What Management Is

by Joan Magretta

Book Overview

"This book will help managers in any type of organization, including nonprofits and the public sector, do their jobs better."-- Michael E. PorterHarvard Business SchoolWhether you're new to the field... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743203186
• ISBN13: 9780743203180
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

friendly and jargon-free

The book is about the management basics that aren't always obvious. It offers a concise synthesis of important ideas and practices: - value creation - business models- competitive strategy- the 80-20 rule- performance metrics- decision analysis. With various remarkable examples it shows that the value creation is the managers' chief responsibility in the modern world. It also shows that the managers shouldn't overlook the rest of practices to be successful.The book is amazingly friendly and jargon-free.I would also recommend "How to Survive the E-Business Downturn" by Colin Barrow and "Leading the Revolution" by Gary Hamel in addition to this book.

Good jumping off point

As an engineer that has gotten into business through entrepreneurship I have been surrounded with MBAs who rattle off buzz words. When they start using technical buzz words I can tell real quick that they are using words with no real subtance behind them, but I have avoided talking about "value chains" and "best practices" because though I understood them from context I did was not sure of myself. This book explains many of the key buzz words used in management in clear terms. It also provides references and resources for further study. For instance it recommends "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter. I asked a friend that is a Wharton graduate if she was famliar with the book "Competitive Strategy" and she answered "by Michael Porter?" There are so many business books it is nice to have a guide to cut the wheat from the chaff.I am glad I read this book and it even inspired me to make some changes in my business that have been useful.

An Urgently Needed Briefing

Hundreds (thousands?) of books have already been published on the general subject of "management" so it is reasonable to ask: Why another? What Magretta offers (with the substantial assistance of Nan Stone) is, in my opinion, the best single-volume introduction to what Magretta refers to as "the discipline of management," a subject which is relatively new (i.e. mid-19th century) and, until Drucker's The Practice of Management (1954), not generally understood. According to Magretta, it is "one of the transforming innovations of modern civilization." I agree with her that management's "real genius is transforming complexity and specialization into performance." (This precisely what Bossidy and Charan had in mind while writing Execution: The Discipline of Getting Results.) Magretta's goal is to "present a coherent view of the whole, of the work known as [in italics] general management." Her purpose is to explain "the underlying [in italics] why of both the theory and practice of management....Our mission is to see the forests for the tees, and present what can be complex ideas simply, but not simplistically. We will present a sense of how management thinking has evolved and how the big ideas relate to one another." Magretta and Stone succeed brilliantly. They carefully consider various subjects which include value creation, business models, "the logic of superior performance," organizational parameters, "which numbers matter and why" (the real bottom line), innovation amidst uncertainty, using focus to achieve results, and those values which are most effective when managing others. I think this volume will be especially valuable to relatively inexperienced executives. However, any decision-maker in any organization (regardless of size or nature) will find an abundance of information, useful observations, and practical suggestions which can guide, direct, and enrich their performance. I just hope this book attracts the readership it so eminently deserves. More to the point, as presumably Magretta would concur, I hope it can help to nourish and enhance business acumen at a time when the need for "discipline" in management has never been more urgent.

A must for non profit managers

Read most management books and you'd come to believe that the non profit sector either doesn't exist or doesn't need to be managed. Not this one. At every turn in the road, the authors take pains to tailor their message to the unique concerns of managers running businesses in the non profit sector. They acknowledge the challenges of measuring success beyond the financial bottom line and even hint that non profit management can be harder, with the rules less clear, than managing in the for profit sector. Heady stuff when it comes from an HBR editor.This book would be an ideal introduction to management for the many non profit managers who come from the program backgrounds and lack formal business training. Written in plain English (apparently the authors felt a more compelling need to be understood than to impress the readers with the business jargon du jour), it provides an incredibly useful overview of the challenges of managing a complex organization.It's an easy and valuable read.

The Big Picture - Clear & Lucid

You are new to the game of management and you want an overview of its elements, read this book. You are an experienced business practitioner and you want to play the game with greater skill and dexterity, read this book. You are an employee, or work in a non-profit organisation and you want to grasp what management entails, please read this book. You are a MONK, and you want to understand this great body of knowledge than man engage in day in and day out, seek out and delve into this book. Once in a while a book comes along that is not a fad and is here to stay and remain a classic, this one fits the bill. Well done to the authors. They have really thought hard to make the ideas simple. Its simply effective! Get it before your competition does.