Brain Rules (John Medina, 2008) 8.0/10
How We Decide (Jonah Lehrer, 2009) 8.2/10
How The Mighty Fall (Jim Collins, 2009) 6.7/10
World Wide Rave (David Meerman Scott, 2009) 7.2/10
The Element (Sir Ken Robinson, 2009) 8.2/10
Jeff Immelt and the New GE Way (David Magee, 2009) 5.0/10
The Talent Code (Daniel Coyle, 2009) 6.5/10
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert B. Cialdini, 2007) 7.0/10
The Ten Commandments for Business Failure (Donald R. Keough, 2008) 7.3/10
The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets (Peter D. Schiff, 2008) 5.2/10
The Brand Bubble (John Gerzema and Ed Lebar, 2008) 6.0/10
A Sense Of Urgency (John P. Kotter, 2008) 6.5/10
Who (Geoff Smart and Randy Street, 2008) 6.8/10
Reality Check (Guy Kawasaki, 2008) 7.2/10
Tribes (Seth Godin, 2008) 4.7/10
Talent (Edward E. Lawler III, 2008) 5.8/10
Business Stripped Bare (Richard Branson, 2008) 7.8/10
Call Me Ted (Ted Turner with Bill Burke, 2008)
Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell, 2008) 6.0/10
Winning (Jack Welch with Suzy Welch, 2005) 8.0/10
Tuned In (Craig Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott, 2008) 7.2/10
Inside Steve's Brain (Leander Kahney, 2008) 6.0/10
Yes! (Robert Cialdini, et al, 2008) 6.7/10
The Answer (John Assaraf & Murray Smith, 2008) 7.2/10
Six Disciplines Execution Revolution (Gary Harpst, 2008) 4.0/10
Meatball Sundae (Seth Godin, 2007) 7.0/10
“Why does management seem stuck in a time warp? Perhaps it’s because we’ve reached the end of management.”
Content
Part I: Why Management Innovation Matters; in this part, the author stated the problems we face with the current modern management and how can the new management have the “Ultimate Advantage” over the current management.
Part II: Management Innovation in Action; the authors demontrated examples of Whole Foods, W. L. Gore, and Google and how their “Management Innovation” shapes their management philosophies.
Part III: Imagining the Future of Management: in this part the authors showed how we can escape the orthodox management practices and embrace the new principles including Life, Markets, Democracy, Faith, and Cities while overcoming difficult challenges that we are going to face.
Part IV:Building the Future of Management: this part tells us how can we learn the lessons from IBM and Best Buy along with how can we put the beliefs we demonstrated earlier into practices.
Review Method: The score will show how close this book is to the ideal: A business book which is easy to read, distinct, credible, practical, insightful, and provides great reading experience.
Ease of Understanding: 7/10: The Future of Management is a book with a straightforward structure, there are examples followed by the related principles of Life, Markets, Democracy, Faith, and Cities that define the new management. And the conclusion and the “idea” on how to implement them are clear but we couln’t say this is the easiest read because of the abstractness of the ideas.
Distinction: 9/10: To be perfectly honest, there are many books on the so-called “future” already, we already talked about Google and the idea of flat organisation is not new. The reason that I give The Future of Management a near-perfect score on distinction is how the book uses some wise definitions of management, Part III, which are stunning. I never thought of comparing an organisation and management to “cities” together with “life”, “faith”, “democracy”, and “markets”.
Credibility: 8/10: Gary Hamel and Bill Breen did well linking the examples of Whole Foods, W. L. Gore, and Google to their ideas on how the organisation should, and would be. The linkage and references are solid making us believe that this is probably the way ” new management” will be.
Practicality: 3/10: No one will disagree with me on this, this is not Management Guide for Dummies, we know it, the authors know it. The authors stated that they do not know how to achieve this but this is a book that will inspire us on how to invent the future of management.
Insight: 8/10: Very insightful, examples of companies are packed with examples of practices that are thought-provoking. New principles are not loosely described but with solid ideas.
Reading Experience: 9/10: You’ll find reading this book is like a journey. It is not futuristic like watching Star Wars but more like watching the Matrix trilogy! The authors portray the current modern management and then “unplugged” you to the new world that you have never imagined. For orthodox managers, you will feel like watching “28 Days (Weeks) Later” where out of nowhere, there are flocks after flocks of zombies (future employees) chasing after you! Beware.
Overall: 7.3/10: excluding “practicality”, I’d say The Future of Management is more than 8/10. If you want a book packed with remarkable management examples and motivating ideas on how the future will be without much concern on practicality of ideas; The Future of Management by Gary Hamel and Bill Breen is a safe bet.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
[...] & Murray Smith, 2008) 7.2/10 Six Disciplines Execution Revolution (Gary Harpst, 2008) 4.0/10 The Future of Management (Gary Hamel and Bill Breen, 2008) 7.3/10 Meatball Sundae (Seth Godin, 2007) [...]