Which one will you read (or gift) next?
Our Top 25 Books for ’25 list is here! A handpicked list by the Sheppard & Company team of the ideas shaping our work, leadership, and learning in the heavy equipment industry.
1. Essentialism — Greg McKeown
Summary: A compelling call to pursue fewer things, better.
Why we love it: It reflects our belief that focus, clarity, and intentionality are the foundation of great leadership.
2. The Ideal Team Player — Patrick Lencioni
Summary: A leadership fable identifying the traits of humble, hungry, and smart teammates.
Why we love it: It’s the clearest hiring and development filter for building dealership teams that work.
3. Atomic Habits — James Clear
Summary: A system for building better habits through small, consistent improvements.
Why we love it: Because operational excellence is built on daily discipline, not big gestures.
4. The One Thing — Gary Keller & Jay Papasan
Summary: A productivity guide urging relentless focus on the highest-impact priority.
Why we love it: It reinforces our Top5/Top3 execution philosophy.
5. Multipliers — Liz Wiseman
Summary: Research revealing how great leaders amplify the intelligence and capability of others.
Why we love it: High-performing dealers grow by building leaders, not heroes.
6. How the Mighty Fall — Jim Collins
Summary: Collins examines why strong companies decline—and how to reverse the slide.
Why we love it: It’s a cautionary blueprint for avoiding complacency and hubris.
7. Blue Ocean Strategy — W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne
Summary: A strategy framework for creating uncontested market space.
Why we love it: It challenges leaders to innovate rather than compete on sameness.
8. Outlive — Peter Attia
Summary: A science-backed roadmap to extending healthspan and improving long-term performance.
Why we love it: Leadership is an endurance sport—and Attia teaches how to extend the runway.
9. Unlocking Innovation — Robyn Bolton
Summary: A guide for building innovation capability inside real organizations.
Why we love it: It’s the practical, grounded playbook dealers need to innovate intentionally.
10. The Toyota Way — Jeffrey Liker
Summary: A deep exploration of Toyota’s operational excellence principles.
Why we love it: It’s a foundational pillar of our DOER philosophy of people + process.
11. The Culture Code — Daniel Coyle
Summary: A study of how high-performing teams build safety, belonging, and purpose.
Why we love it: Culture is the silent engine behind every great dealership.
12. Trillion Dollar Coach — Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg
Summary: Lessons from Bill Campbell, coach to Silicon Valley’s best leaders.
Why we love it: It reinforces our belief that coaching multiplies capability.
13. Switch — Chip & Dan Heath
Summary: A practical playbook for leading meaningful, lasting change.
Why we love it: It recognizes that change is emotional first, logical second—exactly what we see in dealerships.
14. The Goal — Eliyahu Goldratt
Summary: A business novel about constraints, flow, and throughput.
Why we love it: It’s pure DOER thinking: find the bottleneck, fix the bottleneck, lift the system.
15. The First 90 Days — Michael Watkins
Summary: A blueprint for accelerating success in new roles.
Why we love it: It’s essential reading for new managers who need early wins.
16. The Coaching Habit — Michael Bungay Stanier
Summary: A simple . approach to coaching through better questions.
Why we love it: It helps managers shift quickly from telling to developing.
17. Four Thousand Weeks — Oliver Burkeman
Summary: A philosophical reframing of time management, grounded in life’s brevity.
Why we love it: It invites leaders to choose depth over busyness.
18. The Devil in the White City — Erik Larson
Summary: A gripping nonfiction story of engineering brilliance and dark intrigue at the 1893 World’s Fair.
Why we love it: Great storytelling sharpens leadership perspective and imagination.
19. Originals — Adam Grant
Summary: A research-driven look at how nonconformists challenge norms and drive progress.
Why we love it: Dealers need original thinkers as markets shift and old assumptions expire.
20. Who Not How — Dan Sullivan
Summary: A mindset shift from solving problems alone to partnering with the right people.
Why we love it: It mirrors our belief that scaling a business is a who problem, not a how problem.
21. Design for How People Learn — Julie Dirksen
Summary: A practical, research-backed guide to designing learning that actually sticks.
Why we love it: It underpins how we build training programs that change behavior in dealerships.
22. Revenge of the Tipping Point — Malcolm Gladwell
Summary: Gladwell explores how subtle forces create outsized social and behavioral shifts.
Why we love it: It reminds leaders that small changes can create massive tipping points in culture and performance.
23. End Times — Peter Turchin
Summary: A data-driven exploration of societal cycles, instability, and renewal.
Why we love it: It gives leaders a broader lens for understanding macro forces shaping their markets.
24. The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients — David A. Fields
Summary: A straightforward guide to attracting, winning, and serving clients with generosity and clarity.
Why we love it: It aligns perfectly with our philosophy of value-rich, trust-based client partnerships.
25. How to Read a Book — Mortimer Adler & Charles Van Doren
Summary: A classic guide to reading with depth, intention, and comprehension.
Why we love it: Great leaders learn better—and think better—when they know how to read.
