Book Review: Who will cry when you die

‘Who will cry when you die’
By: Robin Sharma
Jaico Publishing House

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This is another wonderful book from Robin Sharma. I picked up this book because it seemed light – topics were covered in small chapters, each chapter based on a particular theme or lesson. Lessons from the book can be called ‘wisdom’. While going through the book we often wonder if the wisdom in the pages are not the same ones which our grandparents taught us. I think yes, not much of what Robin tells us is really ‘new’, but what is wonderful is the way he tells us and the context in which he explains his topics. I found the book very comforting, and practically very useful.

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I highly recommend it to all.

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- Rahul

‘Outliers’

‘Outliers: The Story of Success’

By: Malcolm Gladwell

Little, Brown and Company

ISBN 9780316017923

‘Outliers’ is a wonderful book which can change our opinion on how we see success and the successful. The bottom-line of what the author wants to say is that the successful don’t become so only because of either their talent or their hard labour. They succeed also because of the environment and circumstances in their life when they were trying. The author picks up examples of many business legends and celebrities including Bill Gates, Mozart, and the Beatles, and proves his point.

Is there any ‘perfect’ month of birth for a Hockey player? Is there any particular hours of practice needed for success? Could Bill Gates succeed if he was born two years after his birth-year; or his school didn’t purchase a computer? Did being children of Jew immigrant garment workers help succeed in legal services in NY? How does culture of an immigrant’s native place influence his success? Could plane crash be explained by understanding the culture of the pilots? Why Asian kids are better in Maths than the English? What is called ‘Culture of Pride’ and what is its origin? Does absolute merit matter or is there any ‘threshold’ of that to succeed? What is difference between IQ and practical intelligence? All these questions are answered and explained in this book.

The author definitely has a good power of observation and logic to explain things. He also makes use of the studies and observations of a lot of other researchers and academicians. I would recommend this book to all.

- Rahul

SCM Best Practices

“Supply Chain Management Best Practices” (Second Edition)
By David Blanchard
Wiley Best Practices; John Wiley & Sons, Inc

The book identifies some of the world’s best supply chains, and discusses why they are so in case format. Companies like Dell, Boeing, P&G, Apple, or Pfizer have very unique solutions to their unique supply chain challenges. The book mentions the AMR research which identified world’s 10 best supply chains in 2009. Apple topped it and Dell stood second. The author also identifies the top metrics which can be used to measure supply chain effectiveness and finds that inventory turnover is perhaps the best of those. It’s highly recommended for all supply chain practitioners and interested business managers.

- Rahul

Book - Open-Book Experience

‘The Open-Book Experience - Lessons from over 100 companies who successfully transformed themselves’
John Case
Perseus Books; Amazon [A]

Open-Book management is a new approach to management – the term being coined by the author John Case who is an author of 4 business books including Open-Book Management: the coming business revolution. The author is executive editor at Harvard Business School Publishing where he edits the monthly newsletter Harvard Management Update.

Open book management starts with this basic assumption: A company performs best when its people see themselves as partners in the business, rather than as hired hands. And the building blocks of an open-book system are:

1. Transparent company: You have to create a transparent company.
2. A company of businesspeople: You need a system of joint-accountability – a system where everyone is responsible for his or her part in the company’s performance.
3. A stake in success: You give a stake in success as well as pay them for their time.

The book presents examples from across industries to describe what open-book management is, how it is useful for top and bottom lines and how it is implemented in both the small or big companies. An interesting read, but readers should go deep only if they are really interested in the nitty-gritty, otherwise a quick scan will be of great help.

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.