Monday, June 3, 2013

Suggested Reading for Rural Manager

The philosophy of the former Nation editor Victor Navasky, “to question the conventional wisdom, to be suspicious of all orthodoxies, to provide a home for dissent and dissenters, and to be corny about it, to hold forth a vision of a better world” still holds true for times now.

We are all living in an era where raising comforts and growing economy has conditioned many individuals with good education to jerk off all political responsibilities and even basic understanding of political matters. There is rapid increase in the mindless content of entertainment, news, films and books, hence we have to seek knowledge in a very mature and intelligent manner. In the era of instant judgement, careful analysis and patience is required. By looking through the complexity enough one need to find real cause of sufferings of many.

Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own. There is a pleasure of finding things out. Starting point of any education is by giving us an understanding of our-self, our culture and our world. Our knowledge must adapt to changing times, not get buried under traditional walls of classroom teaching. I don't read journals (not even EPW) myself as even using Google smartly requires a scholarly work. But there is always an effort and guidance required for personal growth.

I am naming here few books related with the field of rural management and development. You can add your own preferences but reading books is a personal choice. There is a very thin line between creative suggestion and interference. One is always free to search and share his/her own knowledge. I will quote Aldous Huxley who put it in a more elegant way - “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Good Management Books

01- Connect the dots by Rashmi Bansal
02- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
03- The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker
04- Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
05- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
06- Simply Fly – A Deccan Odyssey by Captain Gopinath
07- Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson
08- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
09- Made In Japan: Akio Morita & Sony Reissue by Akio Morita
10- Positioning : The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries, Jack Trout
11- The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
12- What Money Can't Buy The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel
13- We Are Like That Only: Understanding the Logic of Consumer India by Rama Bijapurkar
14- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't by Jim Collins
15- Beyond the MBA Hype: A Guide to Understanding and Surviving B-Schools by Sameer Kamat
16- The Ascent Of Money : A Financial History Of The World : A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson

Good Development Books

01- I Have a Dream by Rashmi Bansal
02- Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich
03- I Too Had a Dream by Verghese Kurien
04- Small is Beautiful by E F Schumacher
05- Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
06- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
07- Everybody loves a Good Drought by P Sainath
08- The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry
09- We Are Poor but so Many: The Story of Self-employed Women in India by Ela R Bhatt
10- Hello Bastar: The Untold Story Of India's Maoist Movement (Paperback) by Rahul Pandita
11- Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Muhammad Yunus
12- A Fistful of Rice: My Unexpected Quest to End Poverty Through Profitability by Vikram Akula
13- The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by CK Prahalad
14- Poor Economics: Rethinking Poverty And The Ways To End It by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo
15- Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus

How much book a person can read, it can never substitute the experience part of the life. Talking with the people who are living with, not against, nature is biggest guide of a rural manager. Their wisdom and prejudices have been passed through generation of experiences. Observe them !!!