What are the 3-5 books you have in mind?
- Peter Drucker - The Effective Executive
- Andy Grove - High Output Management
- Fred Brooks - The Mythical Man-Month
- Marty Cagan - Inspired
- Dale Carnegie - How to win friends and influence people
- Jocko Willink - The Dichotomy of Leadership
I would also recommend The Goal by Eliyahu M Goldratt as an excellent primer on the Theory of Constraints as an effective management philosophy.
Most people recommend The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and other books in that ilk, but I've found far more value in these three books alone than every other management theory book I've read, combined.
"Workplace Management" - Taiichi Ohno
"Lean Six Sigma" - Jeffrey Ries
But aside from these "management philosophies", there's also standard industry/role practices that companies don't require their employees to implement, and when they do it's only enough to say they technically did it. Often the employees don't even know the standards exist. It's embarrassing.
Agreed; my example would be all the basic things in "High Output Management" — especially the performance management pieces.
What'd you have in mind?