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This is actually already on the minds of a lot of HR people at top companies. IMO, it is more about employee satisfaction at the company, with salary being part of the mix. Gallup did this huge survey using 12 questions to measure employee engagement. They said that if an employee answered with 5s on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being totally agree) to all of these questions, then that was one of the best indicators to company performance. Now, they're peddling this product to a lot of companies, and in my opinion (which counts for nothing), it works.

Read the book First, Break all the Rules, which is written by, surprise! The same guy who developed and is selling the survey.

• Do you know what is expected of you at work?
  
• Do you have the materials and equipment to do your work
  right?
  
• At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best
  every day?
  
• In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise
  for doing good work?
  
• Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about
  you as a person?
  
• Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
  
• At work, do your opinions seem to count?
  
• Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your
  job is important?
  
• Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing
  quality work?
  
• Do you have a best friend at work?
  
• In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you
  about your progress?
  
• In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?
  
  I'm bored.

Articles from reputable sources are a decent source of knowledge, but some quality business books will get you an infinitely better understanding of concepts. Here is my personal business book list if you want to get a "universal generalist" understanding of business:

• Business Creation - The Lean Start-up
  
• Value Creation - How to Make Millions With Your Ideas
  
• Marketing - Getting Everything You Can Out Of Everything You Got / All Marketers Are Liars
  
• Sales - Pitch Anything
  
• Value Delivery - Indispensable
  
• Accounting/Finances - Financial Intelligence / Accounting Made Simple
  
• Understanding the Human Mind - Making Sense of Behavior
  
• Productivity - Getting Things Done
  
• Problem Solving - The 80/20 Principle
  
• Decision Making - Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions
  
• Negotiation - 3-D Negotiation
  
• Management - Growing Great Employees
  
• Project Management - Making Things Happen
  
• Statistics - Marketing Metrics
  
• Corporate Knowledge - The Effective Executive
  
• Corporate Strategy - Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies
  
• Creativity - The Creative Habit
  
• Personal Finance - Your Money or Your Life
  
  I am graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce Honors degree in May and I can easily say that one of these books (average price ~25$) has significantly more content than most individual classes I have taken (~600$). However, keep in mind that business knowledge and business acumen are two entirely different things. Knowledge is easily obtainable through books like these, and acumen is the result of applied experience with decision making. In short, it is one thing to be book smart, but it is another to get out there and actually apply it. No one can give you that in the form of an article or book - you have to do that yourself.
  
  edit: added links to amazon

Power of Habit - Charles Duhigg

7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey

The Millionaire Next Door - Thomas J. Stanley

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

How to Get Rich - Felix Dennis

The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss


The Richest Man in Babylon - George S. Clason

The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham

*****

You can look at these books if you like. The Millionaire Next Door would probably be the one I would gift him first.

Good to great

A practical guide to turning around companies, providing a strong environment for ideas, devising long-term strategies for success, increasing shareholder value, and how to survive in highly-competitive marketplaces.

Another personal favorite is on management in general: Growing Great Employees which talks about practical approaches to making employees feel valued, being effective as a manager, and building an environment where everyone ends up doing the best possible work. I have used this technique in two failing groups over the years and it worked both times.

Say no more, fam.

You don't need a degree to run a business. Having your own business allows you to experiment with these books first hand instead of taking some professor's word for it. Professor's usually just read what the book says. If they were actually good at running a business they'd probably be doing that.

• Business Creation - The Lean Start-up
  
  
  
• Value Creation - How to Make Millions With Your Ideas
  
  
  
• Marketing - Getting Everything You Can Out Of Everything You Got / All Marketers Are Liars
  
  
  
• Sales - Pitch Anything
  
  
  
• Value Delivery - Indispensable
  
  
  
• Accounting/Finances - Financial Intelligence / Accounting Made Simple
  
• Understanding the Human Mind - Making Sense of Behavior
  
  
  
• Productivity - Getting Things Done
  
  
  
• Problem Solving - The 80/20 Principle
  
  
  
• Decision Making - Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions
  
  
  
• Negotiation - 3-D Negotiation
  
  
  
• Management - Growing Great Employees
  
  
  
• Project Management - Making Things Happen
  
  
  
• Statistics - Marketing Metrics
  
  
  
• Corporate Knowledge - The Effective Executive
  
  
  
• Corporate Strategy - Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies
  
  
  
• Creativity - The Creative Habit
  
  
  
• Personal Finance - Your Money or Your Life

Very interesting article. Whenever this topic comes up I think about a couple books. First, Break All The Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths. These books outline what makes a manager great and how the greatest managers identify, motivate, and retain the most talented people in their organization. Interesting read.

I've built a successful SaaS business. The number one lesson is around sales channels. You can have the best product in the world, but if you can't sell it, you're wasting your time. If you don't know what a sales channel is read https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Guide-Getting-Customers/dp/0976339609

If you have a sales channel, you do not need an idea, your channel will tell you what they want. The cheaper your sales channel, the greater your chance of success.

Feel free to PM me with your other questions.

Good for you bilbobillikins! A couple of books that helped me make the transition were - High Output Management and First, Break All the Rules. Apart from this there is a great series of podcasts where Mike and Mark talk about various challenges and have a great perspective on how to deal with typical situation that managers would face. You can find them at Manager Tools website.

Sounds like the "Millionaire Next Door" effect: https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474

People who got rich from their own efforts tend to be very sensitive to value and ways of saving money. They have the experience of going through tough times while they were growing their business. So they do things like buy used cars because a new car loses a big chunk of value the day you drive it off the lot. The sales guy in the fancy suit driving the new BMW is likely deeply in debt trying to impress other people.