The Management Bible

Citation

Alonderiene, R. (2006), "The Management Bible", Baltic Journal of Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 117-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/bjm.2006.1.1.117.2

Neil Flanagan and Jarvis Finger, the authors of other best‐seller books represent their new book – The Management Bible. Although the title proposes religious aspects, after authors' explanation on the title choice the reader will perceive the “management” to be the key word.

The Management Bible covers more than few hundred management topics (problems) in the consistent writing manner. The book is made of over 300 two‐page long chapters brought under 11 sections: managing yourself, managing your career, managing relationships, communicating, building essential skills, planning, staff‐related issues, managing conflict, managing crises, marketing, and organization‐wide issues.

The Management Bible impresses with its easy language, clear and consistent style, first. Every chapter has the same structure and references to the related subjects – that makes it easy to follow up. Besides, every topic is supplemented with interesting facts; brief research findings; valuable quotes; emphasized important points; questions for self‐examination and reflection; references for further reading; and anecdotes or cartoons. All of it helps to comprehend the given information better. As a matter of fact, personally for me, the “smile and ponder” section helped to retain attention best.

Second, the book has a very positive approach. The authors emphasize not the problematic aspects in an organization or in a manager's behavior (attitude, personal life) but the ways to improve it.

The book has the practical value. Only few chapters give some theoretical basis on particular issue, otherwise the whole book is a set of advices on one topic or another. Every chapter is opened with the question “how …?” and followed by guidance what should be done, and all the manager needs to do is to follow it step by step. If the manager has strong theoretical knowledge, let us say, about strategic planning, SWOT analysis or project management; and lacks practice how to implement it – The Management Bible is the right book to read.

Although the (all level) managers are the ones the book is dedicated to, however, it could be interesting also for academic people.

The topics on how to boost self‐confidence, how to get rid of bad habits, how to remember people's names, how to say “no” are useful for any person, not just a manager. Besides, any employee could use some help when preparing his/her CV, asking for a pay rise, dealing with people he/she does not like, making decisions and so on. Talking from my position, The Management Bible is wholesome for me as a lecturer, especially the parts about effective communication, speech preparation, handling constantly late people or hostile audience, etc.

After describing the positive aspects of the book, I cannot help but mention its deficiencies. The writing style reminds me the advices in cosmopolitan, for example, on how to lose some weight. Also the book is not universal, it is meant for western managers, or to be more precise, mostly for UK, USA and Australia, because some of the given recommendations are based on the existing laws in particular countries. Cross‐cultural perspective would add to the value of the book.

And finally let us see what happens if any precise manager, impressed by The Management Bible follows all the suggestions. The authors refer to the quotation of Brian Tracy that “everyone works eight‐hours a day for survival. The time spend beyond eight‐hours, allows one to become excellent in one's field”. Moreover, they add that it is necessary for a manager to be aware of the company's culture in order to have a brilliant career. That means to work twelve hours a day if others do so. Besides, if manager wants to be healthy and wants to fight stress he/she needs to give “30‐45 minutes for brisk walking four to five times a week before breakfast”, “exercise several times a week” and get “plenty of sleep” (that means “get as much sleep as you need”). Of course a manager has to “attend seminars and courses regularly”, read top management journals and books and so on. Add the time used for traveling to/from work, eating and errands running. Let us do some simple counting and we will see that the day is too short for all the suggestions to be implemented.

Summing up – The Management Bible is helpful with its practical look to the management world, however, one should be critical how far the receipts could be directly implemented in their working environment and life also taking into account the cross‐cultural particularities.