Ellen’s Recommened Books
Competitive Intelligence Books (listed in alphabetical order)
Books I read to support Loosen Their Lips.
A Practical Guide to Competitive Intelligence edited by Zena Applebaum, Philip Britton and Alysse Nockels. 14 seasoned, salty competitive intelligence professionals discuss real-life problems that CI professionals encounter. Learn what it takes to success in CI from people who do it for a living.
Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results by Judith Glaser. Ms. Glaser presents a framework for knowing what kind of conversations trigger the lower, more primitive brain; and what activates higher-level intelligence such as trust, integrity, empathy, and good judgment.
Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle, MIT Professor. When we turn to our devices instead of to one another, the cost is our own humanity. Face-to-face dialogue builds empathy, friendship, and creativity; it’s the cornerstone of democracy and good for the bottom line. Drawing on five years of research and interviews in homes, schools, and the workplace, Turkle makes the case for conversation.
What Every BODY Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People by Joe Navarro, a professional reader of body language
The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan and Barbara Pease. Drawing upon more than thirty years in the field, as well as cutting-edge research from evolutionary biology, psychology, and medical technologies that demonstrate what happens in the brain, the authors examine each component of body language and share how to read attitudes and emotions through behavior.
The Truth Detector: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide for Getting People to Reveal the Truth by Jack Schafer and Marvin Karlins. The authors reveal the FBI-developed practice of elicitation, which encourages people to provide information they would otherwise keep secret. Provides tips and techniques you need to gain someone’s trust and get liars to reveal the truth.
Basic Interviewing Skills by Raymond L. Gorden. This is the best interviewing structure I have read anywhere, also includes tips on reading the body.
Super Searchers Go to the Source: The Interviewing and Hands-On Information Strategies of Top Primary Researchers-Online, on the Phone and In Person by Risa Sacks. This book shares secrets from professional researchers for integrating online skills with interviews, hands-on public records research, documents and printed materials not available on the Internet. (Includes an interview with John Nolan.)
Confidential: Business Secrets – Getting Theirs, Keeping Yours by John Nolan. Develop elicitation skills and protect your company’s secrets.
Conference and Trade Show Intelligence edited by Jonathan Calof and Bonnie Hohhof. Written for competitive intelligence practitioners and those who work at trade shows. This book helps you develop the knowledge necessary to fully leverage the information gathering potential at trade shows. Individual chapters written by 23 expert authors.
Gaining Market Insights from Events: A Lifetime Journey by Jonathan Calof. Trade shows are a great place to gain exposure in a traditional sense but also a great vehicle for developing the insights needed to win in the marketplace. This book will help you to develop a trade show intelligence toolkit to gain those insights at trade shows.
More recently published Competitive Intelligence books (listed in alphabetical order)
Blindspots: The Ultimate Guide to Building a Better Win-Loss Program by Ryan Sorley. How to build a sustainable win-loss program that will generate actionable insights and give your company a competitive advantage.
Competitive Success: Building Winning Strategies With Corporate War Games by Arjan Singh.
Rather than make untested, unilateral decisions, engage in war game strategies with your leadership team in a safe workshop environment. Learn how to build winning strategies step-by-step and how war gaming helps your company maintain competitive success.
Gardens of Intelligence: Designing Robust Digital Market and Competitive Intelligence Platforms by Garbriel Anderbjörk and Jesper E. Martell. The authors dig deeply into the challenges and opportunities of how to succeed with technology platforms for market and competitive intelligence.
OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information, 11th edition by Michael Bazzell and Jason Edison. While some of the references may be outdated, the important information is about the techniques to use, and this is outlined clearly. Very dense, and not every section will apply to every researcher's needs, but the thoroughness is why this is the bible-reference for OSINT analysts.
Outcompeting In the Age of AI: Navigating the Era of Artificial Intelligence by Mayur Palta.
This is a no-nonsense roadmap for business leaders to leverage AI for efficiency, growth, and transformation—before disruption forces them to. This is about how to make AI work for you to future-proof your business.
Outmarket the Competition: Advanced Marketing Tactics to Drive Growth and Profitability by Nick Doyle. The author supplies his Five-Tactic Marketing Framework, which unifies brand marketing, performance marketing, integrated campaigns, AI technologies, and lifetime value analytics. A great outcome is to beat your competition and grow market share.
The CI-Driven CEO: A Little Leadership Story About a Powerful Competitive Intelligence Idea by Gary D. Maag and David J. Kalinowski. This book illustrates how CI is an essential function, not an overhead expense, that helps identify opportunities and reduces risk by uncovering critical insights senior executives can use to improve strategic decision making. An amusing read using storytelling throughout with some valuable teaching about how CI can drive change.
The Competitive Intelligence Playbook: How to Build, Manage, and Optimize a Competitive Intelligence Program by Fouad Benyoub. Learn how to gather, analyze, and strategize valuable intelligence about your competitors, and how to build and manage an effective competitive intelligence program within your organization.
The Missionary and The Mercenary by Arik and Derek Johnson. Many people think leaders are in charge because they have all the answers. However, leadership has never been about having all the right answers, but by asking the right questions. The Johnson brothers have spent decades distilling the most critical questions leaders must ask if they want to get everyone pulling in the right direction to control their future.
