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Books : Business, Finance & Law : Biographies & Histories : Company Histories
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Charles Handy's revolutionary 1989 bestseller The Age of Unreason catapulted him into the ranks of the top management consultants. In Understanding Organizations, he solidifies his reputation as a seminal business thinker, offering a brilliantly insightful, wide-ranging look at business organizations.This classic text offers an illuminating discussion of key concepts of concern to all managers: culture, motivation, leadership, power, role-playing and working in groups. Ever mindful of actual business practice, Handy directly addresses how managers can translate the six main concepts into invaluble tools for effective management. He discusses how all organizations need to select, develop and reward their people; to structure and design their work; to resolve political conflicts; to lay down guidelines for their managers; and to plan for the future. In each case, the approaches and techniques described here are invaluable.
Equally important, Handy excels at presenting his ideas in colourful, immediately accessible ways, filling the book with illuminating examples and inventive metaphors that range from Tolstoy's ideas on the concept of self, to the many meanings of "good morning," to the conversations that occur in a stopped elevator, to the proper size for a vineyard or an elephant. He shows, for instance, how an optical illusion experiment sheds light on interdepartmental relations, and how the way schoolchildren are typecast by their peers helps explain corporate hierarchies. And along with case studies, graphs, charts, and questionnaires, Understanding Organizations is peppered with boxed sections that offer advice and stimulate thought, brimming with provocative quotations from business wizards such as Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis, Alvin Toffler, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, as well as from Aristotle, Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, Gail Sheehy, and Joseph Heller.
What the successful manager knows intuitively, Charles Handy puts into words. His powerful interpretive schemes will help managers grasp the underlying dynamics of their company, make sense of its past, and assess--and shape--its future. --Jake Bond
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Five years ago Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company, and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last concludes that it is possible, but finds that there are no silver bullets to greatness. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Gillette, Walgreens and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not-so-great, Collins lays a well-reasoned roadmap to excellence that any organisation would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C Edwards
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Judi Bevan's The Rise & Fall of Marks & Spencer tells the storyof how the distinctively bright green figurehead of British retail got the blues. From humble beginnings, Marks & Spencer became the UK's leading department store, famous for its ready meals, woolly jumpers and no-frills underwear. However, the British chain suffered a dramatic reversal of fortune starting in the late 1990s, with tumbling profits, poor sales and a series of boardroom bust-ups. Judi Bevan's intelligent and thoughtful analysis of the Marks & Spencer story covers the financial rise and fall of the retailing icon, but it's the personalities and relationships that made Marks & Spencer different. This was the first British retailer to offer staff hot meals at lunchtime and to organise holiday trips abroad for its workers. Yet, M&S also ruled with a rod of iron: staff were expected to be punctual, efficient, polite and--most dangerously of all--to unquestioningly follow orders from above. It's this colonial-style rule that ultimately led Marks & Spencer into disaster and The Rise and Fall carefullydetails each step down the path. While the Gap and Next were making inroads on the British high street, M&S was still in a world ofchauffeur driven managers and carpeted executive offices.It was evident to journalists visiting Baker Street duringthis time that much of the company still looked longingly backward. Visitors would be escorted along seemingly endless corridors, with their closed doors on either side, by a uniformed female minder who would transport them into the care of the white-gloved waiters on the seventh floor. The atmosphere reeked of imperial Britain.
As the family interest in the company declined, a generation of middle managers fought and back-stabbed their way into the boardroom, not always in the best interests of the company. With more than 50 years of history to cover, it's not surprising that Judi Bevan's tale can occasionally become confusing, but this is morethan made up for by the level of detail: from the controversial cheap home loans offered to directors to the regimented positioning of oranges on the fruit aisles, this is as compelling as business gets. --SallyWhittle
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Since 1987, Starbucks's star has been on the rise, growing from 11 Seattle, WA-based stores to more than 1,000 worldwide. Its goals grew, too, from the more modest, albeit fundamental one of offering high-quality coffee beans roasted to perfection to, more recently, opening a new store somewhere every day. An exemplary success story, Starbucks is identified with innovative marketing strategies, employee-ownership programs, and a product that's become a subculture.Whether you're an entrepreneur, a manager, a marketer, or a curious Starbucks loyalist, Pour Your Heart into It will let you in on the revolutionary Starbucks venture. CEO Howard Schultz recounts the company's rise and explains the company's core values, such as "Winning at the expense of employees is not victory at all." --Theda Ross
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