There is a new phenomenon around business strategy books. The new concept is to create a "novel" that tells the story of a manager or business leader who is struggling with his business and needs outside advice. In the form of this new publishing approach, the struggling manager meets with a former colleague or mentor who challenges the manager's thinking and guides him to a new and correct course of action. These management fables are easier to read than traditional academic leadership tomes, but are often a stretch in terms of plot and dialog.
Another problem that many of them face is that they tend to become too granular in their recommendations. As the wise sage coaches the manager, he or she will often have a 12 point or 15 point plan which unfolds over the book. These points are sometimes indistiguishable from a previous point. That's not to say that the advice is wrong - just often appears that the concepts were stretched to fill a "book" when a shorter article might have sufficed.
Patrick Leoncini, who wrote Five Disfunctions of a Team is one of the leaders in the management fable book sector. I've previously reviewed Follow the Other Hand, which introduced the concept of magic and how the concepts behind magic can impact a management team. Today's review is of another management fable - Seeing David in the Stone.
This book combines three different genres to make its point. There is the management fable, about a struggling senior manager who is concerned with actions the owners of the company are taking and his discussion and learning with his wily mentor. There is a brief history of some of the most well known inventors, scientists and leading thinkers, each of which demonstrate a skill or approach the mentor wants to teach the manager. And, as an added bonus, there's some travelogue involved as the mentor takes his pupil through various sites in Italy.
None of these concepts are wrong in the book, and frankly much of the advice is good. However, the authors attempted to combine too many perspectives and storytelling approaches, so that each storyline feels very thin. I understand the concepts they are trying to convey, but the storytelling approach was very thin. I often thought as I read the book that no management team would work this way. Using people like Einstein, Madame Curie and others as examples provide great demonstrations, but the book skips around too much for my taste.
I really liked the premise of this book and I wish they had stuck more closely with the concept of tracking Michelangelo. One of the vignettes reviews Michelangelo's creation of the David, from a poor piece of marble after others had made the attempt. I think the authors' points could have been extracted from the story of Michelangelo and just a few other celebrities, instead of the host of people they chose to highlight as examples. The author's points are that we often chalk up someone's success to wealth, intelligence, opportunity or a host of other factors, when it was really diligence, determination, hard work and preparation that made them successful. Many of the examples listed were considered failures - Edison and Einstein both were considered failures initially, or were considered outsiders with little chance of success - Madame Curie as an example. These individuals formed their own opportunities and became famous because of their focus and hard work.
The book presents a number of leadership lessons and actions. I think most of these are valid, but as with many of these approaches they are probably too fine grained for full elaboration. There are some great stories in this book which debunk the myths about some famous people and the story of their success. Check out Seeing David in the Stone for yourself.
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