be gained and maintained only by ceaseless, unflagging effort, writes his grandson. This simple story is elevated by the insight it offers into Nathans archetypal character, as well as by the rich historical context and lovely writing. Perhaps it takes a kind of brilliance to have the big idea, and another kind of brilliance to make it work.Adapted from Turning Dreams into Reality, by Bethany McLeanManagementOur choice for best business book of 2016 on management, explores an insight that came to Robert Cialdini, author of Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade (Simon & Schuster, 2016), when he infiltrated the training programs of a broad range of professions dedicated to getting us to say yes. He discovered that the best persuaders become the best through pre-suasion the process of arranging for recipients to be receptive to a message before they encounter it. He argues that it is possible to create what he calls privileged moments, identifiable points in time when an individual is particularly receptive to a communicators message. Cialdini offers many tips and tactics in this handbook on the ways and means of pre-suasion, which managers can and should use to become more effective influencers. But he also devotes considerable effort to persuading us to wield pre-suasion in an ethical manner.Adapted from Pre-Suasion, Problem Solving, and Process Design, by Theodore KinniPhoto credit: John AbbottMarketingIf big data by its name alone implies that it holds the answer to everything, Martin Lindstrom dispels that belief when he says frankly, it aint all that. For all the valuable insights big data provides, he notes in Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends (St. Martins Press, 2016), the Web remains a curated, idealized version of who we really are. Most illuminating to me is combining small data with big data by spending time in homes watching, listening, noticing and teasing out clues to what consumers really want. Part detective story, part anthropological study, and part travelogue, Small Data, our choice for best business book on marketing in 2016, follows Lindstrom to Russia, China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Austria, and other locales as he tries to answer questions including: Why dont the Chinese use bedspreads? What is the significance of Russians love of refrigerator magnets? And just what are teenage girls in Europe doing between 6:00 and 6:30 every morning? In answering each of these questions, Lindstrom is striving to solve a marketing problem. He closes the book by revealing his process, seven steps that can lead marketers all the way from data collection to marketing concept.Adapted from Big Marketing Gets Personal, by Catharine P. TaylorStrategyMost corporate managers and business school professors simply accept globalization as an unalloyed good. After all, if your goal is to sell more of something, more potential customers must be better than fewer. But although globalization does hold out the promise of boosting revenues, cutting costs, or both, it also exposes companies to all manner of new risks. Yossi Sheffis The Power of Resilience: How the Best Companies Manage the Unexpected (MIT Press, 2015), our choice for the best