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Summary: FROM THE PUBLISHER
Review: "Rarely has anyone so succinctly and engagingly presented the core principles of managing in a single book. Written by Joan Magretta with Nan Stone, both former Harvard Business Review editors, this text is a model of clarity and thoroughness." Business Week"This is a wonderful little volume...It explains in impeccably clear prose what management is about, defining the domain in which many people spend their daylight hours...Urge everyone to read it." The Economist "I can think of no other subject that is so desperately in need of seeing the wood for the trees. Ms Magretta has come up with no new ideas. Instead she has offered a brief and jargon-free framework, for which we should be truly grateful." Financial Times
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Summary: Not for experienced managers
Review: Antibiotics, Automobiles and Airplanes - Undoubtedly these innovations of the twentieth century have increased our life span and made planet earth a better place to live in. But if one has to think of a discipline that enabled these to happen through the collective effort of individuals and the pooling of resources, it is management - the accumulating body of thought and practice that makes organizations work. There is often a debate as to whether management is a science or an art. The fact lies somewhere in between. While dealing with tasks like productivity of machines, scheduling of projects, procurement of materials, and accounting, management looks like an exact science- number crunching and precise answers. But if this were all about management, computers would have replaced managers long ago. The challenge of dealing with uncertainties, crafting strategy in a unknown future, hiring, training, motivating and developing human assets, understanding customers' real needs are some of the tasks that managers routinely perform. Constantly managers are evaluated against performance targets; those that are determined by the collective needs of the stakeholders- customers, suppliers, shareholders, employees and society. The goals need to be in line with the Organizations' mission and reached within set time frames against fierce competition. Some organizations flourish while many perish. Management makes the difference. This applies to social institutions as well. This book aims to give a broad overview of management as a discipline. To the extent it covers important topics in a comprehensive manner with good case studies thrown in, it has achieved the objective. It certainly has the width. Ideally suited for MBA aspirants to know what needs to be learnt in Business Schools. If you already have an MBA and rich professional experience, looking for an in-depth analysis of topics covered, look elsewhere.
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Summary: Ties all the management fads together
Review: As a recent master's level graduate, I've had the pain and the pleasure of reading a magnitude of books on management. When I picked up Magretta's book, I wasn't sure whether it would have much value for me since I had read all those other books and was familiar with practically all the theories presented in this book.
As is the case often times in the world, the most meaningful insights don't necessarily stem from some totally new idea but from a reframing of existing ideas. This is the area where Magretta's book really shines. She is able to put a vast number of different management theories into a new and coherent perspective that really gives the reader actual value.
For example, the way she frames extreme differentiation as being a monopoly and absolute cost leadership as being akin to perfect competition illustrates her holistic viewpoint. Despite managers' praise of perfect competition, every manager wants to move his/her company toward the monopoly end of the spectrum and away from perfect competition.
I recommend this book to anyone who's trying to cut through hyped up managerial buzz and wants to grasp the meaningful theories all managers should know.
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Summary: Good jumping off point
Review: As an engineer that has gotten into business through entrepreneurship I have been surrounded with MBAs who rattle off buzz words. When they start using technical buzz words I can tell real quick that they are using words with no real subtance behind them, but I have avoided talking about "value chains" and "best practices" because though I understood them from context I did was not sure of myself. This book explains many of the key buzz words used in management in clear terms. It also provides references and resources for further study. For instance it recommends "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter. I asked a friend that is a Wharton graduate if she was famliar with the book "Competitive Strategy" and she answered "by Michael Porter?" There are so many business books it is nice to have a guide to cut the wheat from the chaff. I am glad I read this book and it even inspired me to make some changes in my business that have been useful.
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Summary: Good jumping off point
Review: As an engineer that has gotten into business through entrepreneurship I have been surrounded with MBAs who rattle off buzz words. When they start using technical buzz words I can tell real quick that they are using words with no real subtance behind them, but I have avoided talking about "value chains" and "best practices" because though I understood them from context I did was not sure of myself. This book explains many of the key buzz words used in management in clear terms. It also provides references and resources for further study. For instance it recommends "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter. I asked a friend that is a Wharton graduate if she was famliar with the book "Competitive Strategy" and she answered "by Michael Porter?" There are so many business books it is nice to have a guide to cut the wheat from the chaff. I am glad I read this book and it even inspired me to make some changes in my business that have been useful.
