It's time to review a classic. FT Publishing scored a success when this book came out. Suddenly, every senior executive and aspiring corner office occupier was spotted reading this on business class aisles. But has it stood the test of time?
Messers van Assen, van den Berg and Pietersma were Dutch management consultant colleagues who collaborated to present, initially, 60 management models that would help managers in their planning and decision-making processes. The book is thoughtfully laid out into three main parts. The first focuses on strategy. The second, on tactics/execution. The third, on operations. Since its initial publication, the authors have added two more editions with the latest expanding the count to over 75 models in total.
Those of you still fresh from business school or your MBA will clearly be familiar with the more famous models. We all know SWOT. We've all heard of Blue Ocean. Most of us know the BCG Matrix. But what about some of the more exotic ones? How many of us have actually used the MABA model? Or what about the
While clearly expansive, we find that the book's approach to be very broad and worthy only as a reference. Reading this book is not going to make you an expert in Blue Ocean strategy, for example. It devotes four pages to the subject while Mauborgne and Kim devoted 240 pages to their original thesis. So, no, you won't be the next Jamie Dimon by memorising this. It's a guide-post.
What you should do is to ear-mark chapters that you find applicable to work and understand which of the frameworks work best for your department, product or company's predicament or current situation. Even choosing what to adopt requires a bit of a how-to section in itself. Here where our own recommendation and experience is worth noting. Don't be too eager to start seeing your work challenges as being in need of a new model. It might sound exciting to you but it's taxing to others who may not enjoy learning a new framework. Pick one that meets your most pressing situation, but not one that needs urgent attention (it will be far too late to spare time for learning). Socialise the concept with your manager and a mentor before you dive deeper into it. Get their backing since the last thing you want is to appear pretentious by boasting how much you know and recommend a particular approach.
While you're diving deep, slowly sow the seed by mentioning to your colleagues or directs that you think it's time for a fresh change and that you'd like to propose a model.
'Key Management Models' shows how much the science of business and behavioural management has progressed. Given the growth of global trading and the spread of digital channels to track customers, we need more clarity than ever. The drawback is that modern tenets of management science like the Amazon Principles are still not contained in this manual. Which is a shame. However, it's still worthy of being your starting point when you sit down to contemplate your next business dilemna.
Summary
Readability: 9/10
Relevance: 8/10
Applicability: 6/10