What Management Is: How It Works and Why It's Everyone's Business
What Management Is: How It Works and Why It's Everyone's Business
Joan Margretta, Nan StoneHarperCollins£20ISBN:0-00-713246-8
The authors suggest that this book is not just for managers and students of management – but for everyone. This is because management matters – to all. It is the driving force behind all the innovations of the last 100 years. Margretta and Stone attempt to cover and relate a number of topics from value creation through business models to competitive strategy, the 80/20 rule and decision analysis. They do this by beginning with a description of what is required to be a manager, and then explaining, in general terms, how to do it. The material is organised into two simple, main parts: "Design: Why people work together and how", and "Execution: making it happen". There is then a final chapter – "saving the best for last" on "Managing people: which values matter and why".
Whether the basic premise – and therefore intended readership – is justified is perhaps arguable, but the authors do provide useful lessons and insights into a number of management areas. Often this is through case studies– some of which have been aired before, but many of which are new. The book aims to promote "managerial literacy". Certainly it does a good job of setting out many of the basic principles of management and offering advice on how they might be deployed.
