal MBA, I've developed an even greater appreciation of the value of self-education. Self-education is a lot like starting your own business or managing your own portfolio of investments. You're not forcing yourself to learn something because someone else tells you it's important: you're learning it because you know it's important and you value what you're learning. The entire learning process becomes more rewarding because you put more of yourself into the learning process, which makes a remarkable difference in the quality and applicability of your business education.
I firmly believe that, at its best, business is capable of being a tremendous force for good in the world, and I hope you find these resources useful in all of your current and future business endeavors. To everyone who has given of their time and energy to make the PMBA better, my heartfelt thanks.
It's All About the Books
"If I read a book that cost me $20 and I get one good idea, I've gotten one of the greatest bargains of all time." - Tom Peters
"The difference between where you are today and where you'll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you've read." - Jim Rohn
The core of the Personal MBA is a list of the very best books the business press has to offer. Some books will give you tools: processes or actions you can apply immediately to improve your life and work. Others will give you ideas: help in envisioning what you and your business are capable of becoming. All of them will give you mental models: useful ways of thinking about the world that you can use to your advantage in a wide variety of situations.
The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List is the tangible result of hundreds of hours of reading, research, discussion, and evaluation. By reading these books and applying what you learn to your daily life, you will progressively develop a greater understanding of business and increase your effectiveness in the working world. Each book in the list has been selected for a single purpose: to maximize your educational return on invested time.
Thoughts on Traditional MBA Programs
"Whatever be the qualifications of your tutors, your improvement must chiefly depend on yourselves. They cannot think or labor for you, they can only put you in the best way of thinking and laboring for yourselves. If therefore you get knowledge, you must acquire it by your own industry." - Joseph Priestly, Dedication of New College, London, 1794.
The debate concerning the value of traditional MBA programs is long and involved, and this manifesto won't close the issue. For the sake of brevity, here's a short Q&A on the pros and cons of business school:
- Can a traditional MBA program help you? Yes. You'll meet a lot of great people and get acquainted with a few professors and corporate HR recruiters who can help you land a new job. In exchange, you will sink deeply into debt. If you decide to enroll in a full-time MBA program, you must also consider the opportunity cost of lost wages and long-term investable savings.
- Will a traditional MBA teach you anything you can't learn by yourself? Probably not. Classroom discussion can be beneficial, but there's nothing presented in a traditional MBA program that you can't learn by studying a few good books on the subject. Remember, the value of traditional MBA programs is not in the learning: the primary benefit is the connection to recruiters and other students.
- Is a traditional MBA worth my time and money? Unfortunately, there's no universal answer. If you're looking to go into advanced corporate accounting, finance, quantitative analysis, commercial real estate, Fortune 500 management consulting, venture capital, or investment banking, an MBA or MS in a business-related field may be expected or required. In those cases, caveat emptor: once you decide to attend a traditional business school, the only certainty is that you'll be up to your eyeballs in debt for a few decades.
To clarify, here's what I'm not saying about traditional MBA programs:
- MBA programs are completely worthless and an abject waste of time and money. If you're aiming for a job at a Fortune 50 in an industry in which you have no experience, you want to work for a company that directly rewards MBA graduates with higher pay or increased responsibility, or your employer is willing to pay the full cost of tuition, it may make sense to enroll in an MBA program. If you're an entrepreneur or middle manager at a company you like, your limited time and energy is probably best spent working on your business and learning on your own.
- You won't learn anything useful in an MBA program. Like any other life experience, what you learn is primarily determined by how much energy and attention you choose to devote to the program. You can learn many useful things in an MBA program - you just won't learn anything you can't learn elsewhere more completely / quickly / inexpensively, and you'll waste a lot of time on things that simply aren't that important.
- People who enroll in MBA programs are stupid. Prospective MBA students tend to be intelligent, driven, and ambitious, which are major assets. The irony is that the most promising MBA candidates are just as likely to succeed in business without an MBA as they are with the diploma. According to Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, "If you are good enough to get in, you obviously have enough talent to do well, regardless."
Whether or not you decide that a traditional MBA program is right for you, the Personal MBA is an effective, low-cost way to educate yourself about business. Even if you're currently enrolled or have graduated from business school, you can benefit from reading these books - many current MBA candidates are active members of the PMBA community, and find a great deal of value in reading beyond what's required for their coursework.
Before we get to the reading list, however, allow me to set a few reasonable expectations:
The Personal MBA is Not:
- A credential. If you read these books, you won't have corporate recruiters beating down your door, and you won't have a pretty certificate to hang on your wall when you're done. You will, however, have an understanding of business that's comparable to completing a traditional business school curriculum, along with the pleasures of not having to mortgage your life for that understanding. You do not need a certificate to be able to understand, use, and hold an intelligent conversation about advanced business topics. (Employers do, however, respond well to portfolios. If you build a portfolio of notes to capture what you learn through the Personal MBA, you'll have a tangible asset to prove your hard work and dedication during the interview process.)
- A stand-alone venture. You can't learn about business solely from books (or sitting in a classroom); you have to be willing to go out and learn by doing. Whether you're working full-time for a company or building your own business, a great deal of your knowledge will develop as a direct result of your day-to-day work experiences, which provide the necessary context for understanding what you read. Reading books is not enough; application of what you read is essential.
- A mindless replica of a traditional MBA program. The PMBA was created to expose you to a core set of advanced business concepts quickly and effectively. By design, it does not include everything you might come across in business school. If you're looking for a detailed analysis of the Black-Scholes option pricing model and its relationship to the volatility surfaces of certain financial derivatives, you're going to be very disappointed. The PMBA focuses on the 80% of knowledge that you'll find useful in the real world, not what an academic professor personally finds interesting.
