Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Bowers and Leipziger have assembled and edited one of the most valuable collections of essays now available in which various authors examine what the subtitle correctly suggests are the "hot ideas and best practices from the world of business" during the past two years. The material is carefully organized within ten sections which range from "The Real World: When Theory Meets Practice" to "Visiting Olympus: The Corporate Legends." In the Foreword, Harold J. Leavitt suggests that there are at least three reasons why this volume can be helpful: "These verbal snapshots, taken together, provide a panoramic view of the actual organizational world circa 2000"; "In this era of volatility and impermanence, of mergers and takeovers and of wild markets, these readings remind us of a reality too easily forgotten: that much of organizational management has not changed"; and finally, the various essays "spotlight something far more than this year's managerial beats and beauties, and more than the unchanging, deep heart-beats of organizations. They catch the new, new thing: the speed, turbulence and instability that have sharply and permanently differentiated the new organizational surround from all its predecessors." In effect, what we have here is a "yearbook" which correlates the past with the present while suggesting what an uncertain future could prove to be.
It remains for each reader to determine which of the sections and which of the individual essays (to which David Leonhardt has written crisp and insightful introductions) are of greatest interest and value. I hasten to add that, as a reader's needs and interests change, there will be what Adrian Slywotsky calls a "value migration." Hence the importance of determining which essays are grouped within each section. (I wish the editors had listed them in the "Contents" section.) At the moment, the sections which interest me most are "Moving with the Times: Old Economy Meets New" (#3), "The Talent Squeeze: Recruiting and Retaining Employees" (#6), and "9-1-1: When Things Go Wrong" (#9). I also enjoyed "Visiting Olympus" (#10) which features brief but rigorous discussions of "corporate legends" such as Warren E. Buffett, David Merrick, Tom Landry, Bill Gates, and Peter F. Drucker, followed by a lengthier discussion of Sanford I. Weil. Julie Flaherty provides an appropriate Afterword in which she briefly compares and contrasts certain business principles (and cultural values) in the 19th and 20th centuries. Great stuff.
In the Foreword, Leavitt says this about the material in this volume: "No ribbons and bows here, no airbrushed warts and scars, just sharp, clear pictures of the new whirling managerial world, a world that will surely be whirling even faster by the time new M.B.A.s are ready to jump aboard a year or two from now." As we proceed into a new century, change may well be the only constant and yet....and yet, as various authors represented in this volume suggest, certain "hot ideas and best practices" have been essential to commerce throughout human history. Plus ça change....
Of all the business books I have read within the past year, this is one of the very few which is as entertaining as it is informative. If a higher rating were possible, I would give it.
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