Management gurus Book

Ashoj 8, 2077, Thursday

Management Gurus - David Evans (2000)
[Penguin Readers Intermediate (Level 4)]

Genres: EnglishGradedReaders/ Nonfiction
Pages: 65
Rating: 5/10

Themes: Importance of Business and Commerce/ Moral Responsibility of Business Establishments/ Business Motivation/ Role of Managers

Opener:
"In his film of 1936, Modem Times, Charlie Chaplin shows business life as a kind of bad dream. The film is set in a huge factory where people are simply parts of a machine. The workers are not allowed to talk and they are not expected to think. Their jobs are boring and their lives are ruled by the clock. Every action is measured by managers in white coats. Above them all, there is the figure of the boss. He's the man who owns everything, controls everything and sees everything. He even gives orders to workers while they're in the company's washrooms!"

Summary:
At the start of the century, Frederick Taylor's ideas about how to organize work on the factory floor were revolutionary and they are still widely practised today. Alfred Sloan, the boss of the giant General Motors in the earlier part of the century, was the originator of several new ideas now accepted as basic in the field of management. Peter Drucker was an academic who challenged accepted practices and began the process of developing new approaches to management. Tom Peters is an unconventional figure for whom the term 'management guru' seems to have been invented. His advice comes at a high price. Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Charles Handy have both spent a lifetime thinking and writing about the modern world of business management.

Verdict:
The book was a drag. It did not feel as smooth and fluent as I would have liked it to. Yet, the topics it covers are vastly significant. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of business and commerce in the world today. Nowadays we depend on business and commerce for almost everything in our daily lives: our food, health, jobs, houses, wealth. And what companies do or don't do is affecting our environment so profoundly that even the survival of the planet now depends on them. So it is not surprising that the study of business is a subject of enormous importance and is studied and researched in many universities around the world. In this book, by looking at the contributions to business by six individuals, we come to see how ideas about business have developed throughout the twentieth century.