Among the best business books of 2017 are some excellent new titles by journalists; a lived-it story of sex discrimination in Silicon Valley; and a big chewy book about scaling that is mind-blowing if not necessarily practical. Many new releases--including several mentioned here--make compelling reading for non-business audiences as well. Here are our picks for 2017:
2017年最佳商务类书刊中有一些是新闻记者新鲜出炉的优质作品；有关于在硅谷活生生的性别歧视故事；还有关于企业规模的耐人寻味的大著作，如果不一定实用，也相当让人兴奋了。许多新出的书刊——包括这里提到的几本——也同样能激起从事非商业领域读者的阅读兴趣。以下是我们选取的2017年最佳的十部商务类书刊：
1.Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy (By Tim Harford)
1.《五十个塑造现代经济的发明》 (作者：蒂姆・哈福德)
Among the best books of 2006 was The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, an unexpectedly captivating tale about a simple idea that changed everything. That book, by Marc Levinson, was epic and full of detail. The new release from journalist Harford--reimagined from a 2016 podcast--comprises quicker hits. But for innovation aficionados, there's a satisfying accretive effect to this parade of origin stories for stuff we take for granted, ranging from management consulting (government regulation played a surprising role) to chemical fertilizer (the backstory includes the Battle of Ypres and a brilliant woman's suicide). Fifty Inventions also demonstrates that some innovations produce fateful secondary consequences: For example, the bar code tilted the playing field away from mom-and-pops and toward big boxes. While not a deep book, Fifty Inventions is a provocative one, reminding aspiring disrupters of the many, many ways to make their marks.
2006年的最佳书籍之一是《集装箱：货柜是如何缩小世界距离并扩大世界经贸的》，这是一个令人意想不到且令人着迷的，关于一个简单的想法就能改变一切的故事。这本由马克・列文森撰写的书是史诗般的著作，其间充满了细节的描写。而本书的作者哈福德是一名记者，他的新书从2016年播客中重新构思，获得了更多的点击率。但对于创新爱好者来说，了解一些我们认为理所当然的事情的起源故事有着令人满意的增长效应，从管理咨询（政府监管其实扮演了令人惊讶的角色）到化学肥料（背景故事包括伊普尔之战和一位杰出女性的自杀）。五十项发明还表明，一些创新甚至产生了可怕的次级后果：例如，条形码从个体经营的小店转至大卖场。这本书虽不深奥，但却极具挑衅，提醒着那些致力于打破常规的人，世界上存在着很多种让他们留下标记的途径。
2.Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction (By Derek Thompson)2.《热点制造者：浮躁时代里走红的学问》 （作者：德里克・汤普森)
Two ideas underlie this entertaining look at the creation of blockbusters, by a senior editor at The Atlantic. First, people like things that are at once boldly different and comfortingly familiar. Second, the popularity of hits begins with a single source that reaches many people at once. Thompson's research-based treatise takes on many creators' and marketers' assumptions: among them that quality is sufficient (exposure matters more) and that anything actually goes viral, in the way we understand that word. And luck, he concedes, can never be discounted. "Rock Around the Clock" debuted in 1954 to relative crickets. A year later, serendipity landed the song in the movie Blackboard Jungle and theatergoers were dancing in the aisles. Hit Makers coats science in compelling story, a device so common in this genre that it is itself an example of the familiarity theory. Thompson confesses as much. And he warns: Don't put too much stock in a great yarn.
《大西洋月刊》的一名资深编辑认为，爆红事物的创作背后有两个要点。首先，人们喜欢那些明显有些不同但是又非常熟悉的事物。其次，点击的流行始于一次就能接触很多人的一种来源。汤普森这本基于研究的作品呈现了许多创作者和营销者的假设：其中一个观点是只要质量足够好（曝光其实更重要），这样任何事物都会像病毒一样传播开来，就像我们对病毒这个词理解的那样。他还承认，永远不能忽略运气的重要性。《昼夜摇滚》这首歌在1954年首次发行，但是却名不见经传。一年后，这首歌碰巧被电影《黑板丛林》选为插曲，剧迷们甚至在廊道里跳起了舞。《热点制造者》将科学引入引人入胜的故事中，这种方式在这个流派中非常常见，而且它本身就是熟悉理论的一个例子，汤普森坦白道。不过他警告说：不要把太多的筹码都放在一根纱线上。
3. If You're in a Dogfight, Become a Cat: Strategies for Long-Term Growth (By Leonard Sherman)3.《变成猫，让你化犬为夷》（作者：莱昂纳德・谢尔曼）
Among the better strategy books of recent years, Dogfight, by a professor at Columbia University, argues that costly battles in mature marketplaces are not inevitable. Rather, smart companies that compete on their own terms instead of locking horns can sustain profitable growth over time. In-N-Out Burger's less-is-more approach, for example, has allowed it to sidestep McDonald's new-menu-item proficiency. Yellow Tail thrived by taking the mystique out of wine to win over those who don't drink the stuff rather than those who do. The obligatory analysis of Apple is unusually thoughtful: Sherman explains how that company might combat the law of large numbers and outgrow the market in the long term. For young entrepreneurs without MBAs, Dogfight offers a quick master class in recent business history (gurus, concepts, iconic companies) along with its high-level guidance on strategy and product.
