Book review: The Management Myth

A skeptical look at the history of 20th-century business management theories, including Taylor's minute analyses and optimizations of business processes, Elton Mayo's claims about the importance of team formation, and Tom Peters's pop-management books. Stewart has expanded his 2006 Atlantic article into a book that combines his memoir of working at a rapidly expanding 1990s consulting firm, and an exploration of the history of management studies and business schools. Both stories are fascinating.

I'm surprised at how dodgy much of the management science is. Several foundational studies were based on wishful thinking or selectively winnowed data. Business schools focus on charts and diagrams, lists of principles, and case studies of successful and unsuccessful businesses, but it's not apparent that any of this leads to success. Stewart cites a study that companies that hire lots of MBAs more commonly become less successful; it's probably reversion to the mean (a successful company expands and attracts lots of new hires), but clearly MBA-carriers are not a silver bullet for either planning or execution problems. Stewart argues that the critical things about management are thinking clearly and behaving ethically, which can be taught just as well by a general liberal arts degree, such as philosophy, economics, or English.

Highly recommended for anyone working in a business, whether they're managing projects or being managed.