Customer Reviews

Kindred Spirits: Harvard Business School's Extraordinary Class of 1949 and How They Transformed American Business

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
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There are a lot of things to like about Kindred Spirits. Its written with a solid pace, with a fair eye to both the achievments and limitations of a notable group, and with care not to overreach its modest ambitions. At the same time, I found this book somewhat dissapointing.

The deepest dissapointment comes from incongruity of the book's central thesis and the data it presents. The back cover carries the blurb "It was a time when value had meaning, with lessons we can learn from." In it, though, I found an account of a group no more or less scrupulous than those I've worked with over the last 10 years - in Business School and in industry. The subjects of this book donate to charity and don't seem to drive exotic sports cars, but they do bribe officials, fake the numbers, and repress unions. Its not that they're a bad bunch; the men portrayed here work incredibly hard and seem genuinely insightful about business, but they're not substantially ethically different from MBAs today. I had trouble identifying where the bygone values were - criticizing the tech bubble? questioning the wisdom of 80s LBOs? - its pretty easy to make those calls in hindsight.

The other dissapointment for me was the story not told. In the book there is a subset of the class - the most dynamic, smartest, most successful - called "The Group". There's a handful of them, 8 or so, and every year they make a ski trip with all their families. They stick together in an usually tight, powerful network. I would love to hear more about what personal and professional bonds keep that kind of association intact for better than 50 years. What's missing here is the personal dimension behind that concentration of power. An in-depth look into that could be a book on its own.

Other complaints ran a bit less deep, but were nevertheless distracting. Worst among these was pretty shoddy editing - there were several pieces of narrative that were repeated verbatim in different parts of the book. Initially, I thought I'd lost my place and was re-reading an earlier chapter.

All that said, these are inspiring people, particularly in their courage and their confidence, and the lead interesting lives. Callahan succeeds most when he lets them speak in their own words. I was not at all sorry to have read this, but wish more of the potential depth could have been realized.

I bought this book for a friend of mine as a congratulations gift on her acceptance to the Harvard Business School class of 2005. Knowing I'm a voracious reader, she asked me to preview it for her. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed.

To be sure, Mr. Callahan has a difficult task - to shape several hundred biographies into a coherent work in 320 pages. It is difficult enough to write one compelling biography! Unfortunately, Mr. Callahan was not able to pull out enough personalities, interesting trivia, or intersecting events to weave an interesting tapestry, instead writing about those experiences virtually everyone has shared -- drinking and reminiscing at old reunions, talking about how we went our own way and returned older and wiser, and in this case, how the collected group rose the corporate ladder. The book lacks the space to give more than a cursory examination to any single business leader, and it does not bother to illuminate us at to what experiences at Harvard tied directly to the success of the class, or exactly what common values they shared (other than some trite yet vigorous finger shaking at the fact that nearly the entire class participated in WWII). However, there are some eye-rolling and oft-repeated lines about how some members of the class suffered the hardship of working their way through their undergraduate years, as if tens of thousands of college students don't do that today (in fact Mr. Callahan alludes that they do not.) As a result, the book reads more like a long resuscitation of facts than as a compelling narrative.

The quotes on the jacket cover promised, "A time when values had meaning, with lessons we can learn", and included the engaging hook "They stormed the beaches of Normandy and the islands of the South Pacific, but the exceptional generation of Americans that won World War II also produced the greatest group of business leaders of the post-war era", but Callahan seems to give up his thesis of common experiences forging common values from the first pages, revealing that several graduates of the esteemed class of '49 have been investigated variously for insider trading by the SEC, by the Justice Department for bribery, or by the FBI for mafia connections. In fact, several of the alums he writes extensively about have extremely questionable business backgrounds. Additionally, it would be hard to differentiate between today's top business school graduates and those of the middle-last century, who went to find job stability and make money, "although millions, not billions as some leaders today." To paraphrase Mr. Dickens, in short, the period was so like the present period, that one of its nosiest authorities insists on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

This isn't to say that there isn't a fascinating story to tell in the graduates of Harvard Business School, or the class of '49. In my opinion, it just hasn't been told here.

At this point I'll share that this is a qualified review -- I stopped reading about halfway into the book, which is rare for me. It is entirely possible that Mr. Callahan successfully ties the book together and presents its lessons in the final pages. I'll never know. I've since moved on to purchase "Pinstipes and Pearls: The Women of the Harvard Law Class of '64..." which thus far is much more personal and compelling.

Not a bad book except for the fact that the author's liberal leanings were too obvious. HBS (or any business school for that matter) is meant to teach business leaders, not focus on making graduates respected social agenda leaders. The author took several shots at the decade of the 80s and the Reagan era, but certainly gave a pass on the corrupt 90s (WorldCom, Enron, etc.) and the Clinton years.

All in all, though, I enjoyed the background on some of the key graduates, but I would not buy another book by this author.

The example of the Harvard 49ers is inspirational, and their adventures in business make for an exciting story.

As I read this book I became aware of just how much times have changed since 1949. Nowadays no Harvard Business School MBA student learns this style of business. Now they teach students how to line their own pockets while dismantling successful American businesses and putting all the employees out on the street. They also teach that this is simply good business.