在近年来较好的战略书籍中，由一名哥伦比亚大学教授写的《化犬为夷》一书认为在成熟市场中成本高的商战并非不可避免。相反，聪明的公司能够以自己的方式竞争而不是与对手纠缠争斗，从而能够长期保持盈利增长。例如，“来来往往汉堡店”简单即为多的菜单模式，很好地回避了麦当劳对新菜单项目的熟练度。黄尾袋鼠葡萄酒则通过揭示葡萄酒的神秘感来赢取那些不喝酒的消费者的青睐而非那些喝酒的人。对苹果的强制性分析也十分耐人寻味：谢尔曼解释了该公司可能会如何对抗大数法则并长期超过市场的发展。对于没有工商管理学位的年轻企业家来说，《化犬为夷》提供了一个速成的大师班，让读者了解近代商业史（包括专家、概念、标志性公司）并提供了有关战略和产品的高级指导。
4. Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked (By Adam Alter)4.《无法抗拒：成瘾性技术的兴起与绑架身心的商业》（作者：亚当·阿尔特）
This new evils-of-technology exposé is among the genre's darkest and best. Alter, a professor of marketing and psychology at New York University, introduces the idea of "behavioral addiction" to which we are even more vulnerable than substance addiction, thanks to the proliferation of digital sirens. Societal critics have long bemoaned that apps, gadgets, and social media are harmful to our relationships, health, and productivity. Alter reiterates that argument and then explains the design principles that exploit our vulnerabilities. For example, Netflix popularized the time-suck that is binge watching by automatically loading the next episode in a series, a strategy that plays to our vulnerability to cliffhangers. Video games like Tetris and Super Hexagon glue players to screens with escalating challenges and the tantalizing promise of mastery. Gamification, which encourages learning and healthy behavior, largely gets a pass.
这种新兴黑科技的剖析能让我们了解其最黑暗和最好的一面。纽约大学营销和心理学教授阿尔特介绍了“行为成瘾”这一概念，由于极具诱惑性的数字产品的激增，行为成瘾的我们甚至比患有物质成瘾更容易受到伤害。社会评论家长期以来一直抱怨说，应用程序，小工具以及社交媒体都不利于人们的关系、健康和效率。阿尔特重申了这一点，然后解释了这些利用了我们弱点的设计原则。例如，Netflix通过耗时的方法让电视剧自动加载下一集来增加观看的时间，这种策略正是利用了我们对悬念抵抗力不足的弱点。像俄罗斯方块和超级六角形等视频游戏则是通过不断升级挑战以及对资深玩家的诱人奖励而让玩家一刻不离游戏屏幕。鼓励学习和形成健康行为的游戏机制，很大程度上能够通过。
5. Janesville: An American Story (By Amy Goldstein)5.《简斯维尔：一个美国人的故事》（作者：艾米·戈尔茨坦）
Three years ago, the excellent book Factory Man chronicled the near decimation of a Virginia town by the collapse of the U.S. furniture industry and the heroic efforts of one multi-generation family business to put things right. In the equally fine book Janesville: An American Story, by Washington Post reporter Amy Goldstein, it is the citizens of this Wisconsin town who struggle to hold things together after the nation's oldest operating General Motors plant shut its doors in 2008. The GM workers--many of them lifers--find themselves scared and adrift, as do their families and the shop owners and service people and construction workers whom their jobs supported. Job retraining, a panacea touted by both political parties, is barely effective. By the book's epilogue, unemployment is back under 4 percent, but real wages are down and manufacturing has not returned. The town's close-knit community spirit is riven by a new "optimism gap." Job security, the majority believes, is gone for good.
