Maverick - Ricardo Semler

This is a business book with a difference! For one, it is not about a multi billion dollar corporation like, say an Exon, or Microsoft. It is about a Brazilian company, called Semco. And the second key difference is, the author, also the owner of the company, does not boast about the good things in his organization. He is proud of them.

Well the theme of the book is pretty straightforward. A successful company in a sinusoidal economy, and an owner with a strain of megalomania in him and therefore he decides to write a book. Well, I excuse the writer for the megalomania bit. Because this is one company that did merit a book. Not as much because it was successful, but because the company believes in the philosophy of, as we say, ‘having a life’.

Semco has done a lot of things differently. Corporate democracy where the employees decide everything from the color of the office walls to the time they come to work to even their salaries is a unique concept implemented by Semco. That, broadly, forms the theme of the book. It also explains, why, despite the obvious on-the-face, impossibility of giving such a freedom to employees, the scheme does work. I will not detail the stories of the company. There are just too many and all of them are just too good to choose amongst them.

The owner, Ricardo Semler, is a man I have tremendous respect for! In the modern era of cut throat competition it is fashionable to be a workaholic. Ricardo, or Dickie, disagrees. It’s not that he shuns work. Or doesn’t have a business vision. But it’s just that he realizes that having fun in life is more important. And honestly, workaholics are only living a delusion that work is actually fun for them. I ramble. Back to Dickie. He takes a two month of every year for vacations, believes that watching a movie on a Monday afternoon is a lot more commendable than working on a Saturday, and he actually is proud of the fact that most of the decisions in the company are taken by others and he is not even invited to most meetings, actually documents that he doesn’t take a whole lot of calls he gets… man… I could go on, and you would get the picture of that good for nothing work-weasel guy out of Dilbert comics. But then, Ricardo Semler does run a company. A successful one at that. And though he is not invited to meetings, knows about his business. So he is not a Jack Welch. But he sure as hell is a lot more interesting.

A lot of business books get very pedantic. Suggesting that what they do is the best in the world and everyone should adopt their ways. The only thing it does is feed the egos of the management of that company. And Maverick holds its reins tightly enough to not fall into that cliff. Eventually, granting that there would be a whole lot of things that people in Semco crib about, it still seems like a fun place to work for! So for the people who might not get a chance, the book is the next best way of learning how a company ought to function. This really is a business book with a difference.

Clash of the Titans - Richard Hack

I have always enjoyed business books. Maybe it’s because I have done an MBA. (I know that sounds snobbish, but when you study business management, learning how, say, a Microsoft or a Google become the mammoth that it is, is actually quite thrilling. My love for business books is a different topic altogether) But all business books that I had read so far were about businesses that I more or less understood. Or if not understood, at least I could grasp. Say technology, or Consumer Goods, or Retail. It’s about making something, and selling it.

And when I started on with Clash of the Titans, I was quite enthused about expanding my horizons and reading about a new business, namely media. The book is about the clash of the two titans in the media world, Rupert Murdoch, and Ted Turner. Both incredible business men who have touched my lives quite personally in their own ways. Murdoch through his Times of India, and Ted Turner through Cartoon Network. This is not to say that Star Sports or Star Movies or HBO or their other ventures haven’t been a part of my life, but their influence was certainly considerably lesser.

Richard Hack tries to give the book as fictional a feel as possible. Through his non-sequential narration of starting with an episode midway in the chronology, then going back to the beginning to come back to the start of the book again. That’s a ploy done to death, but it still holds its charm. And then there is (over-)dramatization of several scenes, the details which can not possibly be confirmed with regards to their accuracy. And while the purpose of it to not render the book boring is accomplished, the author does go overboard by ending every chapter with “… and the tides had turned for the two giants to collide in a feisty storm” or lines to that effect.

As such Clash of The Titans is as much a business book as it is a compressed biography of Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner, juxtaposed brilliantly. There the book is something unique, and reads almost like a movie screen play. Both Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch have led incredible lives and have built incredible companies. The book traces the life of both these protagonists in the right amount of detail required in the context of the book.

