The New York Times has long been acknowledged as America's newspaper of record because of the complete and authoritative way it chronicles events on a day-to-day basis. Its business coverage has proven no exception, and in
The New York Times Management Reader, editors Brent Bowers and Deidre Leipziger of the newspaper's "Business Day" section assemble more than 65 highly illuminating and perceptive stories published over the past few years to show precisely how some of today's most cutting-edge companies are tackling the top issues. Following chapter introductions by David Leonhardt that highlight common themes--managing entrepreneurially, recruiting and retaining successfully, thriving after mergers and acquisitions, surviving when things go wrong--the original
Times stories are presented (with updates at the end, when necessary) to put things into an even more useful perspective. There are articles on leadership succession at S.C. Johnson, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and TV's Nickelodeon, for example, and tales of movement from old economy thinking to new at places such as Bertelsmann, Hughes Electronics, and Harvard Business School. And while most examine the way the business world's Goliaths have reacted to 21st-century challenges, a few focus on interesting Davids, such as the independent California coffee shop that stared down a Starbucks in its neighborhood. The varied content and the way it has been grouped according to theme might just make these stories even more pertinent and instructive than when they first appeared. --
Howard Rothman
1 Information, Analysis, and Entertainment
Bowers and Leipziger have assembled and edited one of the most valuable collections of essays now available in which various authors examine what the subtitle correctly suggests are the "hot ideas and best practices from the world of business" during the past two years. The material is carefully organized within ten sections which range from "The Real World: When Theory Meets Practice" to "Visiting Olympus: The Corporate Legends." In the Foreword, Harold J. Leavitt suggests that there are at least three reasons why this volume can be helpful: "These verbal snapshots, taken together, provide a panoramic view of the actual organizational world circa 2000"; "In this era of volatility and impermanence, of mergers and takeovers and of wild markets, these readings remind us of a reality too easily forgotten: that much of organizational management has not changed"; and finally, the various essays "spotlight something far more than this year's managerial beats and beauties, and more than the unchanging, deep heart-beats of organizations. They catch the new, new thing: the speed, turbulence and instability that have sharply and permanently differentiated the new organizational surround from all its predecessors." In effect, what we have here is a "yearbook" which correlates the past with the present while suggesting what an uncertain future could prove to be.
It remains for each reader to determine which of the sections and which of the individual essays (to which David Leonhardt has written crisp and insightful introductions) are of greatest interest and value. I hasten to add that, as a reader's needs and interests change, there will be what Adrian Slywotsky calls a "value migration." Hence the importance of determining which essays are grouped within each section. (I wish the editors had listed them in the "Contents" section.) At the moment, the sections which interest me most are "Moving with the Times: Old Economy Meets New" (#3), "The Talent Squeeze: Recruiting and Retaining Employees" (#6), and "9-1-1: When Things Go Wrong" (#9). I also enjoyed "Visiting Olympus" (#10) which features brief but rigorous discussions of "corporate legends" such as Warren E. Buffett, David Merrick, Tom Landry, Bill Gates, and Peter F. Drucker, followed by a lengthier discussion of Sanford I. Weil. Julie Flaherty provides an appropriate Afterword in which she briefly compares and contrasts certain business principles (and cultural values) in the 19th and 20th centuries. Great stuff.
In the Foreword, Leavitt says this about the material in this volume: "No ribbons and bows here, no airbrushed warts and scars, just sharp, clear pictures of the new whirling managerial world, a world that will surely be whirling even faster by the time new M.B.A.s are ready to jump aboard a year or two from now." As we proceed into a new century, change may well be the only constant and yet....and yet, as various authors represented in this volume suggest, certain "hot ideas and best practices" have been essential to commerce throughout human history. Plus Ťa change....
Of all the business books I have read within the past year, this is one of the very few which is as entertaining as it is informative. If a higher rating were possible, I would give it.
