The Management Gurus

Insightful summaries of fifteen outstanding management books Since 1978, Soundview Executive Book Summaries has offered its subscribers condensed versions of the most relevant and influential business books published each year. The company has won acclaim as the definitive selection service for business book readers. Following its successful first collection, The Marketing Gurus, Soundview has now compiled The Management Gurus, which includes summaries of fifteen management classics. One of them is a previously unpublished summary: Jack Welch and the 4 E?s of Leadership. Other featured books include: ? Winning with People by John Maxwell ? Judgment by Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis ? Managing Crises Before They Happen by Ian I. Mitroff These summaries distill thousands of pages about leadership, strategy, crisis management, organizational behavior, and more?perfect for busy executives and students.

This book provides a concise, critical expert overview of the elite group of consultants, analysts and commentators known as ‘management gurus’. Often dismissed as lacking in substance, this volume demonstrates that gurus must be taken seriously given their impact on the world of management. Noting that the gurus are very much products of the 1980s, the book accounts for the rise of this group while challenging those who have attempted to personify – to name and acclaim – the gurus. Reviewing the research on management gurus the book proceeds from a consideration of ‘guru theory’ to offer an analysis of ‘the guru industry’ and ‘guru speak’. Building upon this analysis the book offers a critical engagement with those who have sought to understand gurus as performance artists. Concluding with a radical agenda for future research which situates management’s gurus within the frame of stand-up comedy, this book will enlighten and entertain scholars across the business disciplines and beyond.

Since the 1980s, popular management thinkers, ‘gurus’, have promoted a number of performance improvement programs and management fashions which have greatly influenced both the everyday conduct of organizational life and the preoccupations of academic researchers. This book provides a rhetorical critique of the management guru and management fashion phenomenon, building on the important theoretical progress that has recently been made by a small, but growing band of management researchers. Fantasy theme analysis, a dramatically-based method of rhetorical criticism, is conducted to critique three of the most important management fashions to have emerged during the 1990s: * the re-engineering movement promoted by Michael Hammer and James Champy * the effectiveness movement led by Stephen Covey * the learning organization movement inspired by Peter Senge and his colleagues. In addition to its rhetorical and empirical contributions, this book stimulates a much-needed critical dialogue between practitioners and academics on the sources of the underlying appeal of management gurus and management fashions, and their effect upon the quality of management and organizational learning.

Good management is a precious commodity in the corporate world. Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus is a straight-forward manual on the most innovative management ideas and the management gurus who developed them. The earlier edition, Guide to Management Ideas, presented the most significant ideas that continue to underpin business management. This new book builds on those ideas and adds detailed biographies of the people who came up with them-the most influential business thinkers of the past and present. Topics covered include: Active Inertia, Disruptive Technology, Genchi Genbutsu (Japanese for "Go and See for Yourself"), The Halo Effect, The Long Tail, Skunkworks, Tipping Point, Triple Bottom Line, and more. The management gurus covered include: Dale Carnegie, Jim Collins, Stephen Covey, Peter Drucker, Philip Kotler, Michael Porter, Tom Peters, and many others.

For over a hundred years organisations have sought the advice of gurus such as Taylor, Fayol, Mayo, Maslow and Peters, and have been willing to pay handsomely for it. Why have the ideas of these consultants become so popular and profitable? What is the secret of their success and can it be emulated? Andrzej Huczynski identifies the essential ingredients of the few popular management ideas of the twentieth century. He shows how company managers, business school academics and management consultants all have the possibility of attaining guru status by following the guidelines contained in this book.

"Management gurus continue to exert tremendous influence over management thinking and strategy, not only through their published works, but more significantly via the international management lecture circuit. Research suggests that public performances are critical to their popularity and success, and that the "best" gurus are all highly skilled in persuasive communication techniques. This book examines techniques, both verbal and non-verbal, used by gurus to communicate their messages and identifies several additional techniques which enhance the gurus' reputations as highly effective orators. It focuses on video recordings of public lectures given by Tom Peters, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Kenneth Blanchard, Daniel Goleman, Gary Hamil, Charles Handy and Peter Senge who are all renowned for their public performances and the impact they have had on organizational life. Challenging and original, this text provides a unique insight into the management guru industry and the persuasive skills of some its leading proponents." -- Jacket.

Brief biographical sketches of ten internally acclaimed modern management academicians.

The fifth edition of the original, best-selling guide to the ideas of leading management thinkers. The ten additional full-length entries range from classic gurus such as Henry Gantt and the Gilbreth time-and-motion pioneers to the latest thinkers influencing 21st-century business, including Clayton Christensen, master of innovation theory, and Karen Stephenson with her ground-breaking insights into human networks. The lives and work of more than 55 gurus are covered in clear and accessible style, along with penetrating analysis of their ideas and influence on management. Guide to the Management Gurus has sold around the world since its first publication in 1991, and has been translated into more than 15 languages, including Russian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.