三年前，优秀的《工厂男人》一书记载了弗吉尼亚州一个由于美国家具业崩塌而几乎毁灭的城镇以及一家多代家族企业让趋势回归正轨的的英勇努力。由华盛顿邮报记者艾米・戈尔斯坦写作的同样精美的书《简斯维尔：一个美国人的故事》中，强调了威斯康星州的居民们在2008年国内最老的通用汽车工厂被关闭之后团结一致的重要性。通用的员工——他们中的许多人终身只从事了一种工作——发现他们害怕、茫然，而他们的家人、商店店主以及支持他们工作的服务人员和建筑工人也是这样。工作再培训，两个政党都吹捧的万灵丹，却几乎没有效果。这本书的结语写道，失业率回落到4％以下，但实际工资却下降了，制造业也没有回转。这个小镇紧密团结的社区精神被新的“乐观差距”所撕扯。大多数人认为，工作保障将永远不复存在了。
6. The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact(By Chip and Dan Heath)6.《关键时刻的力量：为什么有些人生经历具有非凡影响力》（作者：奇普·希思和丹·希思）
The power of story is ascendant. But stories, after all, are assembled from moments that are expanded and shaped: their implications made manifest. The latest book from the Heath brothers (Chip is a professor at Stanford; Dan at Duke) is equally valuable to managers and marketers eager to influence behavior by creating genuinely meaningful moments. The authors explain how to craft peaks--the best and most memorable parts of positive experiences--and to identify situations in their employees' or customers' lives that cry out to be recognized or commemorated. Like all the Heaths' work, Power of Moments is rich with teachable, entertaining examples: from a hotel's white-glove popsicle delivery service to John Deere's warm welcome on employees' first days. They also make the point that not all transformative moments are positive. You may want to scrub from your mind the story about open defecation in African villages.
故事的力量在增强。但是故事毕竟是在放大效果和编造的情况下收集起来的：它们的含义显而易见。来自希思兄弟的最新书籍（奇普和丹分别是斯坦福大学和杜克大学的教授）对于渴望通过创造真正有意义的时刻来影响员工行为的经理和营销人员来说同样重要。作者解释了如何在员工和客户的生活中创造高峰——积极经历中最好的也最令人难忘的部分——以及分辨出那些迫切被识别或纪念的情况。像所有希思兄弟的作品一样，《关键时刻的力量》中充满了丰富的教学和娱乐实例：从酒店的白手套冰棒送货服务到约翰迪尔对员工第一天的热烈欢迎。他们还指出，并非所有转型时刻都是积极的。你可能想从你的脑海里消除那个关于非洲村庄开放排便的故事。
7. Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change (By Ellen Pao)7. 《重启：我对包容与持久变革的抗争》（作者：鲍康如）
The depressing saga of Ellen Pao's Kleiner Perkins sojourn and resulting gender discrimination trial should not be eclipsed by the more lurid tales spilling out of Hollywood, Congress, and the media. Pao's book came out less than three weeks before The New York Times' Harvey Weinstein exposé moved the mistreatment of women to the front burner and set it on a rolling boil. Her story places harassment in the broader context of organizational sexism: the pestle that grinds down women of promise by disrespecting, ignoring, belittling, and passing over them. Reset starts as an immigrant success story and ends on a bright note with Pao's experience setting up Project Include, a nonprofit to promote diversity in tech. But it is the long, nasty middle that will horrify, anger, and frustrate readers and--hopefully--give them courage to stand up for themselves and their colleagues.
鲍康如的克莱纳帕金斯旅居经历以及由此产生的性别歧视审判是一个令人沮丧的故事，但是也不应该被好莱坞、国会和媒体中流露出来的更加耸人听闻的故事所淹没。在《纽约时报》的哈维·温斯坦优先将此事揭发之后不到三周，鲍的书就出炉了，为其添了一把火。她的故事将骚扰置于更广泛的组织性别歧视背景下：通过不尊重、轻视和忽略女性对她们进行打压。《重启》以一个移民成功的故事开始，以一个充满希望的语调讲述鲍创立Project Include（一个非营利性的机构，旨在促进科技行业的多元发展）的经验收尾。但这是一个漫长而令人讨厌的中间环节，因为它会吓坏、惹怒、挫败读者——但也可能有希望——给予她们勇气为自己和同事们站起来。
8. Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies (By Geoffrey West)8.《规模化：增长、创新和可持续的普遍规律以及有机体、城市、经济和企业的生命节奏》（作者：杰弗里韦斯特）
West's dazzling discourse on the dynamics and growth of biological and manmade organisms--including businesses--raises intriguing questions about how much even the savviest CEO can control his company's trajectory. Regardless of their industries, sizes, or locations, companies scale according to surprisingly similar laws: laws that also govern biological life. West, a theoretical physicist, suggests it may be possible to develop a "science of companies," to help us understand how they grow and die (and, potentially, to help us predict their approximate lifespans). Innovation helps organizations exceed natural constraints on growth by altering characteristics of their structure or composition. But innovation typically falls victim to the tyranny of economies of scale. Cities fare better, West writes. They grow. They innovate. They diversify. They don't die.
