Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

I got a ton of value out of “Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams”. Even if you’re not a manager that can directly follow the advice, as an engineer it will provide great clues on how to ensure environment and team dynamics can greatly influence efficiency and chances of success. Of course my all time favorite is The Mythical Man-Month. But that’s already mentioned elsewhere in this thread. I haven’t read “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” but some of the concepts it talks about are also of interest (on how to ensure workers are motivated and I’m not talking about “the beatings will continue until morale improves” :) )

1. Start with why, Simon Sinek - to get my younger self to figure out why I am doing what I am doing 2. Drive, the surprising truth..., Daniel Pink - to understand happiness and motivation 3. Crucial Conversations, to learn how to talk and listen and talk to people without ruining the conversation and the possibilities from it

Drive by Daniel Pink, looks at what motivates people in general. Explains why a guy that codes all day goes home to work on open source project...

You may have already come across it if you've read a lot of Stoic philosophy, but 'Meditations' by Marcus Aurelius is a good read. Other books I've really enjoyed are: Talent is overrated, by Geoff Colvin (short version: working hard is more than half the battle) Drive, by Daniel Pink (short version: to be motivated, you need to have/be working toward purpose, autonomy, and mastery) How will you measure your life, by Clayton Christensen (short version: just read it - very good) For the win - how game thinking can revolutionize your business, by Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter (Note: one of the authors offers a Gamification MOOC on Coursera) And for fun: Eastern Approaches, by Fitzroy Maclean (short version: a pseudo-biography about a british man who was a diplomat, politician, and special forces operator all in one lifetime. Incredible)

Although it's not quite what you're looking for (sounds like you want a manual / howto) I highly recommend "Drive" by Daniel Pink. http://www.danpink.com/drive