by Warren Bennis. This is one of those books that has been sitting on my "to read" shelf for a long time. Specifically, almost twenty years. I'm trying to go through my library and find books I haven't read and rectify that. Not watching TV has provided a lot more time for this sort of thing...Anyway, on to the rant, er book. This book is very odd. It has rave reviews on the jacket (well, what book doesn't), but it is more of a rant than a book. Bennis writes a kind of "where have all the leaders gone" book where he looks at past leaders with the rose colored glasses of time, and looks at current leaders (in this case reagan and team) as being a shadow of leaders of the past.
It is interesting to read this book 20 years after it was written, because Bennis is right about a great many things. The 80's WERE a decade ruled by greed, in which many people tossed ethics out the window to pursue the almighty dollar. Incidentally, he also slams the leadership of General Motors as managing towards a disaster. Hmmmmm....
But at the end of the day, it isn't a very helpful book. It reads more like a rant. It reads like a bit of an idealistic dream. He does have suggestions, but they are often only a few paragraphs long and are not grounded in reality. He has a lot of bad things to say about the CEO/COO relationship, which I find interesting because this relationship seems to work quite effectively in churches for a Senior Pastor & Executive Pastor...
I purchased this book as part of a Business Ethics class when I was in college. For some reason we never got to it and I never read it. I can see why the professor wanted us to read it in the context of the end of the 80's, because it is a good book criticizing the lack of ethics during that decade. Twenty years later this is mostly a pass.
Joel
1 comment:
I read it, as an exercise for managers at my firm, and I agree with your comments. I thought I had missed the point, because I didn't find it enlightening or interesting, and now I know why. Thanks,
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