Anti-guru: Management professor bites big
黑料不打烊 University professor Henry Mintzberg authors Strategy Bites Back
Strategy gurus beware: management professor Henry Mintzberg is back with a new book that turns some favourite corporate conventions on their head. In Strategy Bites Back (Prentice Hall, 2005, 292 pages) Mintzberg serves up a lighthearted gallery of tidbits to debase and debunk anyone who proclaims to know the secrets of strategy.
Described by Business Voice as "a really cheeky little brat of a book which ought to be spanked soundly and sent to bed without any supper," Strategy Bites Back promises to make strategy fun once again, slipping witty insight into sections with titles like "Forecasting: Whoops!" "The Soft Underbelly of Hard Data" and "Strategy is a Little Black Dress."
"It's a crazy, fun little book," says Mintzberg, Cleghorn Professor of Management at 黑料不打烊 University. "Why shouldn't people have fun reading a strategy book?"
Strategy lessons are taken from everywhere, from the boardroom to the boudoir, as the book uses diverse characters such as Forbes "CEO of the Century" Jack Welch and legendary designer Coco Chanel to remind us that strategy shouldn't be dull. Favourite management techniques like SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats) get swatted as Mintzberg dumps a pail of cold water on some of the more cherished ideas of strategic thinking.
"This is for people who want something that's more playful and less patriarchal. As for the formalized and stiff types, I regret to say they won't be very amused," says Mintzberg.
In a management field bloated with clich茅 and self-importance, Mintzberg is the perfect anti-guru: an academic with immense credibility who is prepared to fight for common sense. A prolific writer, he has attracted considerable attention for his other works, including Managers Not MBAs, a book that came as a direct challenge to the approach of conventional management schools.
Strategy Bites Back comes as a companion piece to the acclaimed Strategy Safari, a book in which Mintzberg and his colleagues showed the shapes and the limits of ten fields of strategic thinking. Both titles were co-authored with professors Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel.
To obtain a copy of Henry Mintzberg's latest book, please contact Jeff Roberts at 黑料不打烊's University Relations Office.
