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In this breakthrough business book, Pascale, Millemann and Gioja troll the emerging science of complexity for "ideas [that] can produce a concrete bottom-line impact." Extracting key "dynamics of survival" from the life sciences, these three management consultants successfully show business leaders how to turn their companies into agile and adaptable "living systems" that achieve long-term vitality and sustainability in a swiftly evolving environment. Their four "bedrock" principles are "Equilibrium is a precursor to death"; "Living things move toward the edge of chaos"; "Components of living systems self-organize" in response to turmoil; and "Living systems cannot be directed along a linear path." Writing with clarity and verve, the authors illustrate these larger points by comparing the functioning of organic systems (e.g., Yellowstone National Park), the behavior of organisms (dental plaque) and of insects (fire ants) with detailed case studies of five companies (British Petroleum, Hewlett-Packard, Monsanto, Royal Dutch/Shell and Sun Microsystems) and the U.S. Army. Practical-minded readers will appreciate their nitty-gritty insights into the relative advantages of "adaptive" and traditional "operational" leadership, as well as their consistent distillation of concrete business guidelines. While the authors aver that "there is no permanent victory in this eternal cycle of life and death," they make a persuasive case that "understanding living systems does not decisively win the game but, most assuredly, it improves the odds."
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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http://www.surfingchaos.com

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This book is an ambitiously conceived and fully realized one-volume encyclopedia of business. It includes over 150 best practice essays written by topic experts, several hundred management and action checklists, summaries of seventy seminal business, bios of business greats, a business dictionary, a world business almanac, and an extensive topic-based listing of additional information sources (books, magazines, Internet, and associations).

"Every person works within or deals with the business system and therefore needs to understand its nature and foundations," writes Wheeling Jesuit University's Younkins. In the best book, the noted advocate of free markets offers the vehicle to that understanding -- a comprehensive overview of the philosophical basis for, and the moral and ethical rights and responsibilities that underlie, the capitalist system.

What Management Is, by former Harvard Business Review editors Joan Magretta and Nan Stone, identifies management as the driving force behind key innovations of the past century and presents a jargon-free look at the way its core principles work. Designed to promote "managerial literacy" up and down the business food chain, as well as among those who simply "want better communities and a better world for our children," the book uses concrete examples to explain fundamental concepts and practices like value creation, the 80-20 rule, and decision analysis in a way that sheds light on them for the uninitiated while providing needed perspective for the more experienced. "Think of this book as everything you wanted to know about management but were afraid to ask," Magretta and Stone write. A comprehensive exploration of the overall process rather than a traditional how-to, in its first section What Management Is examines why and how people work together; the second section shows how ideas are translated into action. With case studies ranging from Old Economy stalwarts like Ford to New Economy upstarts like Dell, along with pioneering nonprofits such as the Nature Conservancy and India's Aravind Eye Hospital, the authors explicitly lay out the basics along with a framework for employing them in a wide variety of situations. --Howard Rothman

Considering the astounding impact companies have had on every corner of civilization, it's amazing that the development of the institution has been largely unexamined. Economist editors Micklethwait and Wooldridge present a compact and timely book that deftly sketches the history of the company. They trace its progress from Assyrian partnership agreements through the 16th- and 17th-century European "charter companies" that opened trade with distant parts of the world, to today's multinationals. The authors' breadth of knowledge is impressive. They infuse their engaging prose with a wide range of cultural, historical and literary references, with quotes from poets to presidents. Micklethwait and Wooldrige point out that the enormous power wielded by the company is nothing new. Companies were behind the slave trade, opium and imperialism, and the British East India Company ruled the subcontinent with its standing army of native troops, outmanning the British army two to one. By comparison, the modern company is a bastion of restraint and morality. In a short, final chapter on the company's future, the authors argue against the fear, in antiglobalization circles, that "a handful of giant companies are engaged in a `silent takeover' of the world." Indeed, trends point toward large organizations breaking into smaller units. Moreover, the authors argue that for all the change companies have engendered over time, their force has been for an aggregate good.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Read a BusinessWeek review of this book at
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_12/b3825029_mz005.htm

Why are so many businesses such depressing, poorly directed messes? Ask Barry Gibbons, enlightened capitalist, high-spirited wit, and the man who nearly single-handedly pulled Burger King out of a long, disparaging slump, rendering it robust and dynamic (without cutting heads).

In this rollicking, iconoclastic book, Gibbons blasts apart the thick wall of hubris, hierarchy, regimentation, and exaggerated complexity so endemic to the corporate world--and lays bare his 101 "Universal Laws of Business," commonsense truths about how to run a business profitably and well. His sage witticisms and sensible opinions cover motivational theory, limited terms for business leaders, being big but acting small, hurdling marketplace barriers, unhealthy profit, new branding, innovation, information technology, and more.