Management Methods and Tools

Preface The idea to write this book dates back many years. When I was a young management consultant, from time to time my colleagues and I would be assigned to prepare a “toolbox. ” Just as a handyman needs proper tools, so do managers and consultants. Corporate managers often assume that good consultancies have excellent toolboxes enabling them to achieve awesome success in operational and strategic projects. Arguably, top management consultancies are successful in managing their projects. To my knowledge, however, such magic toolboxes do not exist. My colleagues and I never managed to complete any assignment to create a toolbox, because it was always more important for us to be working in the field in order to generate revenue. On the other hand, those few fragments of toolboxes that we did prepare were treated like secret treasures. Now, naturally, no big consultancy is willing to publish its proprietary tools. Thus, while I am convinced that a toolbox is necessary for both managers and consultants alike, I also believe that it only can be developed outside of a consultancy (albeit by someone with knowledge as to what goes on inside of consultancies). There already exist many books dealing with management and strategy, of course, but none of them fits the aforementioned purpose. As a young consultant, I had many colleagues with MBAs or doctorates from such famous universities as St. Gallen, Harvard, INSEAD and others.

Professor Dr. Michael Grabinski is professor for business administration at the University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, independent management consultant, and chairman of the board of BITE AG, Filderstadt.