HBR Guide to Finance Basics for Managers

The HBR guide distills corporate finance vocabulary into a practical manual for managers who never studied it: the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, and the basic ratios used to read each of them. For a product director it is an operational education — most product decisions have a financial shape (investment, payback, unit economics, capex vs opex) and most product directors muddle through without the language to argue clearly about any of them. The book is neither original nor deep; it is the fastest path from zero to functional. Pair it with Osterwalder's Business Model Generation to connect financial vocabulary to product strategy, and with Sowell's Basic Economics for the broader frame. Keep it on the shelf.