Book review

Great Myths of Business

By: William Davis

Publisher: Kogan Page

Price: #18.99

Both the front and the back dust covers open by describing Davis as a “self-made millionaire”. Having always respected his considerable achievements as a financial journalist, commentator, businessman, publisher, author and as editor of Punch, it seemed to us a mite incongruous to flaunt his wealth as justification for this book when his other credentials speak for themselves.

Twenty two of the 23 chapter headings contain the work myth and Davis is consistent in contrasting the “difference between myth and reality”.

Although he owns up to becoming rich through his own efforts, Davis is aware of his limitations and wishes to share his know-how with the reader.

It’s as if he has seen the light in his last 20 years as an entrepreneur and wants to re-frame all that he has experienced in business over the years – or had been taken in his previous 20 years as as business writer?

His chapters are contemporary in flavour and include his belief that business men and women need to abandon the idea that gurus know everything, that numbers should always be “respected”, that the Far East always gets things right, that business tips make you rich and that age and sex are important to success!

Particular attention should be drawn to Chapter 3 on “The consultancy game”. Davis acknowledges what management consultants are able to offer by of mentoring or managing change, to name just two functions, but he dismisses us as unnecessary, wasteful and unable to offer any guarantees.

He is scathing towards our profession and has little respect for what we do and who we are. He indicts consultants and by implication their clients on the grounds of the fees charged, the nature of the work carried out and the lack of new ideas in companies generated by companies using consultants too much.

Davis correctly points out that too many people are to be found in the profession, which has no constraints on who is able to call themselves a consultant. Unfortunately though, he feels that most what we do can be done internally by a consultant, dismissing the argument that outsiders are able to work independently, with a more open mind and therefore help to achieve genuine results. He asserts that reports are sometimes “cut and pasted” from one company to another. He says this is because there is no fixed code of ethics, without mentioning the IMC or the MCA who share common principles and codes of professional conduct, or indeed any of the other professional bodies representing business advisers with equally rigorous standards. The desire for repeat business he argues prevents work being done as fully as required and he contends that image is all too important in the consultancy game.

But it is not just the management consultant who suffers at the pen of Davis. He also pours scorn on the MBA qualification, the advent of information technology, the behaviour of Fat Cats as well as the joys of family business.

He writes about the myths surrounding big organisations and small companies and the negativity generated by the banks in Britain.

Davis believes that ” most myths do more harm than good” despite the need in business for the understanding, continuity and culture that are transmitted between generations of managers through folk-lore and fairy tale. Perhaps he is confusing myths and untruths and failing to see their function as templates for guidance, rather than as strict blueprints.

Davis dismisses them all in one broad, cavalier sweep. He fails to see the use of experience, intuition and training that all effective management consultants and business people rely so heavily upon, including, paradoxically, Davis himself. No credit is given to individuals with opinions, intelligence and common sense, yet he concludes his book by wanting us to believe in ourselves and not be misled by the great myths of business. Davis, the incurable optimist and multi-millionaire, is superficial in some parts of the book and in others he has gone quite over the top, as he did in the Newsnight programme on the evening of IMC/MCA/Guild reception on 25 June when he was interviewed about this book. This is a great shame because it will detract from both the educational and the entertainment potential of his work. Perhaps the luxury of his millions enables him to feel so confident, detached and independent, like the gurus he despises, while the rest of us mere mortals must remain open to learning, including from parts of this book itself.

Reviewed by Barry Curnow, immediate past president, Institute of Management Consultants, and Susie Bruck, training consultant, Maresfield Curnow School of Management Consulting

Encyclopedia of Management in 12 volumes

Edited by: Professor Cary L Cooper (UMIST) and Professor Chris Argyris (Harvard School of Business)

Price: #800

Publisher: Blackwell

If you believe that encyclopaedias are little more than works of reference, this set of 12 volumes will shatter any such illusions. Many of the entries are essays of up to 500 and even 1,000 words on topics, terminology and trends which will satisfy practising professionals as well as academics.

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management breaks new ground in covering virtually the entire spectrum of management and represents a formidable enterprise, under the editorship of two distinguished international academics, Professor Cary Cooper and Professor Chris Argyris.

The set of 12 volumes with contributions from over 1,000 leading academics in their own fields include managerial economics, marketing, organisation behaviour, management information systems, international management, finance, human resource management, strategic management, operations management, accounting and business ethics which is now seen as part of mainstream management practice.

The volume on organisational behaviour, for example, contains some 500 entries of varying size by some 180 leading authors providing a definitive statement of current knowledge and thinking covering the key concepts and trends.

A significant point raised by the editors of the volume of marketing, Professor Dale Littler and Dr Barbara Lewis of the Manchester School Of Management, may be said to apply to many of the disciplines covered by the remaining volumes. Well-established subjects, they may be but their emergence as formalised areas of academic interest with their own concepts, techniques terms and theories is relatively new.

International management matter was developed by asking the practical question: what information does an international manager require to enable him/her to successfully undertake the task of managing in various locales and cultures? Experts from all areas of international business/management were called on for in-depth discussions on a range of topics.

The volume covering operations management underlines how this subject is now again in the forefront of management thinking, not simply an all-purpose tool box for the solution of complex manufacturing problems.

The complex area of human resource management, as the comprehensive volume on this subject re-affirms, has been tackled not merely as traditionally defined, but as it is emerging and seen from a global perspective.

The cost of these 12 volumes may at first seem high but valued against the cost of attending a conference, the investment in this impressive set of volumes will repay itself many times over. For management consultants specialising in particular disciplines, whether, IT, HR or OB, access to a wider comprehensive range of authoritative material will be welcomed.

Reviewed by Wilf Altman, consultant

The Consultant’s Survival Guide

By: Marsha D Lewin

Price: #19.99

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

The Consultant’s Survival Guide has high aspirations: it aims to provide those in the profession with techniques and plans for winning business and excelling in their assignments. It is perhaps the scale of this ambition which is the book’s main downfall.

Many consultants and their clients will have been involved at some point with a project which has had such a wide scope that it ends up achieving no more than a superficial summary of the issues to be addressed, rather than useful insights into their resolution. Similarly, this guide fails to cut more than a thin slice off the ham of truth.

The focus of the book – 17 out of 18 chapters – is on winning business (how to network, setting billing rates), at the expense of any meaningful discussion on dealing with the typical problems that consultants face once they are in engaged in work (dealing with changes in project scope, resolving political conflicts within an organisation and so on) – the one chapter dedicated to this is entitled “Do Good Work”, which I did not feel helped me on the road to true enlightenment. And little attention is given to recruiting, retaining and motivating the right calibre of staff which, in my opinion, is the single biggest success factor of any consultancy.

Stylistically, there are plus and minus points of the book. Consultancy jargon is admirably avoided. But the tone of the book is somewhat preachy and of the “pushy American” variety – this will suit some, but have others emergency dialling the brashness police.

While the book does give a checklist of issues for consultants, it is in the end no more than a quick course in borrowing watches and reading the time.

Reviewed by Tim Chanter, freelance consultant/project manager

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