What does your remote-friendly company do? What does your virtual team do within the company? Did you switch to remote or start out that way? How important is remote work to your business model? What do you consider the biggest benefits of a remote workforce? What were the main reasons to integrate remote work into your workforce?
What traits do you look for in candidates for a remote job? How do you conduct interviews for remote jobs? How do you convey your remote culture in the recruiting process? What is your hiring process for remote workers? Do you use third party testing or evaluation services when hiring remote workers? How do you conduct onboarding for remote workers?
Do you have remote communication protocols for your remote workers? Do you organize remote team retreats? Do your remote team members meet in person? How do you measure the productivity of remote workers? What elements are key to successful working relationships with remote teams? What is the hardest part about managing a remote workforce? How do you keep remote employees engaged and feeling part of the bigger picture? What is your BYOD policy for remote workers? What is your time off policy for remote workers? What were your biggest fears in managing remote workers?
How did you implement a remote work policy? Can a remote-friendly company have a healthy culture? How do you nurture your company’s culture in a remote work environment? What advice would you give to a team considering to go remote? What challenges have you encountered building a remote team? What are the most effective tools for remote team communication? What has changed about how your remote team operates? How does your team address different time zone challenges?

What is your favorite business book?

10up Inc.

I’m not sure I have a favorite, unless you count old standbys like the 7 Habits; I’ve semi-recently read “Decisive” and “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”, and enjoyed both of them, more so Decisive. To be honest, I don’t think there are many great books about remote / distributed work; there are some great books about distributed companies, including Scott Berkun’s Year Without Pants (full disclosure: Scott is a client of 10up), but they’re more interesting journalistic treatises on the particular remote company being studied (in that case, Automattic) than thorough analyses of remote work, in general.

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1Password

It’s a tie between Creativity, Inc., and Getting Real.

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Answer Connect

‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” Mark Reiter, “The Design of Everyday Things” Donald A Norman, “Lean In” Sheryl Sandberg, “Spark” John J Ratey.

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Appen

The Power of Nice by Ron Shapiro

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Attentiv

I’m not huge on business books just because they tend to suggest one-size-fits-all approaches for problems that are typically very unique for each company.  But, that being said, I really enjoyed Made to Stick which is mainly a book of case studies about “sticky” ideas that create good marketing messages.  The case examples are excellent.

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Blossom

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

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Boldly

Raising the Bar by Cliff Bar Founder Gary Erickson. Gary’s inspiring story about how to lead a business with integrity and passion is absolutely riveting. I have read it a few times and tried to apply my learnings to our business.

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Coalition Technologies

Zapp: The Lightning of Empowerment is a book loved company wide. The author tells a story of change and awareness on a company and team level. Some of the main points include maintaining employee self-esteem, using active listening and responding with empathy, asking ideas in solving problems, and offering help without taking responsibility. We’ve implemented these ideas for our structure and company culture.

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Crossover

We have all our new team members read the book Remote: Office Not Required by David Heinemeier Hansson. It gets at the heart of why we work the way we do, and how best to adjust and get the full benefits of working outside the office.

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DataStax

The latest fad book that overly simplifies very hard problems 🙂

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DevriX

I love a bunch of these, but still:

  • Manager 3.0: A Millennial’s Guide to Rewriting the Rules of Management by Brad Karsh
  • Remote: Office Not Required by David Heinemeier Hansson
  • ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever by Jason Fried
  • The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

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Doist

I would say it’s “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore. It’s one of the first business books I read and it was very insightful. The book is about how to bring cutting-edge products to large markets.

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Envato

Drive by Dan Pink. Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose is my mantra!

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Eyeo GmbH

Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux

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ezhome

It’s not necessarily a business book, but a book that resonates with me in my work and makes a lot of sense for the ezhome business as well: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande.

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Fire Engine RED

“Remote: Office Not Required” by Fried and Hansson

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Flex Professionals

I recently finished reading Brigid Schulte’s “Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time”. I read it for her research and writing related to work, but I found the chapters on play to be the most compelling, even for business.

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Fog Creek Software

I like the Harvard Business Review Books on Managing People and Change Management, and I love “The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team” by Patrick Lencioni.

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Formstack

Anything by Patrick Lencioni. Start with “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” There is nothing better to make sure your team is aligned, fulfilled and moving forward together.

