Management by Baseball

Fast Company published a list "Best Business Books of 2006", 12 pretty diverse titles. I'm tickled (perhaps flattered) that the sixth of the "Best Business Books" is my book, Management by Baseball. Here's how Fast Company's author described it:

America's pastime is an apt metaphor for the skills required of today's leaders -- processing a mountain of data quickly in a rapidly changing environment, anticipating and preparing for what's going to happen in a given situation, and constantly reinventing yourself. You can learn a lot more from baseball than who's on first. Read our Q&A with Angus here.

There doesn't seem to be a narrative introduction that ties it all together or explains what their criteria are. And surprisingly, they overlooked my own personal favorite, Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert Sutton. But one aspect I particularly appreciate is that the list is peppered with novels, because fiction holds the potential to give us some ideas and enlightenment and tools we can use that we couldn't easily get from non-fiction..

Here's Fast Company's Best Business Books of 2006 list:

• The Wal-Mart Effect, by Charles Fishman.
• Company, by Max Barry (Fiction)
• Who Moved My Blackberry, by Lucy Kellaway (Fiction)
• Apex Hides the Hurt, by Colson Whitehead (Fiction)
• The Change Function, by Pip Coburn
• Management by Baseball
• Alpha Male Syndrome, by Kate Ludeman & Eddie Erlandson
• The New American Workplace by James O'Toole & Edward E. Lawler III
• The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson (Fiction)
• Setting the Table, by Danny Meyer
• The Immortal Game, by David Shenk
• Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies, by Nikos Mourkogiannis