The business side of it is actually not that easy to follow. Or maybe it was because I don’t really understand the business of media. And how exactly Murdoch and Turner become business men of their stature is not very clear. As given in the book: Murdoch buys newspapers after newspapers (as in the publishing companies and not stacks of newspapers) and ensures they become profitable and Turner has TBS and then starts CNN which is a hit. I am oversimplifying what’s there in the book of course, but the book itself oversimplifies their rise to stardom as well. There’s this whole thing of network versus cable versus dish antenna TV which I absolutely did not get. (Time for some Googling) But then the book, at 400 pages, probably did not have enough space to dwell into more details.

The two things that absolutely do stand out for me though are that one, Both Murdoch and Turner have an unending zest for life and want to keep setting goals and achieving them. The book portrays the passion that the two men have, extremely well. Secondly, as constant a character as Murdoch has been through his life, Turner has taken a somersault and turned himself inside out. Murdoch’s priorities have been fairly uniform through his life. Turner’s have changed drastically. Murdoch was always a business man through out his life. Turner was a sailor, a Casanova, an orator, a philanthropist, and a businessman, each in varying amounts in different phases of his life.

The book does an exceptional job of providing glimpses into the lives and businesses of Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, a commendable job when writing about either would have constituted quite a tome itself. That itself makes this book a highly recommended read.

The Debt Threat - Noreena Hertz

Economics has always appealed to not only my intellectual side but my artistic senses as well. Well, I am not a PhD intellectual or anything, and neither is my artistic side heightened to the levels of Picasso. But I still enjoy any book or article or discourse which might have leanings on either the brainy side, or the aesthetic side. And economics for me spreads on both sides of the spectrum. Debt is one among the many financial and economic creations of mankind, which by its very nature is a piece of art really, and requires a mammoth intelligence to understand fully its ramifications.

And Noreena Hertz explores the threatening implications that international debt has in her book. Even if one is not aware of the global economics, you don’t even have to be a whiz to guess what the term “debt threat” might imply. It is very easy to dismiss the book as one more alarmist piece of literature… like global warming or something else.

But I would beg to differ. For one, the author is aware that she might be regarded as a pessimist and an alarmist when she lists the evilness of debts. Secondly the book is not just about how debt is killing a horde of people in poor countries. It is a complete piece of research on how the whole cycle of debt became vicious in nature, how are the countries suffering because of that, what are the outcomes, and the remedies as well. It is a complicated issue, one does realize. And as Bono (yeah, the U2 rockstar) succinctly puts it, the author does do a commendable job on cutting out the acronyms and making this whole issue a lot more understandable for the non-economists but at the same time are concerned about the well being of the world.

The examples in this book seem to be very repetitive. It is one country after another, suffering under the weight of debt their governments has taken. Some dictatorships have taken debts just to lead a comfortable life for themselves, some governments have taken debts to make weapons, some to destroy forests in an attempt to save the economy, and some simply to service older debts. And these examples take the book perilously close to that dreaded “alarmist” tag. But those examples are just to strengthen the point that the author is trying to make. And while perhaps slightly overused, they are not out of place and definitely not unneeded.

The high point of the book is that the author gives a practical way out. Now, as I said, I am no PhD to really say whether her ways are practical. But as a normal civilian, I find the thought process and the logic sound. And as the author herself says, what she has given in the book is a blueprint, a suggestion at a high-level which needs to be refined and chiseled at to come out with policies to thwart the debt threat.
Having said that, though the book speaks about a topic which everyone should know of which itself would go a long way to mobilize public opinion, the book might be a bit heavy for absolutely everyone to read. Maybe if there could be a series of articles in the newspaper… or some other marketing ploy which would increase the target audience manifold would help. While not everyone might have an appetite for books, a newspaper article might be up for grabs. And the more the people are aware of this issue, the better

It Happened in India - Kishore Biyani

Finally a business book from India! And no, it did not come from the Tata’s or Birla’s or Ambani’s. It has come from the reasonably unlikely quarters of Biyanis. Actually it is just one Biyani that is famous yet: Kishore Biyani, the first generation business man who has given retail in India the shape it is in. Sure we don’t know how are Pantaloons and Big Bazars and other ventures of Kishore Biyani going to shape up in the wake of Reliance Retail and foreign players. And neither did Kishore Biyani set up the first mall in the country. But he could still be heralded as the Father of Indian Retail simply because he has, as Malcolm Gladwell would say, “Tipped” the retail industry in India. He has taken malls from the domain of the elitist to the masses. And even though the business of Kishore Biyani is minuscule compared to Walmart or Tatas, he has achieved a tremendous amount, enough to warrant an autobiography of his business life.

