Rating: 
Summary: A very good scrutinyreview of the knowledge industry!!!
Review: Can you expect the two gentlemen authors to tell the whole thruth, naturally not - but theeir story assemble and combine practices and theories of one of the branches of the the fast growing knowledge industry - the actors of which very often have to cover up experimentation with a face of convincing professionalism. At the end of the day, you or the witchdoctors will never experience the consequences of the alternative(s)(if you had any) which you disposed of in favour of the choice(s) you did! If you take time to read I believe you will rather enjoy than regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Warms the cockles of this management consulting cynic.
Review: For those workers in the trenches who have recently found themselves downsized due to the latest round of "re-engineering,".....For those frustrated managers who have had just one too many management consultants imposed upon them by paranoid executives....... For those paranoid executives who feel they need to hire the "latest and greatest" consultants to stay ahead of the competition....... .....You must read this book. Written by two staff editors of the economist, this book reveals the charlatanism surrounding the management consultant industry, and how the growth of the industry has led to the imposition of new management techniques which may be entirely irrelevant to the enterprise, its workers, and the shareholders. The prose is what you would expect from The Economist - pragmatic, and easy to read. The conclusions are straightforward and hard to ignore. As one of the senior Editors at The Economist warned the authors while they were writing the book: "You know what worries me about your book about management theory: that you'll talk to all the people and read all the books; that you will detail all its incredible effects - the number of jobs lost, the billions of dollars spent, and so on. And you won't say the obvious thing: that it's 99 percent bullshit. And everybody knows that" (from the prologue). Indeed, if everybody read this book, his statement would ring true
Rating: 
Summary: The best summary on management theory there is
Review: Great fun, great wit, great journalism. These guys started off as outsiders but they clearly are top-class journalists: they truly captured all the "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats" that all the true, semi or fake gurus have produced since Taylor, Sloan and Drucker. A must have!
Rating:
Summary: The best summary on management theory there is
Review: Great fun, great wit, great journalism. These guys started off as outsiders but they clearly are top-class journalists: they truly captured all the "strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats" that all the true, semi or fake gurus have produced since Taylor, Sloan and Drucker. A must have!
Rating: 
Summary: Good overview of the consultancy industry
Review: I quite enjoyed this book, except for one or two gripes that I will come to later, and which kept me from awarding it a (much sought-after) fourth star. It provides a good overview of the management consultancy industry, and the rise of management studies to its current status in the business world. I particularly liked the authors' even-handed approach: they give the industry credit where it is due and do not only dwell on the negatives (and I say this as someone who is quite sceptical about the industry at the best of times). By the same token, they do point out the negatives as well, especially the industry's dependency on new fads to sell to clients in order to sustain revenues. I also found the chapters dealing with management styles in the Eastern economies very interesting. Coming to the gripes, my first one is that the book is slightly too long- I think it could have been a good 50 pages shorter, and a much better read, with more judicious editing. Also, I feel that the authors tried too hard to employ a "chatty" style of writing, and this is sometimes irritating.
Rating:
Summary: Good overview of the consultancy industry
Review: I quite enjoyed this book, except for one or two gripes that I will come to later, and which kept me from awarding it a (much sought-after) fourth star. It provides a good overview of the management consultancy industry, and the rise of management studies to its current status in the business world. I particularly liked the authors' even-handed approach: they give the industry credit where it is due and do not only dwell on the negatives (and I say this as someone who is quite sceptical about the industry at the best of times). By the same token, they do point out the negatives as well, especially the industry's dependency on new fads to sell to clients in order to sustain revenues. I also found the chapters dealing with management styles in the Eastern economies very interesting. Coming to the gripes, my first one is that the book is slightly too long- I think it could have been a good 50 pages shorter, and a much better read, with more judicious editing. Also, I feel that the authors tried too hard to employ a "chatty" style of writing, and this is sometimes irritating.
Rating:
Summary: A Must for Consultants
Review: If you are a business consultant, you should read this book to better understand what is going on in your field. If you are thinking of hiring a business consultant, you should read this book to know what to look for. It looks at trends in management consulting and their real life consequences, some good and some not so good. This book demonstrates how dangerous it can be to apply any management theory without a thoughtful and thorough examination of the systems necessary for the theory to work. The biggest downside to this book is the authors "cleverer than thou" style.
