Overview Of The Book "Business"
By Michael Kammrath
It takes a lot of chutzpah to name a book, simply, "Business." And even more to subtitle it "The Ultimate Resource." But the Bloomsbury Publishing House set out to create the most comprehensive book about the world of commerce past, present and into the future, and they have succeeded beyond anything you could have imagined or my mere words can convey. Just the scope of the book is amazing: over two million words of text crammed into over 2,000 (very large) pages, with contributions by over 200 of the leading experts in
their fields. And I do mean leading: these are men and women who have published seminal works in their respective fields, are writing for publications like the Economist or the Financial Times, are teaching at the leading graduate business schools, or are practicing at eminent consulting groups or think tanks. For example, I'm a marketing person, and in the "Best Practices" section on Marketing, there are new and original contributions from most of the authors whose books I have on my bookshelves. People like Philip Kotler (generally acknowledged to be the "Dean" of marketing experts, whose more than 25 books are used in the classes of the best MBA programs in the world), Regis McKenna, Al and Laura Ries, Charles Handy, Patricia Seybold, Joseph Pine, and many more (each of whom I would characterize as a marketing "all star").
The two goals of the book are at once both clear and confounding:
1. To help you become more effective in your job; and
2. To help you get ahead in your career.
This is clear in meaning that it is simply understood. But it is confounding in that it begs the question: how could one book accomplish both such ambitious goals?
Bloomsbury has attacked this problem by dividing the book into seven separate sections that cover all areas of Business (yes, all areas of business, and I challenge you to find an area they have left out) and then enlisted the best experts in the world to expound on those aspects.
Best
Practice This section has been designed to "provide you with
overviews of the key problems and issues you are likely to face
at some point in your working life." Each of these essays
begins with an Executive Overview that summarizes the
main points of the article, then goes on to a Making It Happen
section which offers useful advice on applying the main themes
to your own business life. Each essay also contains references
to where you can find more information on the subject, short lists
of books and Websites and where you can find Action Lists and
Management Checklists within Business itself (below).
Management Check Lists &
Action Lists If the "Best Practice" Section belongs
in the realm of theory and intellect then this section could be
put in the practicality and efficacy. The Management Checklists
were compiled by the Chartered Management Institute and offer a
"step-by-step" approach to the things "that really
matter." Everything from "Handling Conflict Situations"
to "Handling Effective Meetings"; from "Preparing
and Using Job Descriptions" to "Setting Up A
customer Care Program." All the do's & don't that
go into approaching these tasks are covered in a logical and concise
manner.
The "Action
Lists" cover a great range (there are over 300 of these lists)
of the key tasks managers are faced with both everyday and at "crucial"
times. These Action Lists are "ways" to achieve specific
goals, rather like "How To" instructions on various goals
you will want to achieve for your business. These goals range from
"Getting Better Results From Your (Advertising) Agency"
to "Staying Cool In A Panel Interview", from
"How To Use E-mail Marketing Effectively" to
"Getting Competitor Intelligence." Perhaps the
most useful section of the Action Lists (at least to non-accounting
types, like me) is the Accounting and Finance Section, where you
can find out how to calculate "Efficiency and Operating
Ratios,""Elasticity,""Future
Rates Of Return," and a whole host of other worthwhile
formulas that can help your business.
Management Library Okay, these are concise reviews of the definitive business
"classics" - the books that have shaped or defined business
as it is practiced today. These books have either faced the test
of time and proved that they "mattered" to business history
or they have been judged by the editors and Advisory Board to be
"landmark" books. This is not to say that there are not
"current" books included (such as the recent best-seller
Built To Last by James Collins and Hamel and Prahalad's
Competing For The Future). But, generally speaking, these
are the books that have defined business disciplines and business
approaches.
These
are not simple "book reviews" as you would find in the
Sunday papers. The editors have helpfully organized each review
to make it easy to understand why a particular book has been selected
as a business classic. Each review starts off with a "Why
Read It" paragraph. This is then followed by a "Getting
Started" section to facilitate your understanding of the
emphasis and rationale underlying the book's place in business history.
The comes a "Contribution" section, which is
the main part of the review - what this book has contributed to
business thought or business practice. Finally, there is a "Context"
section that places those contributions in the spectrum of business
development and what this book may mean for your business today.
Business Thinkers &
Management Giants This is my favorite section of the book, and loads of fun
just to scan through. In Business Thinkers you will be exposed to,
of course, the usual suspects like Toffler and Adam Smith and Drucker.
But you will also run into some you have never heard of before,
like Genichi Taguchi or Harvey Mintzberg or Mary Parker Follet whose
thinking has also contributed to and changed the business world
but may not have the one or two clever theories or single discipline
to their that would have brought them greater fame.
Management Giants is just a sheer joy to go through.
These are the men and women who may not have written about it,
but had a maximum impact on business just by practicing it. And
it is such a wide-ranging list of people and various epochs of
history, ranging from Oprah Winfrey to Thomas Watson, from King
Camp Gillette to Anita Roddick. A listing of the first seven people
presented will give you a taste of the diversity of the group
and times:
John
Jacob Astor
Jeffrey
Bezos
Warren
Buffet
Andrew
Carnegie
Stephen
Case
Michael
Dell
Walter
Elias Disney
From the beginnings
of America to the beginnings of cyberspace, from a Robber Baron
to manufacturing legend, from the maker of animated dreams to
the maker of modern fortunes, these first seven only hint at the
spectrum presented.
Dictionary The Dictionary section is, in one way, just what you would
expect a Dictionary to be: an alphabetical listing of terms. Where
this Dictionary departs is that it is focused exclusively on business
terms and also incorporates:
World
Business English (helpful to those who work for a global
company)
Business
Abbreviations (which also includes the meanings of
acronyms that have come to have the status of words);
Mini-Essays
(rather than just definitions of complex problems);
Biographical
Entries (that are cross-referenced to other parts of
the book);
Extensive
Listings (of organizations such as stock markets, trade
associations, etc.) and
Business
Slang (from around the world, including such terms
as "Trophy Wife" and, my favorite, "Seagull Manager"
[which is a manager who is brought in to deal with a project,
makes a lot of fuss, achieves nothing and then leaves]).
World Almanac This is one of those types of resources that always seems
the most boring. Always, that is until you need to know the population
of Russia or the worldwide revenue created by movies or which country
imports the most linseed oil. This section is crammed with these
kind of facts and figures. It is the kind of information you never
need until you need it (for example, did you know that the Ceaucescu
regime left Romania with 73,260 km of roads of which only 113 km
were motorways? You can find out information like that in this section).
Business Information Sources Although the rest of the book is highly entertaining and
informative, this is the section you will probably most use. It
is filled with over 3,000 sources of simply the best information
on an extensive array of business topics from Acquisitions, Mergers
and Takeovers to Outsourcing, from Logics and Distribution to Franchising
- it's all here. If you are looking for where to find information
this is the place to start.
