Animals Inc.: A Business Parable for the 21st Century

Rating:
Summary: Missed opportunity - a waste of time.
Review: The title and description got my attention, and had me thinking that this could be a great illustration of the absurdity of various management techniques, and how common business problems might be overcome. But this book is nothing more than corny puns, silly cliches, and ridiculous animal jokes. When the animals take over the farm, they proceed to act like, well, animals, not demonstrating any real human behavior from which we might learn. I do not know what the point was of this book.

The book spends the first 98% of its content trying to be funny but illustrating nothing about mistakes that businesses make. The mistakes that this particular business makes have no correlation whatsoever with real businesses. The only thing that we can say for certain about this business is that it is run by inept managers and populated by inept workers. It just spends too much time trying to be cute, and never really incorporates real-life business issues or makes a point about what the business should be doing differently.

Rating:
Summary: Finally! A book that talks about common sense!
Review: Tucker and Allman do a masterful job in highlighting what is wrong with corporate America today. We have all watched countless companies jump from fad to fad in search of the next great competitive advantage, only to get lost in a sea of buzzwords which eventually causes them to lose their identity. Animals, Inc. presents this scenario in a humorous way that kept me laughing and, ultimately, will keep me from blindly accepting the next "revolutionary" business idea that consultants try to sell to my business. It was a great book, and a very quick, easy read.