David Evans "Management Gurus"

 

David Evans

'I know nothing. In this world we all know nothing. Zero. And do you know why? It's because the business world is changing too quickly.'... A few people now start to laugh. So the man on the stage stops and points at them. 'Why are you laughing? General Motors was the biggest company in the world. It was probably a hundred times bigger than your company. And its managers were probably a hundred times better too. But their problem was that they thought they knew it all and, really, they knew nothing. And that is my message today.'

The people who are watching this man are all very successful businessmen and businesswomen. So why are they watching a man who knows nothing? Why do they listen to his insults? The answer is because the man is a management guru.

'Guru' is an Indian word for a religious teacher. A guru is a person who thinks deeply about life. In India, they are admired and loved by society because they are wise and full of ideas. But in the USA and Europe, the word has a slightly different meaning. It is a word that often describes people who write and talk about business and management. These gurus are not trying to answer questions like, 'How can we live in peace?' and 'What is the meaning of life?' Instead, they ask, 'How can I make more profit?' and 'Why don't people work harder?' In recent years, the ideas of the management gurus have had a big effect not just on business, but also on politics, schools, hospitals and everyday life styles.

This book introduces six management gurus whose thinking has created the modern business world, even though they might say they know nothing!

Frederick Taylor - the man who believed that management was a science. For most of the last century almost every business person believed him.

Alfred P. Sloan - the man who made General Motors the biggest, richest and most powerful company of all time. How did he do it?

Peter Drucker - the man who invented modern management and saw all the changes of the modern world many years before they happened.

Tom Peters - the pop star of the management world. You either hate him or you love him, but you have to listen to what he says.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter - the woman who said that business was competing in a company Olympics. So what does a company need to do to succeed?

Charles Handy - the man who suggests that 'upside down' thinking is the solution to the problems of the modern business world. But what exactly does he mean?

Management Gurus is for people who want to find out about why the modern business world works like it does!

 

 

  

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