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Summary: Distillation of good concepts
Review: As I hold a PhD in Organization and Management, all these rules, caveats, and plain common sense are distilled into quite an entertaining read on a long flight or sitting in a airport. Hmmm . . . her first case study with the on-line tracking mechanism sounded like a good idea, but apparently it got canned when it worked too well and cost UPS and FedEx too much money due to their delivery mistakes. So it goes. However, eBay has bought PayPal and they are offering essentially the same deal: If your item paid at an eBay auction whether via bank account or CC (physical merchandise only), is not what was represented or arrives late, you get the transaction revoked, your money is returned, and the seller has to deal with the problem and the buyer is absolved. They charge agout 1% of the value for the insurance. eBay is the best of the best and even though the authors have used big names of corporate America, the lessons learned can be applied to almost any business. Recommended.
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Summary: An Urgently Needed Briefing
Review: Hundreds (thousands?) of books have already been published on the general subject of "management" so it is reasonable to ask: Why another? What Magretta offers (with the substantial assistance of Nan Stone) is, in my opinion, the best single-volume introduction to what Magretta refers to as "the discipline of management," a subject which is relatively new (i.e. mid-19th century) and, until Drucker's The Practice of Management (1954), not generally understood. According to Magretta, it is "one of the transforming innovations of modern civilization." I agree with her that management's "real genius is transforming complexity and specialization into performance." (This precisely what Bossidy and Charan had in mind while writing Execution: The Discipline of Getting Results.) Magretta's goal is to "present a coherent view of the whole, of the work known as [in italics] general management." Her purpose is to explain "the underlying [in italics] why of both the theory and practice of management....Our mission is to see the forests for the tees, and present what can be complex ideas simply, but not simplistically. We will present a sense of how management thinking has evolved and how the big ideas relate to one another." Magretta and Stone succeed brilliantly. They carefully consider various subjects which include value creation, business models, "the logic of superior performance," organizational parameters, "which numbers matter and why" (the real bottom line), innovation amidst uncertainty, using focus to achieve results, and those values which are most effective when managing others. I think this volume will be especially valuable to relatively inexperienced executives. However, any decision-maker in any organization (regardless of size or nature) will find an abundance of information, useful observations, and practical suggestions which can guide, direct, and enrich their performance. I just hope this book attracts the readership it so eminently deserves. More to the point, as presumably Magretta would concur, I hope it can help to nourish and enhance business acumen at a time when the need for "discipline" in management has never been more urgent.
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Summary: One of the best business books I have ever read
Review: Most of the business books try to create new management fads and methods. This book is about common sense in business and management. I recommend this book to every managers from newly appointed to senior executives who are lost in management fads and consulting world's business jargon. Especially this book is healthy reading for technology oriented companies and their managers.
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Summary: A must for non profit managers
Review: Read most management books and you'd come to believe that the non profit sector either doesn't exist or doesn't need to be managed. Not this one. At every turn in the road, the authors take pains to tailor their message to the unique concerns of managers running businesses in the non profit sector. They acknowledge the challenges of measuring success beyond the financial bottom line and even hint that non profit management can be harder, with the rules less clear, than managing in the for profit sector. Heady stuff when it comes from an HBR editor. This book would be an ideal introduction to management for the many non profit managers who come from the program backgrounds and lack formal business training. Written in plain English (apparently the authors felt a more compelling need to be understood than to impress the readers with the business jargon du jour), it provides an incredibly useful overview of the challenges of managing a complex organization. It's an easy and valuable read.
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Summary: Valuable concepts for all employees
Review: The big-picture, management concepts discussed in this book impact all employees in every type of organization. After reading and understanding this book, an employee should be able to work smarter, gain insights for how their organization could function more effectively, and enhance their knowledge of the reasoning behind management decisions made in the past. This book is essentially a summary of the management concepts taught in an MBA program. It is an easy read, and the ideas are so well explained that it is accessible to a wide audience. It is targeted for the general population since many people do not understand or appreciate the function of management and the impact it has. In particular, the application of management concepts in non-profit organizations will be an ever-growing trend over the next several decades. While the seasoned manager will be knowledgeable of the concepts discussed in this book, it will serve as a handy reference summary, and has a useful list of additional books and articles for each chapter. They may also pick up a few new insights, such as the historical development of different concepts (many management concepts are very recent).
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