Three New Management Books to Read in the Next Quarter
The first quarter of this year was certainly a feast for those who tend to devour management books, as a broad range of hotshot management gurus published their new works. Here are three books that came hot off the press in Q1 of 2023 that I can recommend to anyone reading this.
Understanding Organisations... Finally! by Henry Mintzberg
In his newest book, published in February, Henry Mintzberg, one of the world's leading management gurus, describes and discusses a set of seven fundamental forms of organization: the personal enterprise, the programmed machine, the professional assembly, the project pioneers, and others.
For over half a century, the McGill University Professor has observed organizations, advised them, and worked in them. In this inspiring work, Mintzberg synthesizes his fifty years of research.
Here’s the quote that really sums up the book for me:
Confronting Our Freedom by Peter Block & Peter Koestenbaum
In this book, also published in February, Peter Block makes sense of and highlights the best of the life's work of renowned business philosopher Peter Koestenbaum. This fascinating book invites us to reconstruct our understanding of the concepts of freedom, accountability, anxiety, guilt, death, and evil—all in relation to the workplace. There are, of course, many nuggets of wisdom in this book. Here’s a sample: "Treating people as a freedom questions the conventional belief that people working in organizations are resources, human assets, talent acquisition targets—objects and products and effects of the culture and leadership in which they operate."
This Is Beyond Budgeting by Bjarte Bogsnes
Published by Bjarte Bogsnes in February, this book gives much-anticipated background into the latest insights of the Beyond Budgeting movement.
The movement, which evolved in the late 1990s (primarily based on the case of Handelsbanken), has been gaining particular popularity in the latest years.
Bogsnes' book explains, in a no-nonsense style, what Beyond Budgeting is, how it can help companies move beyond the traditional budgeting process, and why it can improve every organization's performance.
There is truly much to be learned from all three of these titles; it’s hard to go wrong with any of them.
Happy reading!
