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The Management Myth: Debunking Modern Business Philosophy Paperback – August 16, 2010

by Matthew Stewart (Author)

64 customer reviews

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"A devastating bombardment of managerial thinking and the profession of management consulting…A serious and valuable polemic." ―Wall Street Journal

Fresh from Oxford with a degree in philosophy and no particular interest in business, Matthew Stewart might not have seemed a likely candidate to become a consultant. But soon he was telling veteran managers how to run their companies.

In narrating his own ill-fated (and often hilarious) odyssey at a top-tier firm, Stewart turns the consultant’s merciless, penetrating eye on the management industry itself. The Management Myth offers an insightful romp through the entire history of thinking about management, a withering critique of pseudoscience in management theory, and a clear explanation of why the MBA usually amounts to so much BS―leading us through the wilderness of American business thought.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Entertaining and slightly shocking.”
- Jill Lepore, The New Yorker

“Consistently entertaining and enlightening.”
- Harvard Business Review

“Gleefully revealing the magician’s tricks, Stewart takes readers on a whirlwind tour of how [the consulting] industry came to be a powerhouse. Filled with fascinating insider anecdotes and featuring a who’s who in the consulting world…this wry, absorbing book will enlighten executives about the value consultants actually bring to their clients.”
- Publishers Weekly

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Management Myth "At last, a book that knocks the Kings of Consulting off their thrones. The Management Myth is a rare and often very humorous expose on the shenanigans behind the corporate empire that has catapulted us down the current road to economic turmoil."-John Perkins, best-selling author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and The Secret History of the American Empire "Filled with fascinating insider anecdotes and featuring a who's who of the consulting world . . . this book will enlighten executives."-Publishers Weekly

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Product details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (August 16, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393338525
ISBN-13: 978-0393338522
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 64 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #128,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #70 in Books > Business & Money > Small Business & Entrepreneurship > Consulting
- #148 in Books > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Management Science
- #2074 in Books > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Management

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Krasi P. K.

Just Great

April 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is one of the best (if not the best) books on management. It is written by a philosopher, not by a management professor or a management guru. The main question is: Is management a science? The answer, according to Matthew Stewart, is no. All it takes for a manager to be a good manager is to be a good person. I used the book as a resources in my doctoral dissertation. It is a solid, well-written text.

13 people found this helpful14 people found this helpful

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Hans Peter Bech

Insight and entertainment in one package.

January 15, 2018

Verified Purchase

I couldn't let it down. Very well written, funny and insightful. A modern version of the Emperor's New Clothes.

I have mainly worked with startups and we didn't engage management consulting firms to figure out how to build a business. Being the victim of a major merger around the turn of the century I was involved in defining a new modus operandi - a project lead by one of the major MC firms. I was not impressed.

As I started my own boutique MC company I learned that small league business executives are hungry for ways to cut corners, pluck the low hanging fruits, avoid risk (which you cannot) and find an easy way out. However, they are not prepared to pay much for consulting as they do not make much themselves. They are not impressed with the ivory league MC firms that they don't believe have any experience with the small business (and they are right).

Big league executives, on the other hand, love the ivory league MC firms and are prepared to pay the big bucks. It adds to the prestige of their positions that they are entitled to and can afford to hire them. But they are also expected to do so. I have worked as a consultant for some of the biggest companies on the globe and could only look with envy on the fees that the big boys could charge. Now I understand why that makes perfect sense and this book helped me fully understand the mechanics.

4 people found this helpful5 people found this helpful

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Kim C. Korn

Essential Reading

June 14, 2016

Verified Purchase

Stewart makes sense of management with his panoramic overview that delves into the critical ideas, players, schools of thought, and fads from the origins of modern management in the 1800s to the current day.

I do not disagree with the points made in the most popular critical negative reviews -- but I do disagree that what they see as negatives negates the value of the information Stewart provides.

If you care to truly understand management, read this book. It will not begin to tell you everything you will need to know, but it gives you something of even greater value -- a bountiful understanding of what you do not need to know.

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

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R. Lundberg

A Must Read

June 22, 2015

Verified Purchase

Iconoclastic and insightful, this book alternates between a damning exposure of the so-called science of management and a biography of the author'e improbable career as a management consultant working for a consulting firm that betrayed the very principles it espoused and suffered the fitting denouement it deserved. He basically says there are only two valuable things a consultant can do for your company and these things are grossly overpriced. A type 1 consultant can show you where the Pareto 80/20 rule applies, and a type 2 consultant can show you how to cut costs without wrecking the company. He expounds at great length on the legendary figures and present day gurus of the management advice industry and shows that there is no there there. That great length is the only caveat about this book, I found myself skipping over some of the diatribes because of repetition, just as probably would read the works of Tom Peters or Peter Drucker. One other thing. He seems to believe that the 80/20 principle was an application of Pareto's Law that was popularized by the advent of management consultant firms, I know for a fact that we were using ABC target pricing and 80/20 customer analysis in the 60s, both Pareto based.

10 people found this helpful11 people found this helpful

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Roy Ames

A very biased book - and that's a good thing.

January 5, 2013

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An MBA obviously has worthwhile content including accounting and marketing, and the author could have tried to do more to separate what is useful from the fads and frauds that he is exposing. But that would have diluted his main point: consultants are there to take your money. The method is to hire very smart people, give them a template that supposedly applies to any business (so that you can't question their lack of experience in your business). Next is to create some scary graphs to justify further digging through your data. The final trick is not to have one, but to provide just the right amount of compelling content along the way to keep the money flowing to the partners of the consulting firm as long as possible. Who knew?

You might have suspected that this is how a business of claiming to know more about your business than you do might work. But you can see how it unfolds in chapters that alternate between the history of the gurus, starting with Taylor, and the author's own story from newbie to nominal partner. Obviously the author has his biases which are fully revealed, just as every reader does. But to the most unbiased person who wants to take into account an opposing viewpoint to the business of business consulting, this book is a good and entertaining read.

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

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Mads Stolberg-Larsen

Read it if you - like me - just got into the trade

January 20, 2017

Verified Purchase

I started working as a consultant half a year ago and this book is fun to read because it gives a perspective on the history of management thought, which is definitely not taught at university or in introduction programs at the big companies.
I think there could be a more about how consultants actually create value. For example the author did manage to sell a lot of work. How? And what was his value proposition, because I do believe there must have been some value to the work that he sold. Or where his clients just plain stupid?

2 people found this helpful3 people found this helpful

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András Puiz

It's thoroughly entertaining to read and raises some good points, yet I still feel the book fails ...

September 20, 2014

Verified Purchase

An interesting read, and a bit of an eye-opener. There are two "plots": the author's own experiences in the consulting business, and a historic overview of management philosophies, the latter in a very scathing, critical tone. It's thoroughly entertaining to read and raises some good points, yet I still feel the book fails to deliver on its promise. If it's set out to debunk the "management myth," it should do a bit more than take some caustic critiques of a bunch of hand-picked management experts from the past, and mix it with some first-hand anecdotes. In other words, the book offers limited coverage and does not jell perfectly, but is well written and insightful.

4 people found this helpful5 people found this helpful

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