Strategy Bites Back: It Is Far More, and Less, Than You Ever Imagined (Paperback)

Strategy Bites Back is the antidote to conventional strategy books -- and conventional strategy formation. Edited by the legendary Henry Mintzberg, it contains contributions from everyone from Gary Hamel to Napoleon Bonaparte, Michael Porter to Hans Christian Andersen: essays, poems, case studies, cartoons, whatever it takes to 'free your mind' and unleash the crucial emotional side of strategy formation. Coverage includes: strategy and brinkmanship, culture, seduction; strategy lessons from your mother, from beehives, chess grandmasters, even the National Zoo. Along the way, Mintzberg and his colleagues take on the sacred cows and entrenched beliefs that keep strategists from recognizing their most powerful options. Strategy Bites Back doesn't just make strategy fun: it helps define strategies that offer huge upsides and real inspiration.

Henry Mintzberg normally bites back on issues of management, organization, and corporate social irresponsibility (i.e., shareholder value), as well as management education and strategy. (Managers not MBAs, with Berrett-Koehler in the U.S. and Financial Times-Prentice Hall in Europe was his last book.) He managed to get a Ph.D. degree in management at MIT and has slipped about 130 articles past unsuspecting editors. He is the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University.

Bruce Ahlstrand likes to prospect for strategy gems in unlikely places, from the game of Texas Hold'em to the Greek tragedies. He is devoted to developing new and creative ways of teaching business strategy and has never met a case study that he liked. He has a Doctorate from Oxford University and an M.Sc. degree from the London School of Economics. He is a professor of management at Trent University in Ontario, Canada.

Joseph Lampel began his career believing that strategy is the answer but has recently concluded that it might be the answer to the wrong question. Joe was awarded a Ph.D. degree in management by McGill University for good behavior. He subsequently spent seven years at Stern School, NYU, trying to break into show business. He resides at Cass Business School, City University London, an institution that happily accommodates his quest to find the answer to strategy's unanswerable questions.

Henry, Bruce, and Joe are also the authors of the best-selling Strategy Safari

(Financial Times-Prentice Hall).