- An impersonal curriculum. You'll find more material about learning who you are, what you're good at, and how to work more effectively with other people in the PMBA than you will in a standard business school curriculum. There's a reason why these topics are included here: these "soft skills" are often more practical and important than theoretical knowledge, and will help you tremendously in your everyday life and work.
- An infallible educational revelation. It's perfectly okay if you disagree with one of the selections or think that a critical book has been overlooked. Feel free to make substitutions as you deem necessary. If you're skeptical about the value of a title you haven't read yet, I encourage you to borrow the book from your local library and give it a try. If you're of the same opinion after reading a few chapters, put it down and read something else.
- Easy. Working your way through this list will take time, energy, and persistence. There is no substitute for hard work and dedication. I've structured this program to be as easy as possible to use, but it's up to you to put in the time and energy necessary to learn.
Reading List Selection Criteria
There are thousands of great books about business on the market, which made this list very difficult to compile. Here are the five criteria used to select the resources featured in this manifesto:
- Valuable, Action-Oriented Content. Does the book contain a lot of useful, practical information about how business works, how you can add value, and why the material in the book is important? Is the book based on scientific research or direct personal experience? Does it contain tools, ideas, and mental models that can be put to use immediately in the real world?
- Acceptable Time Commitment. Is the book a good educational value for the amount of time invested? Can you get the key points of each book quickly?
- Self-Learning Friendly. Is this book designed to keep the reader's mind engaged? Does the author present the material effectively and make the learning process enjoyable?
- Reference Value. Will this book be a valuable resource to turn to when you need information on a specific topic? How does the book re-read? Is it a book worth keeping for many years?
- Comprehensive Set of Resources. Does this list cover a broad range of advanced business concepts effectively and efficiently? Is completing each section of the list a realistic goal?
Each recommendation is selected from a pool of dozens of potential candidates, based on hundreds of hours of research and evaluation as well as the suggestions and recommendations of a large and diverse group of volunteers.
How to Use The Personal MBA
"A knowledge of the path cannot be substituted for putting one foot in front of the other." - M. C. Richards
Quick Start: To get started, read the books in the Quick Start section. The first book is 10 Days to Faster Reading, which will help you work through the books in the PMBA much more efficiently. The primary objective of reading these books should be to learn as much as you can quickly and effectively, so reading each book cover-to-cover in a linear fashion is often a suboptimal approach. It's best to read these books in a structured way: flip through the book rapidly to identify the thesis, themes, key words, and main ideas (tools and mental models), then revisit each section in additional detail to broaden and reinforce your understanding. In all likelihood, you'll find that reading in this way increases both your reading speed and comprehension, making completion of the PMBA reading list a very realistic goal.
StrengthsFinder 2.0 is about self-assessment: identifying your key areas of strength and how you naturally interact with other people. This self-knowledge is very important: by understanding yourself and how you work best, you will be able to make more effective use of what you learn in subsequent books.
Lead the Field and The Art of Exceptional Living are audio programs that will make you excited about what self-education can do for your career... you'll want to listen to each one regularly for an extra kick of motivation to continue improving your skills and abilities.
Reading Strategy: Reading this many books is a huge project, so it's good to have a strategy. In my experience, it's best to use a strategy called synaptic reading: focus on reading a single section of the list, which is a very realistic and attainable goal. For example, if you're interested in learning more about accounting and finance, commit to completing the Analysis section of the list over a period of nine weeks, at the rate of one book per week. You can then set the goal of getting the most you can from each book in a period of one week, particularly if you're using effective non-fiction reading techniques. (For a quick, free primer on effective non-fiction reading techniques, check out How to Read a Book (PDF) by Paul N. Edwards.)
Staying Motivated: Working through the PMBA with others is a very effective way to keep yourself motivated and on-track. By committing to read and discuss one book per week in a group setting, you're more likely to put forth the time and energy necessary to work your way through each book. You can set up your own local reading group with friends or coworkers, participate in the PMBA Forums, or work with me 1-on-1 via PMBA Coaching, where I'll personally help you work your way through the PMBA and apply what you learn in the real world. Either way, creating a supportive environment will make it a lot easier for you to educate yourself, and you'll expand your professional network in the process.
Personalization: Your needs will be different than the needs of others, so personalization of your reading list is both necessary and valuable. It's best, of course, to read every single book on the list, but that's not realistic for most people. For best results, focus first on books that will help you develop the knowledge and skills you need most urgently to progress towards your goals.
Join the PMBA Insider:
The PMBA Insider is a free members-only e-mail list that I use to regularly send exclusive content, special reports, updates, and opportunities (including first-look access to new PMBA projects) only to PMBA members. Here's a few examples of content available exclusively to PMBA Insiders:
- Five "Myth-Understandings" about the Personal MBA
- The Core Beliefs Behind the Personal MBA
- The Five Parts of Every Business (coming soon)
PMBA Insiders are also the first people I go to for advice and help in developing the program, so you will also be a part of shaping the future development of the Personal MBA.
Sign up below to become an PMBA Insider:
Appreciation and Gratitude
Many people have helped me create the Personal MBA, and I'm very grateful for their assistance, perspective, and support. Here are a few:
Seth Godin, Rick Bennett, Greg Flint, Chris Woodruff, Brendon Connelly, Tom Ehrenfeld, Bob Gilbreath, Sam Aquillano, Jeff Bates, Kent Kingery, Kelsey Kaufman, Sheri and Dave McKelfresh, Michael Ramm, Bill Redd, Todd Sattersten and the staff of 800-CEO-READ, Phillip Eby, Tyler Martin, Olivier Cotossen, Joseph Goldberg, and Justin Lee.
To everyone who has given of their time and energy to make the Personal MBA better, my heartfelt thanks.
