IntotheNXT Library
What shapes our thinking.
Show me your library, and I show you what kind of person you are.
A curated collection of the books, ideas and voices that influence how we think about strategy, organisations, leadership and technology.
The bookshelf
Books that shaped our thinking.
Selected titles will be added with their cover, author and a short note on why they matter in our work.
Strategy & Growth
How companies choose where to play, build momentum and create value.
The Innovator’s Solution
A clear perspective on how to overcome the dilemma and drive innovation.
The Innovator’s Guide to Growth
Comprehensive and easy-to-read overview of the key matters in growth.
The Granularity of Growth
Well structured and researched piece, providing a clear framework to define your growth strategy.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Classic. Mr. Drucker laid out different ways to think and act entrepreneurially and innovatively long before the buzzwords.
Seeing What’s Next
A very interesting read, albeit a bit theoretical, where the lens of disruption is applied to project the future.
Dual Transformation
Great guide for any company that needs to execute new growth.
The Prosperity Paradox
Great explanation of why some nations really took off, and others did not.
The Art of Innovation
The father of design thinking cannot be missed when learning strategy and innovation.
Competing Against Luck
A clear guide on what it really means and takes to be customer-centric.
Reinvent Your Business Model
Great guide if you want or need to enter a new growth area.
Lead from the Future
A guide to overcome the biggest flaw in strategy processes: pushing today’s business forward rather than pulling in the future business.
Goliath’s Revenge
The answer for corporates that might be disrupted.
The Clarity Principle
A book about purpose which clearly explains why it’s so freakin’ important to have one defined.
The Infinite Game
A great read on how to think about customers, not competition. Simon explains, in different terms, why thinking in jobs to be done rather than data is critical.
Human motivation, judgement and behaviour
The ideas that explain what drives people, shapes judgement and enables growth.
Drive
A true eye-opener and must-read for anyone in leadership and HR. Building truths on intrinsic motivation and busting myths on extrinsic motivation.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Diving into how humans operate, Kahneman cannot be missed.
Belonging
A compelling argument for belonging as a condition for human performance.
Mindset
Essential deep-dive into a key concept applied by Satya Nadella. What mindset is prevalent in your organisation?
Hidden Potential
This book provides a strong view on how to make sure the right leaders pop up, avoiding all the changes the others above talk about.
Humankind
But can people be trusted or do they need to be controlled? Rutger explains why it’s the former, luckily.
A skeptic's HR dictionary: the good, the bad, and the partially true.
Guidebook any CHRO should read. A clear and fun description of combining people science and data to boost your company.
Organisational redesign based on these assumptions
Management practices and operating models that build autonomy, coherence and adaptability.
Reinventing Organizations
Great read on how self-organising really works in nature. Ants are a great example for human beings.
Humanocracy
Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini provide all the evidence you need to start fighting bureaucracy in your organisation. It costs so much money and it can be fixed, but not the way you think it does.
Corporate Rebels
Fellow Dutchmen Joost and Pim were done with corporate life and dedicated their work to finding great examples.
Brave New Work
The way to fix it is not a programme but a bottom-up revolution. Aaron explains how you do that.
This Is Beyond Budgeting
Very solid double click on the most cumbersome century-old process: budgeting. Bjarte shows the alternative and many follow.
Teeming
A practical guide to creating the conditions for collaboration and learning across boundaries.
Work Rules!
Welcome 21st century management. The guide that translates all of the above into implications for key management processes to stop, and those to start.
No Rules Rules
Great story of how Netflix became successful, with practical examples of driving a sense of autonomy.
Leadership and team conditions
The conditions leaders create for trust, candour, learning and effective teams.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Another classic. You want to know how you create a better team, here’s the five-step approach.
The Speed of Trust
Another classic, advocated by Daniel Grieder, Hugo Boss’s incredibly successful CEO.
The Fearless Organization
Another critical element for real innovation is getting rid of anxiety about speaking up. Amy’s seminal work defines why and how.