Rating:
Summary: "But they've got no clothes on"
Review: John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge are to management fads what the little child was to the naked emperor and The Witch Doctors is their manifest. When you enter the pages of this extremely well written oeuvre you're bascially not in Management-haven, Kansas anymore. Where management literature usually dramatizes, Micklethwait and Wooldridge present a sober view and make a point of playing down the actual impact and importance of so-called Gurus. With the stealth and graceful elegance of secret service assassins, the authors meticulously work through thinkers and movements, with chapters divided for pedagogic simplicity into chronological order. Something striking is the high correlation between the chronology and the order of importance; this could be attributed to nostalgia but is more likely a result of the fact that management "thinking" has become unscrupulously popular over the last decade, with everyone from football coaches to Roseanne Barr wanting to share their secrets of success with results that, at best, can be described as mixed. It is therefore no coincidence that the final, and most enjoyable, chapter is entitled "A walk on the wild side" - a reference to the fact that many of the people that get in on the action today bear more than a little resemblance to actual witch doctors with results as often doubtful as they are deceiving. Better then to long for yesteryear when men were men and people like Charles Handy, Michael Porter and, the Godfather of management thinkers, Peter Drucker roamed free. But even in the chapters describing these earlier movements, Micklethwait and Wooldridge employ the dry, sarcastic wit that is so intimately associated with their mother magazine, The Economist. It is not that they're so much angry or accusatory as genuinely professional journalists and in era when the borders between the editorial and the commercial interests are constantly blurred, this is the least one could ask for. You may be one of those people who prefer to immerse yourself in an experience, such as watching the parade of a naked emperor or gawking at a "truly amazing behind-the-scenes look at a new movie" which is often what management seminars are all about from a metaphorical perspective. But if you don't mind, or perhaps even prefer, a tell-it-like-it-is perspective even though it may ruin your temporary immersion in something, The Witch Doctors is a rare gem. Why not test yourself; are you a channel 7-action news kind of a person or someone who takes the time to read through a daily newspaper? Do you see management seminars as a source of knowledge or as one of entertainment? And finally, do you prefer to look away when you catch an accidental glance at Mickey Mouse stripping off his costume at Disneyland to keep the illusion real or do you revel in the fact that Disneyworld is just one more commercial attraction like many others and one that, in purpose, is no different from the K-Mart down the street? If you preferred the former in each of these questions, congratulations to you and the management literature industry since Amazon and its competitors will always have rows of titles uncovering corporate "secrets", seven "brilliant" thoughts on nothing in particular and countless case studies about companies you've never heard of or will never have much in common with. If you, on the other hand, preferred the latter, The Witch Doctors is a valuable and helpful delight to read. Trivializing -sure, but not if you compare it to the way that three centuries of literature is compressed into vulgar travesties like "Chicken Soup for the faint-hearted" in this day and age.
Rating:
Summary: Shock news: "Management-guru industry declared a hoax!"
Review: John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge are to management fads what the little child was to the naked emperor and The Witch Doctors is their manifest. When you enter the pages of this extremely well written oeuvre you're bascially not in Management-haven, Kansas anymore. Where management literature usually dramatizes, Micklethwait and Wooldridge present a sober view and make a point of playing down the actual impact and importance of so-called Gurus. With the stealth and graceful elegance of secret service assassins, the authors meticulously work through thinkers and movements, with chapters divided for pedagogic simplicity into chronological order. Something striking is the high correlation between the chronology and the order of importance; this could be attributed to nostalgia but is more likely a result of the fact that management "thinking" has become unscrupulously popular over the last decade, with everyone from football coaches to Roseanne Barr wanting to share their secrets of success with results that, at best, can be described as mixed. It is therefore no coincidence that the final, and most enjoyable, chapter is entitled "A walk on the wild side" - a reference to the fact that many of the people that get in on the action today bear more than a little resemblance to actual witch doctors with results as often doubtful as they are deceiving. Better then to long for yesteryear when men were men and people like Charles Handy, Michael Porter and, the Godfather of management thinkers, Peter Drucker roamed free. But even in the chapters describing these earlier movements, Micklethwait and Wooldridge employ the dry, sarcastic wit that is so intimately associated with their mother magazine, The Economist. It is not that they're so much angry or accusatory as genuinely professional