Dave Ulrich recommends books for HR professionals from these thought leader authors

Making knowledge productive remains a challenge and opportunity for businesses and HR leaders. Dave Ulrich, along with his colleagues, has spent decades (with over 30 books) figuring out how to create value for all stakeholders through human capabilities (talent, leadership, organization, and HR). In doing this work, he learns from many thoughtful authors whom he follows. A follow-able author is someone who does thoughtful, forward-looking, research-based, and relevant work. Ideally, the author has a track record of evolving ideas that morph as the author continues to learn. This means more than one story, experience, or book, but a stream of innovative ideas. 

The following is a list of authors that are followed and recommended by Dave Ulrich listed alphabetically by the last name. For each author there are some of the authors top-selling books you can read for personal development:

Authors and Recommended books

1. Mike Beer

• Higher Ambition: How Great Leaders Create Economic and Social Value

• Fit to Compete: Why Honest Conversations About Your Company's Capabilities Are the Key to a Winning Strategy

• High Commitment High Performance: How to Build A Resilient Organization for Sustained Advantage

2. John Boudreau

• Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work

• Transformative HR: How Great Companies Use Evidence-Based Change for Sustainable Advantage

• Beyond HR: The New Science of Human Capital

• Retooling HR: Using Proven Business Tools to Make Better Decisions About Talent

• Achieving Excellence in Human Resources Management: An Assessment of Human Resource Functions

3. Wayne Brockbank

• HR from the Outside In: Six Competencies for the Future of Human Resources

• Victory Through Organization: Why the War for Talent is Failing Your Company and What You Can Do About It

• HR Competencies: Mastery at the Intersection of People and Business

• HR Transformation: Building Human Resources From the Outside In

• The HR Value Proposition

4. Peter Capelli

• Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order

• The India Way: How Indias Top Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management

• Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty

• The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market-Driven Workforce

5. Ram Charan

• The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership Book 391)

• What the CEO Wants You To Know, Expanded and Updated: How Your Company Really Works

• The Amazon Management System: The Ultimate Digital Business Engine That Creates Extraordinary Value for Both Customers and Shareholders

• The High-Potential Leader: How to Grow Fast, Take on New Responsibilities, and Make an Impact

• The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers

6. Marshall Goldsmith

• What Got You Here Wont Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful

• Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be

• Lessons from Leaders Volume 1: Practical Lessons for a Lifetime of Leadership

• Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It

7. Lynda Gratton

• The New Long Life: A Framework for Flourishing in a Changing World

• Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organizations Buzz with Energy - And Others Don't

• Glow: How You Can Radiate Energy, Innovation, and Success

• The Key: How Corporations Succeed by Solving the Worlds Toughest Problems

• Living Strategy: Putting People at the Heart of Corporate Purpose

8. Gary Hamel (and CK Prahalad)

• Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them

• The Future of Management

• Competing for the Future

• Strategic Intent (Harvard Business Review Classics)

• What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

9. Mark Huselid and Dick Beatty

• The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance

• The Workforce Scorecard: Managing Human Capital To Execute Strategy

10. Ed Lawler

• Reinventing Talent Management: Principles and Practices for the New World of Work

• Treat People Right!: How Organizations and Individuals Can Propel Each Other into a Virtuous Spiral of Success

• Assessing Organization Agility: Creating Diagnostic Profiles to Guide Transformation (J-B Short Format Series)

• Built to Change: How to Achieve Sustained Organizational Effectiveness

• Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage

11. Jeffrey Pfeffer

• Power: Why Some People Have It - and Others Don't

• Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance—and What We Can Do About It

• Managing With Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations

• Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

• The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

12. Norm Smallwood

• Results-Based Leadership

• The Leadership Code: Five Rules to Lead

• Agile Talent: How to Source and Manage Outside Experts

• Leadership Brand: Developing Customer-Focused Leaders to Drive Performance and Build Lasting Value

• Leadership Sustainability: Seven Disciplines to Achieve The Changes Great Leaders Know They Must Make

13. Wendy Ulrich (Dave Ulrich’s wife)

• Let God Love You:  Why We Don't; How We Can

• Weakness Is Not Sin: The Liberating Distinction That Awakens Our Strengths

• Forgiving Ourselves

• Habits of Happiness

• The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That, Win

14. Pat Wright

• Human Resource Management

• The Chief HR Officer: Defining the New Role of Human Resource Leaders

• Strategic Human Resource Management: A Research Overview

15. Arthur Yeung

• Reinventing the Organization: How Companies Can Deliver Greater Value in Rapidly Changing Markets

• Organization Learning Capability:  Generating and Generalizing Ideas with Impact

• The Globalization of Chinese Companies:  Strategies for Conquering International Markets

Dave Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and a partner at The RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value.