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The third instalment in a nzherald.co.nz summer business series about the reading habits of a selection of our prominent businesspeople.
Not content with picking one book to discuss, Business New Zealand head Phil O'Reilly lists Hidden Value, Living Strategy by Lynda Gratton and The Southwest Airlines Way by Jody Hoffer Gittell as his top business reads.
As someone who, in his words, is "persuasive for a living" he's used to wringing as much value out of the media.
However, Hidden Value is "easily my favourite", said O'Reilly.
He was introduced to the book during a week long course at Stanford University five years ago.
The content of the book was the content of the course, taught by fantastic lecturers, said O'Reilly.
"So a life changing course for me, because you don't get that quality of intellectual experience very often."
O'Reilly said the book focuses on creating competitive companies through linking human resources with company strategy.
"To me that was a bit of a holy grail really, I thought that was fantastic at the time and I still do," he said. "I realise now just how complicated and hard that is to achieve, so I admire companies that do that astonishingly. I just have huge admiration for companies that link HR with strategy and make it work."
As a firm believer people are what makes companies great, Hidden Value's stories of companies using ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things makes this book a favourite of O'Reilly's.
He recommends Hidden Value to anyone who is feeling pressured by the complexity of human resource management.
"The guys who are jaded, the guys who are cynical, the guys who have lost their drive to change."
O'Reilly said it would also be of huge benefit to business start-ups -- "so they can put some of this stuff into action day one, hour one, minute one."
O'Reilly said he limits his reading of business books, instead preferring biographies and books on history.
He said the big lessons of business are also the big lessons of life.
Over the Christmas break O'Reilly is planning to immerse himself in history books, including The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard Evans.
* Phil O'Reilly has been chief executive of Business New Zealand since 2004. Prior to that he was head of employment policy and communication at Westpac in Sydney.
Recommends: Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People. by Charles O'Reilly and Jeffrey Pfeffer.
