Book - Case of the Bonsai Manager

‘The Case of the Bonsai Manager – Lessons from nature on growing’
R. Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, Tata Sons
Penguin Books; Amazon [A], Rediff Books [R]

Recently one of our marketing professors made a very good point: that Western authors in management haven’t and can’t know the pulse of India and hence we can’t learn marketing by reading Kotlar and other Western authors alone. In the same arena, a question arises: how much valuable contribution Indian authors have made in the management writing? This book is also a part of the answer.

The author loves and watches nature and uses his experiences to pill off the intricacies of business leadership in a manner not found quite often. By giving examples of animals and creatures from snails to elephants, and then from the plant life, this book tries to reach out at the biggest problem from a different angle – what causes managers to get their growth restricted or shunted and hence they are reduced to being a Bonsai Manager….

The book has a slow pace and examples, though all Indians, are at places personal and couldn’t be seen without creating a good/bad impression about the organisations they deal with. Overall, here is a great book for managers and managers-would-be, and also is a brilliant book for nature lovers who want to see how their knowledge and experience can be converted (read marketed) into such a beautiful read.