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Manager's Good Study Guide
376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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July 20, 2019This is a reference text best used either as a refresher or to support study. I heard her speak once and her writing is considerably more fluid. The text is clear and thoroughly illustrated with graphs and charts. Perhaps slightly too much so, at times I felt that either text or a chart was useful but having both was just repetition - but one could say that this allows the text to benefit a wider range of readers. The eye that drinks in the chart can skip the text and not lose out by doing so.
It is striking how adaptable basic charts like two by two matrices or simple loop diagrams are. A quick change of labels is all it takes to illustrate a different function.
The text really aims at an introductory level so isn't critical in its approach beyond listing pluses and minuses to particular techniques for example we are told that An example of a mission statement is: "To live with integrity and to make a difference in the lives of my family and other people". p170 Which is so vague as to almost universally applicable from the Emperor Caligula (who certainly made a difference in peoples lives and who apparently lived with integrity to his beliefs) to me. Perhaps not having integrity and being flexible is better than maintaining integrity and not changing irrespective of circumstances? Maybe it would be frightening if the emperor Caligula had a mission statement. It's a curiously religious sounding term - do missionaries have mission statements? Does modern business come out of religion offering salvation in the form of the one true tennis shoe? But this isn't the kind of text to ask such questions.
As a general introduction I prefer Understanding Organizations but that doesn't cover the basics of financial management, although the treatment here only gives a taste and not enough detail to be helpful unless you already have familiarity with the topic. Oddly Quality approaches barely get a page and sadly there isn't enough about systems. But then there is rarely ever enough about systems in my opinion, but lucky there is always Thinking in Systems for beginners. Again this is a reference work ideal to refresh the memory or to support other learning but isn't a shortcut to universal knowledge.
It is striking how adaptable basic charts like two by two matrices or simple loop diagrams are. A quick change of labels is all it takes to illustrate a different function.
The text really aims at an introductory level so isn't critical in its approach beyond listing pluses and minuses to particular techniques for example we are told that An example of a mission statement is: "To live with integrity and to make a difference in the lives of my family and other people". p170 Which is so vague as to almost universally applicable from the Emperor Caligula (who certainly made a difference in peoples lives and who apparently lived with integrity to his beliefs) to me. Perhaps not having integrity and being flexible is better than maintaining integrity and not changing irrespective of circumstances? Maybe it would be frightening if the emperor Caligula had a mission statement. It's a curiously religious sounding term - do missionaries have mission statements? Does modern business come out of religion offering salvation in the form of the one true tennis shoe? But this isn't the kind of text to ask such questions.
As a general introduction I prefer Understanding Organizations but that doesn't cover the basics of financial management, although the treatment here only gives a taste and not enough detail to be helpful unless you already have familiarity with the topic. Oddly Quality approaches barely get a page and sadly there isn't enough about systems. But then there is rarely ever enough about systems in my opinion, but lucky there is always Thinking in Systems for beginners. Again this is a reference work ideal to refresh the memory or to support other learning but isn't a shortcut to universal knowledge.
March 17, 2018
repeated subjects + why the headlines are written in yellow?!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews