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83 of 84 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The True Influencers, March 3, 2010
This review is from: The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World (Hardcover)
The debate over the value of high-level strategic consultants and academics has waged for decades. I was one such consultant for the better part of ten years who often spent the first part of any conversation defending my profession (I have since moved to advertising and now defend that profession). Kiechel covers the rise of strategy consulting firms--BCG, McKinsey, and Bain--and notable business school professors who contributed to the strategy revolution. His background provides the credibility to do so, he was a former Managing Editor at Fortune magazine and was the Editorial Director of Harvard Business Publishing from 1998 to 2002.
He sees the best strategists as objective intellectuals who see patterns of evidence and put them through conceptual frameworks to produce pragmatic insights. This largely began in the sixties and seventies when strategy began to be systematized and integrated. Cost, customer and competitors were the three primary areas strategists looked for patterns to exploit. In the nineties, the practices were more fad-like including reengineering and total quality management. This was the era I practiced in and I felt like the lone voice extolling the virtue of a simple but robust strategic planning process. I jumped for joy when in June, 1997, BusinessWeek had on their cover, The Return of Strategic Planning: Once More With Feeling. Which was the pivot point for Taylorism-like monitoring and measurement processes becoming more humanistic and holistic in their design.
The author tells some great industry stories but what struck me is just how important the role of strategy and management consultants is to business. The influence that such a small number of people and firms have had on modern business is truly staggering. This is where the subtitle of the book comes from: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World. Just a handful of models and frameworks devised by a small number of minds have been used by countless businesses to generate their strategies - this is what is so amazing.
From my experience, the best strategists retain a child-like wonder and a natural intellectual curiosity that is backed by analytic rigor - an incredibly hard combination of skills to possess in one person. I suggest this book only if you are interested in the history it covers and/or are a follower of the strategist value debate. In other words, this is not a strategy how-to book. Other books in this area I have read are The Management Myth, The McKinsey Mind, Rip-Off!, House of Lies, and Consulting Demons - so you may want to check them out too.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating history of the development of strategic ideas, February 26, 2010
This review is from: The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World (Hardcover)
Those who have studied business have probably heard of the Boston Consulting Group Matrix, the McKinsey 7-S Framework, Michael Porter's Value Chain, and various other strategy tools. But where did they all come from, and how did the theory behind them develop? The former managing editor at Fortune Magazine, Walter Kiechel III, explains the history of ideas in the field of strategy over the past 40 years in this book.
This is the most interesting book on strategy that I have read, because it tells the story of the individuals and consulting firms who created the strategy concepts and tools which revolutionised corporations around the world towards the end of the 20th century. The idiosyncrasies of brilliant strategists are described, as are their struggles to have their ideas accepted. The author's personal knowledge of the major players makes the narrative more compelling.
The author even-handedly discusses both the good points and the bad points of the various strategic ideas, but on the whole he is an admirer of the lords of strategy and tends to exonerate them from blame for the mess the world now finds itself in, whereas others might be inclined to accuse them of encouraging companies to undertake unwise levels of risk in order to maximise short-term shareholder returns. I found some parts of the book a bit dry, but for the most part it was highly engaging.
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24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Must Read Biz Book of 2010 (really), February 10, 2010
This review is from: The Lords of Strategy: The Secret Intellectual History of the New Corporate World (Hardcover)
In the Lords of Strategy, Walter Kiechel deftly unpacks many of the ideas that many of us take for granted -- from competitive advantage to value chain to core competencies -- and explains their history, impact, and relevance with insight and wit. He takes material that could have been as dry as day-old toast and instead creates an engaging and compelling read.
Kiechel approaches his subject neither with reverence nor venom: he helps us understand the pioneering thinkers who created the world of "business strategy" by exploring the ways in which they reshaped the corporate landscape, how their personalities influenced their work, and the lasting impact (for better and worse) that they have had. He's equally prescient about how the Lords bolstered the careers of their client CEOs and enriched shareholders (eventually) -- and why, especially for middle managers, a deep consulting engagement can feel more like a rectal exam than an exercise in improving the company. He traces the rising dominance of left-brained analytical thinking in the consulting firm and the executive suite as well as the increasing "fierceness" of capitalism.
I've learned more reading this book than in any 10 average business books (and I've read a lot of them). It really is a must-read for anyone in business or entering the corporate world. It will explain much, prepare you well, and expand your understanding of contemporary business thinking.
Full disclosure: the author is a former colleague. The principal impact that has had on this review is that I can say unabashedly that in this book he demonstrates the same erudition, wit, and ability to bring together seemingly disparate ideas, people, and events into a thoroughly compelling narrative just as he did when we worked together. I've already purchased multiple copies of this book for associates so my money is co-located with my mouth.
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