The Naked Manager for the Nineties

by Robert Heller

What is the secret of business success Does management really exist, or is it a figment of the imagination - like the fabled emperor's new clothes Why do some executives lead their companies to riches and others thrust theirs into the hands of the receiver This entertaining guide takes a new look at the experience of the past decade, not least at what happened in the pressure-cooker of recession. The book's management lessons are as relevant for the multi-million pound company executive as they are for the independent businessman, or his most junior manager.

390 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1995

About the author

Robert Heller was a British management journalist, management consultant, author of a series of management books, and the founding editor of Management Today.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason when I was a teen I had a fascination with reading all kinds of books about business even though I was more of a science person and had no intention of pursuing an MBA type career.

I suppose the world of business - corporate takeovers, battles for market share, strutting CEOs etc., just fascinated me on an intellectual level. It's like war but nobody dies.

This is one of the books that I read at that time.

I wonder how relevant it still is.

The author was British so he gave examples from many UK companies unlike the more popular American management best sellers which almost exclusively talked about US giants.

Maybe if I ever have free time I might go back and read it just for laughs, to see how its "wisdom" holds up.

[Anandh Sundar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is for novices to the world of management. Anyone who has worked in an organization before would know quite a bit of this."I groaned at the title itself_not another corporate bashing book. But I was hooked on opening it.

The naked emperor in Hans Christian Andersen's story was magnificently dressed, not only in the public's mind but in his own. The business executive, ruler of economic empires richer than many nation, has gone one better. Management is an arena for human behavior at its most naked—under stress, but freed from many restraints of civilization. Theories or methods of
management can work wonders in individual companies at individual times, but only because they suit the way in which individual managers like to act in individual markets. "