Customer Reviews

What Management Is: How It Works and Why It's Everyone's Business

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book, written by 2 former editors of Harvard Business Review, isn't a "how to" book on management, but rather a book giving the "big picture": clearly describing the rules and concepts that underlie the discipline of management. Written in easy language, this book fully "compatible" with what I've been "preaching" over the last 7 years, but that also means there weren't many new things I learned from it (which explains my 4 star rating). I think that most experienced managers won't learn too much from this book (at least that's what I hope, but maybe I'm too optimistic, especially given that books as "The Dilbert Principle" seem to be a "fair" presentation of the reality of management in some organizations).

That said, let me give you an overview of what you'll get:
The first part, entitled "design", discusses business issues such as value creation, business models, strategy and organization. This is clearly a book from after the dot.com era, stressing that it's not technology people want to by, but a product that fulfills a real need, and that this consideration of real added value should drive the business plan (something that many dot.com entrepreneurs seemed to have forgotten). Once you have your business model, your strategy will make the difference in the marketplace, where you have to face all sorts of competition, and try to outperform them. Organization, then, is about figuring out how you will structure your company for reaching your strategic goals: what will you do yourself? What will you outsource, how will the organizational chart and command structures look like?
Where the first section makes clear that good management means having a clear idea of your business, the second part is about making it happen, and thus is called "executing". Here the authors discuss topics as mission, innovation, dealing with uncertainty and focusing in order to deliver results. I especially liked the last chapter of this section, because it stresses that people should be hired for having the right attitude and fitting with the organizational culture (having the same values), an area my company, jobEQ.com is focusing on. If you want to know more about the Southwest Airlines example that is discussed in this chapter, I recommend the book "NUTS!" by Kevin Freiberg, et al.

Overall, you get a solid book explaining the "why's of management in an integrated way I've rarely seen before. If you are looking for a "how to" book on management, I recommend PDI's "Successful Manager's Handbook" in addition to this book. If you are looking for a how to book on leadership, another new book that I like is "Alpha Leadership" by Deering, Dilts & Russell.

Patrick Merlevede, MSc - co-author of 7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence.

The book is about the management basics that aren't always obvious. It offers a concise synthesis of important ideas and practices:
- value creation
- business models
- competitive strategy
- the 80-20 rule
- performance metrics
- decision analysis.

With various remarkable examples it shows that the value creation is the managers' chief responsibility in the modern world. It also shows that the managers shouldn't overlook the rest of practices to be successful.

The book is amazingly friendly and jargon-free.

I would also recommend "How to Survive the E-Business Downturn" by Colin Barrow and "Leading the Revolution" by Gary Hamel in addition to this book.

Hundreds (thousands?) of books have already been published on the general subject of "management" so it is reasonable to ask: Why another? What Magretta offers (with the substantial assistance of Nan Stone) is, in my opinion, the best single-volume introduction to what Magretta refers to as "the discipline of management," a subject which is relatively new (i.e. mid-19th century) and, until Drucker's The Practice of Management (1954), not generally understood. According to Magretta, it is "one of the transforming innovations of modern civilization." I agree with her that management's "real genius is transforming complexity and specialization into performance." (This precisely what Bossidy and Charan had in mind while writing Execution: The Discipline of Getting Results.) Magretta's goal is to "present a coherent view of the whole, of the work known as [in italics] general management." Her purpose is to explain "the underlying [in italics] why of both the theory and practice of management....Our mission is to see the forests for the tees, and present what can be complex ideas simply, but not simplistically. We will present a sense of how management thinking has evolved and how the big ideas relate to one another."

Magretta and Stone succeed brilliantly. They carefully consider various subjects which include value creation, business models, "the logic of superior performance," organizational parameters, "which numbers matter and why" (the real bottom line), innovation amidst uncertainty, using focus to achieve results, and those values which are most effective when managing others. I think this volume will be especially valuable to relatively inexperienced executives. However, any decision-maker in any organization (regardless of size or nature) will find an abundance of information, useful observations, and practical suggestions which can guide, direct, and enrich their performance. I just hope this book attracts the readership it so eminently deserves. More to the point, as presumably Magretta would concur, I hope it can help to nourish and enhance business acumen at a time when the need for "discipline" in management has never been more urgent.

This is a great book for managers and non-managers. It gives enough background for all readers to get a fell of management as well as historical knowledge to remind manager why they are managers. The introduction to the book was to the point and attractive enough to purchase the book. Actually her note that the greatest management leaders were the ones to stop the momentum of managers was a chuckle.

The author broke this book into two parts: (1) Design and (2) Execution.
The first part (Design), broken into 4 chapters described value creation, business models, strategy and organization. Each chapter describes how design works tactically, then when thought about can be understood how they integrate together. This part focuses on how to set-up your organization which then properly gets into the second part of execution, where the wheels meet the road.

The second part (Execution), broken into 5 chapters writes about how you can measure and manage the success of your organization. Examples are concrete for most industries. Although I found the end of the book rushed and not as focused as the previous part.

I found the style of the book to be easy to read and understand the concepts for management and non-management readers. At the end of each chapter were examples from profit and non-profit organizations of the chapter concepts, which enables the reader to understand the ideas being used in various environments.
Have fun understanding how management can be so easy.

As an engineer that has gotten into business through entrepreneurship I have been surrounded with MBAs who rattle off buzz words. When they start using technical buzz words I can tell real quick that they are using words with no real subtance behind them, but I have avoided talking about "value chains" and "best practices" because though I understood them from context I did was not sure of myself. This book explains many of the key buzz words used in management in clear terms.

It also provides references and resources for further study. For instance it recommends "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter. I asked a friend that is a Wharton graduate if she was famliar with the book "Competitive Strategy" and she answered "by Michael Porter?" There are so many business books it is nice to have a guide to cut the wheat from the chaff.

I am glad I read this book and it even inspired me to make some changes in my business that have been useful.

You are new to the game of management and you want an overview of its elements, read this book. You are an experienced business practitioner and you want to play the game with greater skill and dexterity, read this book. You are an employee, or work in a non-profit organisation and you want to grasp what management entails, please read this book. You are a MONK, and you want to understand this great body of knowledge than man engage in day in and day out, seek out and delve into this book. Once in a while a book comes along that is not a fad and is here to stay and remain a classic, this one fits the bill. Well done to the authors. They have really thought hard to make the ideas simple. Its simply effective! Get it before your competition does.

As a recent master's level graduate, I've had the pain and the pleasure of reading a magnitude of books on management. When I picked up Magretta's book, I wasn't sure whether it would have much value for me since I had read all those other books and was familiar with practically all the theories presented in this book.

As is the case often times in the world, the most meaningful insights don't necessarily stem from some totally new idea but from a reframing of existing ideas. This is the area where Magretta's book really shines. She is able to put a vast number of different management theories into a new and coherent perspective that really gives the reader actual value.

For example, the way she frames extreme differentiation as being a monopoly and absolute cost leadership as being akin to perfect competition illustrates her holistic viewpoint. Despite managers' praise of perfect competition, every manager wants to move his/her company toward the monopoly end of the spectrum and away from perfect competition.

I recommend this book to anyone who's trying to cut through hyped up managerial buzz and wants to grasp the meaningful theories all managers should know.

Read most management books and you'd come to believe that the non profit sector either doesn't exist or doesn't need to be managed. Not this one.

At every turn in the road, the authors take pains to tailor their message to the unique concerns of managers running businesses in the non profit sector. They acknowledge the challenges of measuring success beyond the financial bottom line and even hint that non profit management can be harder, with the rules less clear, than managing in the for profit sector. Heady stuff when it comes from an HBR editor.

This book would be an ideal introduction to management for the many non profit managers who come from the program backgrounds and lack formal business training. Written in plain English (apparently the authors felt a more compelling need to be understood than to impress the readers with the business jargon du jour), it provides an incredibly useful overview of the challenges of managing a complex organization.

It's an easy and valuable read.

Antibiotics, Automobiles and Airplanes - Undoubtedly these innovations of the twentieth century have increased our life span and made planet earth a better place to live in. But if one has to think of a discipline that enabled these to happen through the collective effort of individuals and the pooling of resources, it is management - the accumulating body of thought and practice that makes organizations work. There is often a debate as to whether management is a science or an art. The fact lies somewhere in between. While dealing with tasks like productivity of machines, scheduling of projects, procurement of materials, and accounting, management looks like an exact science- number crunching and precise answers. But if this were all about management, computers would have replaced managers long ago. The challenge of dealing with uncertainties, crafting strategy in a unknown future, hiring, training, motivating and developing human assets, understanding customers' real needs are some of the tasks that managers routinely perform. Constantly managers are evaluated against performance targets; those that are determined by the collective needs of the stakeholders- customers, suppliers, shareholders, employees and society. The goals need to be in line with the Organizations' mission and reached within set time frames against fierce competition. Some organizations flourish while many perish. Management makes the difference. This applies to social institutions as well.

This book aims to give a broad overview of management as a discipline. To the extent it covers important topics in a comprehensive manner with good case studies thrown in, it has achieved the objective. It certainly has the width. Ideally suited for MBA aspirants to know what needs to be learnt in Business Schools. If you already have an MBA and rich professional experience, looking for an in-depth analysis of topics covered, look elsewhere.

Joan Magretta does a superb job of distilling the essentials of management from the infinite liquid of history, teachings, theory, and practice of the art. This book is especially useful for people who find themselves in supervisory and middle management roles without a grasp of "big picture" fundamentals, helping them to re-orient their approaches, and increasing effectiveness. While not a "Management for Dummies," repeated readings of "What Management Is" will help any manager get and stay grounded in the critical elements of strategy, numbers, and value creation. Good stuff!