韦斯特对于生物和人造生物（包括企业）的动态和发展的令人眼花缭乱的论述引发了很多有趣的问题，即使是最精明的CEO又能控制公司的轨迹到何种程度呢。无论其行业、规模或地点如何，令人惊讶的是公司都会以类似规律进行规模调整：也是生物生命遵循的规律。韦斯特作为一名理论物理学家，他认为或许有可能开发一种“企业科学”来帮助我们理解它们是如何成长和消亡的（并且可能帮助我们预测其大致的生命期限）。创新通过改变其结构或组成的特征，帮助企业超越对自然增长的限制。但创新通常成为规模经济统治下的牺牲品。韦斯特写道，城市在这个过程中发展地更好，它们成长、创新、多样化，它们不会消亡。
9. The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth (By Eric Ries)9.《创业方式：现代公司如何利用企业管理改变文化并推动长期增长》（作者：埃里克・里斯）
Like former IBM CEO Louis Gerstner, the entrepreneur and author Eric Ries knows elephants can dance. The principle pachyderm Ries taught to foxtrot is General Electric, a $124 billion, 295,000-employee behemoth that sounds like the world's most unlikely candidate for the methodology popularized in Ries's The Lean Startup. In 2011, then-chairman Jeffrey Immelt, a fan of lean, invited the author to help him make GE more nimble and competitive. Through that experience and other examples, Ries demonstrates that it is possible for even venerable corporations to adopt a "startup state of mind" and enshrine innovation at scale. The lean toolset (minimum viable products, pivots, etc.) turns out to be surprisingly adaptable and transformative within large, process-dominated functions building expensive, large-scale physical products. By making Silicon Valley's favorite toolkit relevant to everyone, The Startup Way begins to answer questions about how to keep U.S. industry dynamic.
像前国际商业机器公司首席执行官路易斯·郭士纳一样，既为一名企业家，又为一名作家的埃里克・里斯知道“大象也可以跳舞”。他想要传递的是，通用电气公司，一个价值1240亿美元，雇员人数为29万5千的大公司最不可能对里斯的《精益创业》中所追捧的方法感兴趣，但是在2011年，时任通用电气公司的董事长杰弗里伊梅尔特，是《精益创业》一书的粉丝，邀请作者帮助他让通用电气更加灵活和具有竞争力。通过这些经验和其他例子，里斯表明，即使是经验老道的公司也可以采用这种“创业心态”，并在规模上实现创新。精益工具集（最小可行产品，枢轴等）在构建昂贵的大规模物理产品的大型过程主导功能中变得出人意料地具有适应性和变革性。通过使硅谷最受欢迎的工具包与所有人相关联，《创业方式》开始能够回答如何保持美国行业动态的问题。
10. Wild Ride: Inside Uber's Quest for World Domination（By Adam Lashinsky）10.《疯狂之旅：优步公司谋求统治世界的幕后》（作者：亚当·拉辛斯基）
Wild Ride was released in May. The following month, Uber's CEO, Travis Kalanick, resigned under pressure, and the changes kept coming. But that doesn't leave journalist Lashinsky's book in the rearview mirror. For entrepreneurs with more modest prospects, Wild Ride recreates the feel of digging your spurs into the most hard-charging of unicorns. The book relies on insider accounts--Lashinsky interviewed Kalanick and others in the business at length--to describe in detail Uber's tribulations as it grappled with regulators, competitors, and pushback on everything from its pricing structure to its treatment of women. (It begins by recounting the company's high-profile failure in China.) Kalanick emerges as central casting's vision of the unfeeling, arrogant entrepreneur, yet his smarts and achievement are undeniable. Toward the end, Lashinsky turns his attention to the plight of drivers, briefly taking the wheel himself. Read his account and you'll never again forget to tip.
《疯狂之旅》于5月发行。在接下来的一个月，优步的首席执行官特拉维斯·卡兰尼克在压力下辞职，而且变数仍不断产生。但这并没有让记者拉辛斯基的书被人们抛之脑后。对于拥有较小发展前景的企业家来说，《疯狂之旅》重现了那种寻找最强硬的独角兽内心的刺的感觉。这本书依赖于内部人员的自述——拉辛斯基采访了卡兰尼克和其他人——详细描述了优步的困境，因为它与监管机构、竞争对手以及从定价结构到对待女性的一切事情都处于抗争中。（它首先回顾了该公司在中国引起的高调失败。）卡兰尼克以一个无情的、傲慢的企业家的身份出现在“舞台中心”，但是他的聪明才智和成就无可否认。书的结尾部分，拉辛斯基将笔锋转向描写司机的困境，只是简单地陈述了自己的看法。阅读完他的文字，你将永远不会忘记给司机们小费了。
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