Re-imagine Reading List

I need some help. I was preaching the gospel according to Tom before the Summit in December and since the time spent with all of you my impassioned pleas for re-imagining have only increased. A shorter version of the story is that I am now charged with leading a reading (book) club. Of course the first book is Tom’s Re-imagine! My problem is trying to round out the rest on the reading list. {Keeping with the religious theme one proposed name for the club is the Re-imagine! Reading Revival :-) }

Here is the problem as I see it. I need a list of around 12 books (more is fine) on the general topic of Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age; and a logical order of reading and discussing them. We are looking for the economic development version of Think Global, Act Local, where the themes in Re-imagine are global and acting local means applying them to (small) business in West Virginia.

· The target audience and area has these attributes:
· Small business – around 90% of the businesses in WV have 5 employees or less
· Some belief that the key to economic development is entrepreneurship
· A low entrepreneurship rate
· A scarcity mentality – someone has to lose for someone to win
· A history of extraction and process industries in decline (salt, timber, coal, chemical)
· We do not want to assume they have read any business books

So, I am NOT trying to create a list of the best business books of 2004, but a list of books (one list I have includes Vonnegut) that you should read to understand business today and where it is going. A reading list that will help the start-up with 25 employees double in size and reach profitability this year; and help the business that has been around for a generation and has over 200 employees hand-off to the next generation. A reading list that will help politicians understand what business-friendly legislation really is and help parents understand that our schools need to change now. I don’t care if they are business classics, fiction, or hot-off-the-word-processor e-books. I just need to help people see the disruptive age as opportunity instead of another curse on their house.

Thanks,
-->Rob