The Business Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained

The Business Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained is accessible reference book from DK about key theories of business and management.

I’m a fan of all the books in the series. They do a good job of using graphics and concise explanations to provide a baseline to learn more. The book covers a wide range of topics from managing risk and alternative business models to effective leadership and thinking outside the box. I picked it up from Amazon just to have a quick reference on business ideas & jargon. I run my own business, but never took business classes in college, so it was a handy read.

What I Liked

This book, like all the books in the series, provide such a concise, neat introduction to the core topics in a line of study. When you are first approaching something, everything falls into the bucket of what you “don’t know that you don’t know” – this book helped me quickly move topics into the what I “know that I don’t know” so that I can do a deep dive on topics relevant to my life and business instead of wasting time on topics that aren’t.

What I Didn’t Like

Not a whole lot – it’s a bit heavy on the MBA side and less on the tactical side of business, but that’s expected

Takeaways

In areas that humans have been obsessing over for centuries, like business, philosophy, relationships, etc, truly new ideas are actually pretty rare. Most ideas have been tried before. It’s good to find out what already works & fails before diving head first on trial and error.