On My Shelf with Lavanya Santhanakrishnan — Senior Product Manager at SMS Assist (Chicago, US)
About me
I am a passionately curious person. Deep listening and unbiased empathy are what I consider my superpowers. An engineer by training and a Product Manager by trade. I absolutely love to see people working on themselves and strongly believe that we grow old only when we stop learning.
On my shelf
How To Have A Beautiful Mind
by Edward de Bono
My opinion
I remember reading this book in the summer of 2010 and thinking everyone in all walk of life should get a chance to read and imbibe this book. Edward de Bono explains how to think in such a practical way. It is an essential handbook to develop multi-dimensional and nonlinear thinking which I believe greatly benefited me to understand how conflicting perspectives can be concurrently true. It helps to think and take decisive decisions while accommodating all layers of the problem. I highly recommended this book to strengthen and debug our thinking muscles.
240 pages, Ebury Press 2004
The Ride of a Lifetime
Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
by Robert Iger
My opinion
The style of Robert Iger leadership, negotiation skills, relentless pursuit of vision to make Disney the largest and most respected media company in the world. His risk-taking ability, having a protracted discussion without losing the end in sight, patience, respect for other creators, clear homework on financials, ability to convince his board with facts and figures to turn Disney into a strong brand in international markets, proves his leadership metal. The thing that stuck with me the most was that excellence and fairness do not have to be mutually exclusive.
272 pages, Random House 2019
The Goal
A Process of Ongoing Improvement
by Eliyahu M. Goldratt & Jeff Cox
My opinion
One of the manufacturing classics. It is extremely rare that a core business management and process optimization book is written as a gripping novel. You feel for the main character Alex Rogo as if it were your own story. Such a well-written relatable and widely applicable book. The theory of constraints introduced in this book inspired me to go back and get my Masters in management information systems.
362 pages, North River Press 2014
Life 3.0
Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
by Max Tegmark
My opinion
The Omegas and the AI-enabled futures that Max pushes us to envision is a compelling and super exciting read. The choices that lie ahead of us as more technology and AI transform the world in front of our eyes is very articulately captured in this book. It is a riveting book written with lucid details leading us to draw our logical or imaginary conclusions is indeed powerful and thought-provoking. Definitely unputdownable and more relevant than ever.
384 pages, Vintage 2018
Disrupt and Conquer
How TTK Prestige Became a Billion-Dollar Business
by T.T. Jagannathan
My opinion
The financial discipline and the tenacity of this family-founded business to build back stronger several times over the course of 90 years was just an astounding read. It is a window into Indian entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in India. To build and global brand while solving niche problems is really a heartwarming read. At the heart of this book is a man and his family trying to relentlessly innovate while constantly battling poor government policy.
232 pages, India Portfolio 2018
Our series “On my shelf” features product people from all over the world who are passionate about reading and sharing their best book recommendations with the community. If you want to join the movement and share your reading list with others send us a message. Let’s get better together 📚.