journalists and in era when the borders between the editorial and the commercial interests are constantly blurred, this is the least one could ask for. You may be one of those people who prefer to immerse yourself in an experience, such as watching the parade of a naked emperor or gawking at a "truly amazing behind-the-scenes look at a new movie" which is often what management seminars are all about from a metaphorical perspective. But if you don't mind, or perhaps even prefer, a tell-it-like-it-is perspective even though it may ruin your temporary immersion in something, The Witch Doctors is a rare gem. Why not test yourself; are you a channel 7-action news kind of a person or someone who takes the time to read through a daily newspaper? Do you see management seminars as a source of knowledge or as one of entertainment? And finally, do you prefer to look away when you catch an accidental glance at Mickey Mouse stripping off his costume at Disneyland to keep the illusion real or do you revel in the fact that Disneyworld is just one more commercial attraction like many others and one that, in purpose, is no different from the K-Mart down the street? If you preferred the former in each of these questions, congratulations to you and the management literature industry since Amazon and its competitors will always have rows of titles uncovering corporate "secrets", seven "brilliant" thoughts on nothing in particular and countless case studies about companies you've never heard of or will never have much in common with. If you, on the other hand, preferred the latter, The Witch Doctors is a valuable and helpful delight to read. Trivializing -sure, but not if you compare it to the way that three centuries of literature is compressed into vulgar travesties like "Chicken Soup for the fain-hearted" in this day and age.
Rating:
Summary: Shock news: "Management-guru industry declared a hoax!"
Review: John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge are to management fads what the little child was to the naked emperor and The Witch Doctors is their manifest. When you enter the pages of this extremely well written oeuvre you're bascially not in Management-haven, Kansas anymore. Where management literature usually dramatizes, Micklethwait and Wooldridge present a sober view and make a point of playing down the actual impact and importance of so-called Gurus. With the stealth and graceful elegance of secret service assassins, the authors meticulously work through thinkers and movements, with chapters divided for pedagogic simplicity into chronological order. Something striking is the high correlation between the chronology and the order of importance; this could be attributed to nostalgia but is more likely a result of the fact that management "thinking" has become unscrupulously popular over the last decade, with everyone from football coaches to Roseanne Barr wanting to share their secrets of success with results that, at best, can be described as mixed. It is therefore no coincidence that the final, and most enjoyable, chapter is entitled "A walk on the wild side" - a reference to the fact that many of the people that get in on the action today bear more than a little resemblance to actual witch doctors with results as often doubtful as they are deceiving. Better then to long for yesteryear when men were men and people like Charles Handy, Michael Porter and, the Godfather of management thinkers, Peter Drucker roamed free. But even in the chapters describing these earlier movements, Micklethwait and Wooldridge employ the dry, sarcastic wit that is so intimately associated with their mother magazine, The Economist. It is not that they're so much angry or accusatory as genuinely professional journalists and in era when the borders between the editorial and the commercial interests are constantly blurred, this is the least one could ask for. You may be one of those people who prefer to immerse yourself in an experience, such as watching the parade of a naked emperor or gawking at a "truly amazing behind-the-scenes look at a new movie" which is often what management seminars are all about from a metaphorical perspective. But if you don't mind, or perhaps even prefer, a tell-it-like-it-is perspective even though it may ruin your temporary immersion in something, The Witch Doctors is a rare gem. Why not test yourself; are you a channel 7-action news kind of a person or someone who takes the time to read through a daily newspaper? Do you see management seminars as a source of knowledge or as one of entertainment? And finally, do you prefer to look away when you catch an accidental glance at Mickey Mouse stripping off his costume at Disneyland to keep the illusion real or do you revel in the fact that Disneyworld is just one more commercial attraction like many others and one that, in purpose, is no different from the K-Mart down the street? If you preferred the former in each of these questions, congratulations to you and the management literature industry since Amazon and its competitors will always have rows of titles uncovering corporate "secrets", seven "brilliant" thoughts on nothing in particular and countless case studies about companies you've never heard of or will never have much in common with. If you, on the other hand, preferred the latter, The Witch Doctors is a valuable and helpful delight to read. Trivializing -sure, but not if you compare it to the way that three centuries of literature is compressed into vulgar travesties like "Chicken Soup for the fain-hearted" in this day and age.
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