Daring Greatly
Brené Brown double clicks on removing anxiety, showing how to overcome the painful hurdles to be vulnerable.
Humor, Seriously
Another way of removing anxiety: enter humour. A proven catalyst for innovation.
Culture and management systems
How shared habits, assumptions and management practices are shaped and changed.
Riding the Waves of Culture
Essential to understanding culture and finding good metaphors, such as the beach and lily pond, to describe culture and change.
The Culture Code
Great insight, with sports, corporate and cultural examples, into building a high-performing, safe and motivated group of people.
The Culture Playbook
Daniel double clicks on many of the practices you can start to apply when changing your organisation.
The Culture Change Survival Guide
The guide to understanding culture and choosing and adapting appropriate management practices rather than blindly copying US-born methods.
Hit Refresh
If you still wonder why Microsoft is so successful, read what Satya did in practice. He paid attention and applies it well.
Shoe Dog
If you wonder where the success of Nike came from, read this. It’s a great and very entertaining story.
AI & the Future of Work
How technology changes the work people do and the organisations they build.
How AI Thinks
A very good background for anyone who wants to understand AI.
Competing in the Age of AI
A sharp guide to how AI changes the logic of competition and the way companies are built.
The Future of the Professions
Deep exploration of the impact of AI on different professions. Essential to understanding the future of work.
The Coming Wave
The founder of DeepMind lays out the risks of accelerating technologies, including synthetic biology and robotics, and how to contain them.
Co-Intelligence
A practical guide to working with AI, full of the practices that make the ideas useful in daily work.
Ideas worth stealing
Quotes that start a better conversation.
A curated collection of provocations on strategy, organisations and leadership.
That business purpose and business mission are so rarely given adequate thought is perhaps the most important cause of business frustration and failure.Peter Drucker · Strategy & Innovation
The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.Peter Drucker · Strategy & Innovation
Innovation is risky. Not innovating is risk.Scott D. Anthony · Strategy & Innovation
Investors and entrepreneurs should learn to be patient for growth, but impatient for profits.Clayton Christensen · Strategy & Innovation
Entrepreneurship is ‘risky’ mainly because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.Peter Drucker · Strategy & Innovation
The role of leadership is to shape the culture that enables execution of strategy.Fons Trompenaars · Organisation & Leadership
Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.Peter Drucker · Organisation & Leadership
We do not want rules. We want values to aspire to that define what it means to be part of our tribe.Owen Eastwood · Organisation & Leadership
Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.Daniel Pink · Organisation & Leadership
Culture is the way in which people solve problems.Fons Trompenaars · Organisation & Leadership
Executives and managers may have the big picture but they lack vital local detail.Tamsin Woolley-Barker · Organisation & Leadership
If leaders expect real learning, critical thinking, and change, then discomfort should be normalized.Brené Brown · Organisation & Leadership
In an ordinary organisation, most people are doing a second job no one is paying them for, covering up their weaknesses, managing other people’s impressions on them and hiding their limitations.Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey · Organisation & Leadership
Feelings of insecurity over belonging trigger our fight, flight or freeze response.Owen Eastwood · Organisation & Leadership
Worth ten minutes of your time
Videos worth watching.
Short talks and clips that add a useful perspective to an important management question.
Understanding the Job
The classic milkshake story by Clayton Christensen. Explaining as no one else can, why and how to start with the customer.
Steve Jobs: start with the customer
Steve Jobs masterpiece why one should always start with the customer.
Dove: Real Beauty Sketches
Showcasing how a strong purpose triggers powerful new concepts and brand growth around the world.
Sir Jonathan Ive on Apple
Sir Jonathan Ives explains what attracted and kept him at Apple. This is what purposes does.
Jack Ma: Alibaba IPO pitch
Pitch early and clearly. Jack Ma shows how.
Transformers: the technology behind LLMs
Curious about how LLMs actually work? Watch this insightful video.