Book review

Fad-surfing in the Boardroom

By: Eileen Shapiro

Price: #15.99

Publisher: Capstone

“Fad-surfing”, according to the author, is “the practice of riding the crest of the latest management panacea and then paddling out again to ride the next one; always absorbing for managers and lucrative for consultants; frequently disastrous for organisations.

This book, then, represents the backlash inspired by the “initiative fatigue” of the last few years. It expresses the deep and growing suspicion that the constant appearance of new management theories represents, not advances in thought and practice, but the need to maintain a decent amount of churn in the guru and consultancy trade. This churn has accelerated as successive consultants have tried to gain the high ground in “thought leadership” leading to a bewildering array of trademarked methodologies crowding the bookshelves.

In many ways this trend is welcome: it encourages consultancies to open up, and even if many of the “new” theories are just dressed-up common sense so what? Anything that gets managers to swallow common sense is to be welcomed; parents use similar tactics to get children to eat their porridge. However, there is a general sense that things have gone to far, and even if this book was simply a cynical counterblast, it would be welcome. However, the author is keen not to throw the baby out with the bath-water, and has also taken on some well-established management myths.

The result is a highly effective little book, providing both a compendium of current management thinking and a hefty handful of salt to take it with. Mission statements, flat organisations, empowerment, reengineering: all are dragged down to earth, in short pithy chapters. Often the chapter headings are delights in themselves, viz: “Open environment: A place where you can say anything you want as long as you don’t rock the boat and where you can find out anything you want as long as you discover it by using the internal grapevine.” Or “Reengineering: the Consultants’ Full Employment Act”. Or “TQM … an integral tactic in Japan Inc’s secret strategy for destroying American enterprise.”

This book is highly amusing, but the sugar-coating has a hard centre.

Many of the anecdotes in this book concern companies who have not only shot themselves in the foot, but traded in their trusty flintlock for a high-powered machine gun before doing so. This book could also be called “… but in the real world” for it cruelly exposes the way in which people will always cling to corporate myths or received truths rather than face facts from the market: a particularly sharp chapter exposes the techniques of using market research to gloss over the disturbing news that the customers don’t like your products.

It’s hard not to describe this book as essential: consultants who are interested in delivering genuine value and differentiating themselves from the jargon-spouters will find it an invaluable source of support.

Besides, if you haven’t read it, your clients undoubtedly will.

Imagination Engineering

By: Paul Birch and Brian Clegg

Price: #16.99

Publisher: Pitman

Writing a book on creativity is a brave step: there is a fine line between the inspirational and the ludicrous. The pressure to be creative within the work itself often produces typographic horrors, or text that leaps around like a hyper-active four-year-old. Birch and Clegg tread the line with admirable skill. The book is more like a workshop, with frequent exercises and rest stops for anecdotes. Broad margins leave space for hints, quips and quotes. The authors are eclectic in their use of sources and generous with their acknowledgements. Above all they make a compelling case for viewing creativity, not as an innate gift, but as a set of skills and techniques which can be learned and developed.

Business Ethics – A Guide for Managers

By: Elizabeth P Tierney

Price: #6.99

Publisher: Kogan Page

Why create an ethical environment? You only need to look at recent examples of businesses that have lost millions, become bankrupt and affected their industry sectors nationally and internationally.

This book looks at the reasons why ethics are the foundation of good business relationships and high profits, and what the costs of ignoring ethics are.

It cites a number of cases – including BCCI, Robert Maxwell, Barings Bank and Nestle’s Infant Formula – where there has been a lack of confidentiality, broken trust and both clients and staff deceived by management.

The workbook looks at standards people are taught in childhood, when they start school and get their first job. It gives the user the opportunity to fill in the blanks and work through his or her ethical dilemmas.

And firms that do not mix business and ethics can learn how to create an ethical working environment in the final chapter.

Intellectual Capital-Core Asset for the Third Millennium Enterprise

By: Annie Brooking

Price: #25.00

Publisher: International Thomson Business Press

As we get closer to the virtual organisation, firms are at last beginning to recognise the value of intellectual capital.

Aided by the technological revolution and market space on the Internet, businesses are putting more emphasis on the value of intangible assets, rather than tangibles. But if firms want their customer service focus to take-off, then they have to ensure that “human-centred assets”, as Annie Brooking calls them, i.e. people are satisfied.

Although intellectual capital has been an asset from the time businesses began trading, people, their know-how, knowledge and skills have not been given the recognition they deserve.

Brooking investigates all of the above and more, including the importance of know-how, skills, and what to do when two incompatible, people management cultures come together, as with Barings Bank. She looks at how human-centered assets can achieve corporate goals, and gives models firms can follow when embarking on an audit of their intellectual capital. Much of this involves establishing goals, looking at constraints within the firm, and where change needs to take place. Indices and tables are used to establish how staff affect customers and customer loyalty. The final chapters analyse how firms can manage knowledge, measure knowledge performance and build a corporate memory. A valuable, clearly written book for those interested in new problem-solving models and their people assets.

Mark H McCormack on negotiating

By: Mark H McCormack

Price: #6.99

Publisher: Arrow Business Books

You’ve always wanted to block the other sides’ tactics, but somehow you have never managed to stay in the match. Well, Mark McCormack, founder and chief executive of International Mangement Group, covers everything you ever wanted to know about negotiating and renegotiating.

He begins with the premise that everything you know is wrong and that it is important to question everything. McCormack recommends looking at relationships with partners as a way of measuring how heated a debate should be allowed to become, if people need to face each other the next day.

The negotiator has to be like the chess player, able to see the attack, avoid falling for the manoeuvres designed to weaken his position, and provide a counter-attack to the business bully.