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The Unconventional Strategist: Building, Keeping, and Thriving in Your Career by Jay Nakagawa. Jay dismantles the myth that strategy lives in frameworks and proves it lives in judgment, experience, and the courage to move before conditions are perfect. He delivers a field guide for leaders who want to think clearly and act boldly.
Competitive Intelligence Golden Oldies (listed in alphabetical order)
I have been buying and organizing competitive intelligence books for over 35 years.
Analysis without Paralysis: 12 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions, 2nd edition—Babette Bensoussan and Craig Fleisher. This book provides a simpler explanation of competitive intelligence tools and techniques without as much depth as Babette and Craig’s previous two books. In addition to updating techniques, the second edition has included 2 more techniques than the original book.
Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective Application of New and Classic Methods, 2nd edition—Craig Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan. Thorough review of 24 analysis methods. Provide structure for each technique: background and rational; examples of key intelligence questions or topics; strengths and limitations; how to use the tool—step by step; their FAROUT summary (Future orientation, Accuracy, Resource efficiency, Objectivity, Usefulness and Timeliness); and a worksheet. Case studies are sprinkled throughout.
Competitive Intelligence Ethics: Navigating the Gray Zone edited by Dale Fehringer and Bonnie Hohhof. A collection of ethics chapters by over a dozen authors, plus codes of ethics of several CI consulting firms. Only available on SCIP’s website. Pricing deals for SCIP members.
Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World—Seena Sharp. A great read on why and how to use competitive intelligence which dispels a lot of myths management mistakenly holds about the value proposition of using competitive intelligence in decision-making. You will learn that competitive intelligence is a lot broader than just analyzing the competition.
Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors—Michael Porter. No collection is complete without this classic which contains the world famous Porter’s Five Forces driving industry competition: potential entrants, suppliers, buyers, substitute products, and the industry competitors.
Confidential: Uncover Your Competitors’ Top Business Secrets Legally and Quickly, and Protect Your Own—John Nolan. The book covers both elicitation skills for intelligence gathering as well as counterintelligence tactics. A must read for anyone doing primary research over the phone, SKYPE or in-person. (Sadly, out of print)
Early Warning: Using Competitive Intelligence to Anticipate Market Shifts, Control Risk, and Create Powerful Strategies—Ben Gilad. Risk identification, intelligence monitoring and management actions are identified at the key components of the competitive early warning triangle. Many case studies are included to give life to the processes discussed.
Outsmarting The Competition: Practical Approaches to Finding and Using Competitive Information by John J. McGonagle, Jr. and Carolyn M. Vella. Provides advice for businesses on finding and using legal, publicly available competitive information on other companies in your industry.
Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works—A.G. Lafley and Roger L Martin. Learn how leaders in organizations of all sizes can guide everyday actions with larger strategic goals built around the clear, essential elements that determine business success—a playbook for winning. This book draws on the author’s success turning Proctor & Gamble around over a 9 year period. A. G. was CEO of P&G and Lafley, a key adviser from the Rotman School of Management.
Starting a Competitive Intelligence Function—Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) edited by Bonnie Hohhof and Ken Sawka. This is a timeless read, and there are 42 contributing authors, many well known in the competitive intelligence field. The book covers five areas in competitive intelligence and case studies: intelligence system planning, information collection, intelligence analysis and production, intelligence tools and resources, and measuring the impact of competitive intelligence. Only available on SCIP’s website. Pricing deals for SCIP members
Sun Tzu and the Art of Business: Six Strategic Principles for Manager—Mark McNeilly. More than two millennia ago the famous Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote the classic work on military strategy. Mark McNeilly shows how Sun Tzu’s strategic principles can be applied to twenty-first century business.
The Complete Guide to Competitive Intelligence, 5th edition—Kirk Tyson. Comprehensive guide to collecting, analyzing competitive intelligence and building a corporate competitive intelligence process. Woven throughout are case studies from Kirk’s extensive experience, and great tips like, “Published information should not be used for intelligence purposes until it has been confirmed with non-published sources.”
The End of Competitive Advantage: How to Keep Your Strategy Moving as Fast as Your Business—Rita Gunther McGrath. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a previous era of business where the goal was to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Companies need to forge a new path to winning: capturing opportunities fast, exploiting them decisively, and moving on before they are exhausted. The goal is transient competitive advantage.
The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence: How to See Through and Stay Ahead of Business Disruptions, Distortions, Rumors and Smoke Screens—Leonard Fuld. Fuld takes us through the multiple ways companies can learn more about the marketplace in which they are operating, and the tools and thinking of their competitors. Leveraging his many years of experience in the world of competitive intelligence, this book informs the reader on how to build and maintain a competitive edge.
Win/Loss Reviews: A New Knowledge Model for Competitive Intelligence by Rick Marcet
Learn how you can improve top and bottom line performance by systematically capturing key insights from deals that have been won, lost or delayed. The principles and disciplines explored are aimed at bridging the flow of competitive intelligence between sales and marketing, simultaneously providing insights and line-of-site to the dynamics affecting business performance.