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Fresh from Oxford with a degree in philosophy and no particular interest in business, Matthew Stewart might not have seemed a likely candidate to become a consultant. But soon he was telling veteran managers how to run their companies.In narrating his own ill-fated (and often hilarious) odyssey at a top-tier firm, Stewart turns the consultant’s merciless, penetrating eye on the management industry itself.<em>The Management Mythoffers an insightful romp through the entire history of thinking about management, a withering critique of pseudoscience in management theory, and a clear explanation of why the MBA usually amounts to so much BS—leading us through the wilderness of American business thought.
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DEBUNKING MODERN BU P H I Loso PH Y Emrrrmining and .dighrfy :hacking [ill L¢-pun: Fm; 2~hw Tun nun sINEss ISBN 978-0-393-06663-4 USA$27.95 cAN.$35.00 . d nt of the A brilliant not-to-be m1sse accou ·t ' management thi n ks the way 1 reasons why does- and why they are flawed. If CEOS, consultants, top managers, and other financial wizards are so smart, how come t~ey screw up so badly? Why is there no correlatiOn whatsoevel" between a business school education and success in business? Why might you be better off studying something as irrelevant as- philosophy? In The Management Myth, Matthew Stewart offers: • An insightful romp through the entire history of thinking about management, with memorable sketches of Frederick Winslow Taylor, Elton Mayo, Peter Drucker, Michael Porter, Tom Peters, and other management celebrities • A devastating critique of pseudoscience in management theory, from the scientific management movement to the contemporary disciplines of strategy and organizational behavior • A swashbuckling account of the rise and much-anticipated fall of management consulting, laced with personal tales about cryptic PowerPoint presentations; the bait-and-hold teebniques that keep clients paying to be told what they already know; and the colorful internal politics at his own ill-fated consulting firm, where rivals for power found imaginative uses for an in-hause shrink • Historical perspective on why so many CEOa make so much more than they deserve • A clear explanation of why the MBA unally amounts to 10 much BS With wit and wisdom, Stewart makes an e1ectrifJiug cue that the questions and insights of ••nag.emen.t theorists belo:ng not to the ICi· eDCN but to philo1ophy, and that, in the final ....,._, •acocxt m•n•ger il nothiJ:J.g more or Ieee tlla a po.l ad welHclucated penon.• /'"" '~~' Jnr Malllt•·w Stewart 'tf THE COURTIER AND THE HERETIC " ~S tewart ! lays tho gr oun d for a new genre: rt gorous, readable intellectual history for the rGadcr who wo uld neve r buy a work of pure phil oso phy, but wa nts to know why people think the way th ey do." - The Eronom ist ~'There is no better way to make the history of tdeas come alive." - N ew York Malthcw Stewart is a former management consultant and the author ofthe acclaimed The Courtier an.d the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World. He li ves with his family in Santa Barbara, California. Vis it him on the Web at mwstewart.com. Jock~t dt•lil{n : D~&virl J High, highclln .rum ,)nckl't. phologrnph : !I ugh l{rellrhmer I SlonCH I Oelly lmnKlll Author pholo~,:rnph Knlhorilll' Rte~wnrt W W NORTON & COMPANY . . N E W YO RK • LONOON Also by Matthew Stewart The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World Monturiol’s Dream: The Extraordinary Story of the Submarine Inventor Who Wanted to Save the World The Truth about Everything: An Irreverent History of Philosophy, with Illustrations The Management Myth Matthew Stewart