Managing in the 21st Century

Imagine the chance to have one-on-one conversations with some of the world's most imaginative and innovative management commentators, philosophers, and practitioners of today. In this fantasy, you would have the chance to get first hand Peter Drucker's insights into the management challenges of the future, or hear Michael Porter analyze the challenges of international trade. Such a fantasy is now available to readers of Mike Johnson's Managing in the next Millenium.

The back cover poses the main thesis of the book: "What will it be like to be a manager or a business leader in 2010? This is the key question answered in Managing in the next Millenium, a unique collection of candid, first-hand insights, based on "exclusive interviews with the world's top management commentators, thinkers and doers."

Sure to alienate academic purists who insist that if a Peter Drucker or a Michael Porter speaks, then each and every word must be presented in its entirety, Johnson's book is designed for managers in a hurry, who do not have time to wade through needless words to get to the meat of an issue. To create these fact-filled pages, Johnson conducted one-on-one interviews with the top theorists, faxed precise questions to others, and to broaden the scope of the book, "included extracts from keynote presentations at Management Centre Europe's three most important conferences: the International Human Resources Conference; the G

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f each chapter. Unlike the challenging quotes that start off each chapter (and for the person really in a hurry could serve as a good snapshot of business attitudes), the guideposts are more like little reality checks. For instance, on page 16, that guidepost says "Warning signal: Don't be fooled about Asia as the region that will solve the West's worries. It'll be a tough battle, but well worth the effort for those who are prepared to work at it." That's very practical advice, much like the kind a busy manager would see in a letter of advice from a consultant. It's not challenging, or thought-provoking, but just a good thing to remember. Some of the guideposts are more challenging. "Medium-sized companies are going to be the winners in the next millenium" (p. 20) or "For companies, small isn't beautiful. You cannot know enough to be successful" (p. 22). That guidepost by itself could be a book. The "Insights" parts of each chapter are the same thing that might be called "Case Studies" in a normal textbook. One of the most interesting of these was the one marked "English Only." After discussing some of the multi-language problems of business, he says What is clear though, is that  despite what the French governmen
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Approximate Word count = 2109
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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