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GobySavvy

The Four Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris and Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins.

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Help Scout

  • Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
  • The 99u Series: Make Your Mark: The Creative’s Guide to Building a Business with Impact
  • A Beautiful Constraint by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden

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iDoneThis

“The Progress Principle” by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer is one of the most important books for our business. The two researchers — and investors in iDoneThis — conducted a study on what motivates people at work and what holds them back. Feeling a bit of progress every day, even if it’s small, was the most important thing they found. The insights from that book guide how we develop our product, and also how we reflect upon our own work.

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Inpsyde GmbH

There is no one favorite business book, in each of many books is some wisdom in it.

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Jackson River

Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goldman

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Jungle Scout

Easy pick. Rework by Jason Fried.

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Kin HR

Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People is as relevant today as it was way back then.

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Knack

The OG: Andy Grove’s High Output Management

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Knobs.co

The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes

LoveToKnow

I don’t have a *favorite* but I love getting great tips from inspiring leaders!

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Mavens

ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever by David Heinemeier Hansson, Jason Fried

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Modern Tribe

Phoenix project or How I raised myself from failure to success in selling.

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Mokriya

An oldie, but a goodie, that can be applied to business and life, Dale Carnegie’s “How To Win Friends And Influence People.”

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NodeSource

From Zero to One – Peter Thiel

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OpenSnow

It’s a personal finance book called The Simple Path to Wealth. Take care of your own financial house and it will free up your mind to focus on building a great business.

Packlane

Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter

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Pagely

Pagely is essentially built on the principals of three books. Turn the Ship Around, Extreme Ownership, and Team of Teams. All of them reinforce the idea that we are all leaders and expected to conduct ourselves that way.

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Parse.ly

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg.

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RunRepeat

The best by far is How to Win Friends and Influence People. Everyone should read it. The title is very catchy, I know, and in many ways the stories are very basic, but if one could just live by 10% of what’s said in that book, one would be a success, for sure.

SimpleTexting

4 hour workweek by Tim Ferriss

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Skillcrush

Inspired by Marty Cagan! It’s AMAZING, it’s my business bible.

In the book Marty explains how to create product management processes that allow you to test and validate (or invalidate) all your business and product ideas before you launch them to virtually guarantee you success.

Seriously, we live by it.

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Stack Overflow

Smart and Gets Things Done by Joel Spolsky, and Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (not exactly a business book but I reference it constantly)

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Sticker Mule

I’m not a fan of business books, but I like The Strategy Process by Henry Mintzberg, et al. It’s a series of essays that often refute each other and it taught me that there’s rarely a correct way to approach business. There are lots of acceptable answers to how to approach business problems and you need to decide which solutions work for you.

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StudySoup

  • The Power of Habit
  • Titan, John D Rockefeller Biography

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Summit CPA Group

E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber

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Sutherland Global Services

“Twitter for Dummies” –  ha ha 🙂  Just kidding, although it is pretty informative!  You’ve caught me here, I much prefer novels over business related reading materials.  But I have recently started and am enjoying, “Crucial Conversations – Tools for Talking When Stakes are High “.  And I have a teenager, so may prove to be a helpful read for the home front as well.  

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The Cheat Sheet

The Tao of Warren Buffett

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ThirdPath Institute

Brigid Schulte’s book, Overwhelmed, Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time.  Brigid does a great job describing why so many of us feel overwhelmed today. She also provides great ideas for how to change this.

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Time Doctor

From Impossible to Inevitable by Aaron Ross

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Toggl

“From good to great” by Jim Collins

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Tortuga

I read too much to pick just one. Here’s an entire list of my favorite business books.

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Trade Conductor

I listen more than I read (I write books myself so I need a break from reading). I listen to podcasts. Right now I am on this.

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Wordfence

“Good to Great” by Jim Collins. He really has a handle on real-world business and why some companies are able to create real value for their customers and shareholders.

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Workfrom

Traction is a recent favorite. Good to Great and Blink stuck with us.

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World Wide Web Hosting

I can’t narrow this down to one, so I’ll name a few.

  • First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
  • Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
  • Remote by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson provides a fantastic view into 37signals’ (now Basecamp) remote culture.
  • John C. Maxwell’s The Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is a great leadership book
  • Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership is solid as well.

There are far too many great options to choose from!