Back to school: the Danaher 2024 reading list
August 27, 2024
Last year, we chose books about science and human health, consistent with Danaher’s evolution into a pure-play global innovator in life sciences and diagnostics. For 2024, a time of rapid and dramatic change, we're focusing on classics and instant-classics: five core-curriculum books our leaders use to guide their long-term thinking and stay on track. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
Jim Collins
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… And Others Don’t
What’s your BHAG – your Big Hairy Audacious Goal? We know what ours is. At our annual leadership conference this year, our co-founders Steven and Mitchell Rales laid out the Biggest, Hairiest, most Audacious Goal that Danaher has seen yet – a vision for how we could change not just the future of the company but the future of health worldwide. They based it on the philosophy of Jim Collins* – and we encourage others to do the same.
* Not to be confused with MIT professor Jim Collins, who’s on our Scientific Advisory Board, though we do share many of his BHAGs.
Caroline Criado Perez
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
As a data-driven company, we usually feature at least one book about the perils of incomplete knowledge. (A recent recommendation was Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, which Joe Fox, president of our operating company SCIEX, suggests to all incoming Danaher executives.) This year’s book on bias was a revelation when it came out in 2019 – an eye-opening examination of how women are systematically left out of data collection. Colleagues in biomedicine, take note: Page 193 kicks off an unflinching assessment of how the healthcare system leaves women “chronically misunderstood, mistreated, and misdiagnosed.” We hear that message loud and clear.
Eric Topol
Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again
This book by our Scientific Advisory Board member Eric Topol came out in 2019, long before “LLM” and “ChatGPT” were words you might hear around the dining table. Despite the field’s astonishing progress since then, the principles in the book are still relevant (and ripe for discussion at our upcoming Summit focused on AI-driven predictive R&D). For a more up-to-date take, follow Eric on LinkedIn if you somehow don’t already. You’ll find a wide range of provocative and insightful thoughts on healthcare.
Clayton Christensen
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Sadik Kassim, our CTO for Genomic Medicines, recommends this canon-defining book describing what happens when innovation succeeds so wildly that it sows the seeds of its own destruction – and how innovators can stay ahead of the curve so they’re inventing the future, not re-inventing the present. If you’re sick of the word “disruption,” credit this book or blame it, but be sure you actually read it. The underlying concept is far more complex and sophisticated than popular interpretations make it out to be.
Admiral William H. McRaven
Make Your Bed: Small things that can change your life… and maybe the world
A personal favorite. No matter your politics or beliefs, you’ll find it inspirational but never hand-wavy: it’s full of wisdom that can be translated immediately into action. (Yes, you really should make your bed every morning.) There are so many other nuggets to choose from, but as we at Danaher forge stronger connections with academic researchers, startups, and other collaborators, one springs to mind often: “You cannot paddle the boat alone…. Never forget that your success depends on others.”
