The Witch Doctors - Hardcover

Micklethwait, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812928334 ISBN 13: 9780812928334

Publisher: Crown Business, 1996

Synopsis

The Witch Doctors is a one-stop guide to management theories, fads, and the gurus who promote them that will spark controversy, debate, and a dialogue for change. Funny, entertaining and outspoken, this is a book no American worker can afford to miss.

About this title

From the Back Cover

ctors is a one-stop guide to management theories, fads, and the gurus who promote them that will spark controversy, debate, and a dialogue for change. Funny, entertaining and outspoken, this is a book no American worker can afford to miss.

Reviews

In a skeptical, entertaining, iconoclastic audit of the management-guru industry, Economist editors Micklethwait and Wooldridge focus primarily on pundits such as Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, James Champy and Michael Hammer, but also puncture the management-theory hype emanating from consultancies and business schools. Much of the advice dispensed by these sources, the authors argue, is faddish, riddled with contradictions and jargon, based on simplistic formulas, no more reliable than tribal witch doctors' medicine. They view the craze of reengineering (organizing a business around processes rather than departments) as, too often, a pretext for downsizing. Along with giving an analysis of Japan's hybrid, flexible managerial practices, they identify the phenomenally successful network of family businesses created by the overseas Chinese as an alternative model for business growth. Micklethwait and Wooldridge have built their fair-minded, balanced critique around hotly debated issues in modern management?a company's optimal size, harnessing knowledge as a resource, leaders' accountability, strategic planning, globalization?making this a useful, thoughtful tool for managers in large or small firms.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The authors, both writers for the Economist, provide here an excellent criticism of the gurus of management theory, including Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, John Naisbitt, Kenichi Ohmae, Ted Levitt, John Kay, Rosabeth Kanter, and Michael Hamner. Published offerings by corporate leaders Bill Gates and Lee Iacocca are also considered. The treatment appears relatively objective, pointing out the contradictions among the various theories. The authors examine the great commercial success of these theories and give examples of their applications. With some well-backed-up potshots at the theories, Micklethwait and Wooldridge contribute significantly to the understanding of the management fad industry. This well-written book should be read by business, governmental, and public library partrons.?Littleton M. Maxwell, Univ. of Richmond, Va.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In his "Dilbert" cartoon strip, Scott Adams takes daily potshots at the latest management "tools" and those who wield them, and Eileen Shapiro effectively skewered trendy management philosophies in Fad Surfing in the Boardroom (1995). But Micklethwait and Wooldridge, both editors with London's influential and respected Economist, take a more serious (but still sometimes amusing) look at the major new ideas in management philosophy that have been introduced during the last quarter of a century. Based on a two-year international research project and using hundreds of case studies, this book investigates what happens over an extended period of time in organizations that have implemented various new management techniques. The authors discover that with each different theory and set of circumstances, there are ideas that are effective and others that are not, and they provide the information necessary to help sort out the successes from the failures. David Rouse

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown Business
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0812928334
• ISBN 13: 9780812928334
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 369