Customer Reviews

The Ultimate Business Library: The Greatest Books That Made Management (The Ultimate Series)

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This is the third edition of one of the volumes in the "The Ultimate Series" published by Capstone Publishing Limited. I have also reviewed Des Dearlove's The Ultimate Book of Business Thinking and John Middleton's The Ultimate Strategy Library. The three volumes comprise an especially informative and valuable resource for busy executives as well as those now preparing for a business career. The brevity of coverage of individuals and individual books is inevitable, given the scope of each volume. For example, during the course of a 301-page narrative, Stuart Crainer provides a briefing on a total of 85 of "the greatest books that made management." They are arranged by author in alphabetical order but Crainer also offers a series of time-specific clusters that range from "Management prehistory" (e.g. Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations) to "The nineties" (e.g. James Collins and Jerry Porras' Built to Last and Thomas Stewart's Intellectual Capital). The last works Crainer discusses were first published in 1998: Don Tapscott's Growing Up Digital and Patricia Seybold's Customers.com.

I like the format Crainer chose for each of the 80 commentaries. First, he provides a mini-bio of the given author, then a brief discussion of her or his "classic" book, followed by a few notes. In the Bibliography that follows the last commentary (devoted to William H. Whyte and Organization Man), Crainer lists all of each author's major works. Many readers will appreciate being introduced to certain works with which they may not have previously been familiar. For example, Frank Gilbreth's Motion Study (1911), Chester Barnard's The Functions of the Executive (1938), Frederick Herzberg's The Motivation at Work (1959), Marvin Bower's The Will to Manage (1966), Taiicho Ohno's Toyota's Production System (1978), and Joseph M. Juran's Planning for Quality (1988). To paraphrase Isaac Newton, they are among the "giants" upon whose shoulders so many more renowned business thinkers have since stood.

Of course, no such list is complete nor does Crainer claim that his is. My own opinion is that there are some notable pre-1998 omissions (e.g. Eric Drexler, Thomas Kuhn, Michael Hammer, and James Womack) but, to repeat, no such list is complete.

Crainer makes especially effective use of brief observations by Gary Hamel, each relevant to the given context, that are inserted throughout the narrative. Here are three representative examples:

On organizational learning: "If your organization has not yet mastered double-loop learning it is already a dinosaur. No one can doubt that organizational learning is the ultimate competitive advantage. We owe much to [Chris] Argyris and [Donald] Schon for helping us to learn about learning." (Page 8)

On the rise and fall of strategic planning: "Henry [Mintzberg] views strategic planning as a ritual, devoid of creativity and meaning. He is undoubtedly right when he argues that planning doesn't produce strategy. But rather than use the last chapter of [The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning] to create a new charter for planners, Henry might have put his mind to the question of where strategies actually do come from!" (Page 177)

On organizational culture and leadership: "It is impossible to change a large organization without first understanding that organization's culture. Ed [i.e. Edgar H.] Schein gave us an ability to look deeply into what makes an organization what it is, thus providing the foundation of any successful effort at `transformation' or `change.' [Schein's book] Organizational Culture and Leadership remains essential reading for all aspiring `change agents.'" (Page 243)

Those who share my regard for this book are urged to check the other two volumes in the "The Ultimate Series" as well as Crainer's The Management Century, another brilliant achievement.