And true to his style, this book by Kishore Biyani was meant for the masses. It was released in paperback, and priced at Rs. 99. Which is the least I have paid for a business book ever!

However, a good business man, and a thriving business operation, does not necessarily a good business book make! That is exactly what has happened here. The book oversimplifies the whole business a bit too much for the reader to grasp the complexities of the business environment, that too, in a sector which is otherwise dominated by the unorganized players. The best business books tend to chart the journey of everyone involved, capturing sufficient detail to convey the challenges of the business without over doing it which would bore the reader. It’s a fine line to tread. And this book is on the simpler side of the line. It misses that investigative journalistic touch and the business details. Perhaps if an independent author had written a book instead of Kishore Biyani himself, assisted by a writer, he might have done a better job.

Having said that, the book does give glimpses of the Indian Retail scenario. And even the brief insights are quite a delight to read. The growth of the business itself, and the thoughts of Kishore Biyani at every juncture and inflection point for his company are quite well narrated. The anecdotes and comments by people who have worked with Kishore Biyani… umm… well there are too many of them and most are generic praises that anyone could shower on anyone. But then, some of them highlight specific facets of Kishore Biyani’s business style and acumen, and they cover up for all the other write-ups which are plain flattery.
The book is not really written for the B-school audiences. It is meant to fire up that entrepreneurial spark in the people who are looking for a hero to emulate. And yes, Kishore Biyani is a source of bucketfuls of inspiration for such young guns. This book will be more than vindicated if it manages to produce even a single Kishore Biyani in this country of over 1 billion people.

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

This book was one of the top ten management books in 2006 according to a publication. Having read this book, I would say that it does offer a few lessons to learn. But for me the biggest takeaway was that people conduct some crazy experiments to determine some really weird things.

For starters, “Tipping Point” is a wonderful phrase. If Malcolm Gladwell did come up with it, he has to be applauded. For me, it is a phrase that should be used as fervently by the Marketing honchos as any of their other jargons. Because “Tipping Point” is essentially a market phenomenon, especially in the business management context. And every CEO worth his salt would love to have his sales triple in a year or two. That is, it is wonderful if a company can make a product, which is barely selling, “tip” on its edge and have it accepted by millions of consumers.

The book starts of explaining this phenomenon of tipping point, why it happens, who causes it and eventually how can someone deliberately achieve it. As far as the logic of the argument goes, it is pretty sound. And examples are quite relevant. The one real good thing about the book is that it is not in just a business context. It has got a social context with business relevance. The other thing that I like is that there are plenty of examples to support the theory that the author is purporting. And while the theory is pretty obvious (like all management theories tend to be) the examples are quite counter-intuitive, varied and thorough. In fact what the author does is collect a lot of experiments, which were conducted for their own specific reason, bind them in a common theme of finding the causes for the tipping point, and present it as a package. So in that sense, the book is quite complete. Though while giving some of the lengthy examples, the fact that the book is about tipping point, is a bit lost in the background.
However, I didn’t feel that the exploration of the phenomenon of tipping point was really scientific. It was a bunch of examples and some thoughts of the author which, really, only give a structure to something we all know. As I said, it states the obvious, in a structured way. Still, all in all, I thought the book was a good read. Primarily because of some of the examples and other research that are described in fair amount of detail. And though the book wasn’t particularly enlightening, I did learn quite a few new things. And therefore, I have no regrets on reading this one. However, to rank it as one of the top ten management books is a going over the top really. But then strange are the ways in which the best-sellers syndicate operates.