February 1998
The Circle of Innovation by Tom Peters
(Hodder & Stoughton)

Tom Peters is in serious danger of becoming a parody of himself. A master entertainer on the seminar circuit, Peters and his publishers have attempted to marry his off-the-wall seminar presentation with a hardback book, and readers with time-pressured attention spans will think it a marriage made in hell.

The text is littered with bizarre punctuation, the oddest being the habit of separating the letters in a word by hyphens, as in "b-i-g idea" or "v-e-r-y wrong."

Some paragraphs read as if James Joyce or T S Eliot in his Waste Land period had tried to write a business book: "These are marvellously scary times. (Marvellous = Scary.) Ripe with... opportunity. (Marvellous = Scary = Opportunity). Laden with... peril. (Marvellous = Scary = Opportunity = Peril.)"

The book is high on the kind of hyperbolic soundbites that work better on the platform than on the page. A hotel manager who coined the phrase, "Michelangelos of housekeeping" sends Peters into parodic freefall. Without stopping to develop the concept, he rushes to the conclusion: "Awesome customer service!" So that was what Pope Julius felt about the Sistine chapel ceiling.

November 1998
Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson
(Virgin Publishing)

This book, the first of two planned volumes of autobiography, is no more enlightening on Branson's management techniques than either of the biographies that preceded it.

Just when you think you learn something about a deal or how a business idea was developed, he fades from view like the Cheshire Cat, leaving only the grin behind.

Some day the Branson magic will be put to the test. Even if all the businesses thrive, what of the succession? Is he too much of a walking brand for the group's long-term survival? Meanwhile, this is a good read, but much more aimed at his customers than his business peers.

Emotional Intelligence at Work by Daniel Goleman
(Bloomsbury)

Substitute "maturity" for "emotional intelligence" and Goleman's [earlier] book would never have become a bestseller, but that's basically what EQ is. Some never learn it, but this book provides useful management advice.

July 1999
Tiger by the Tail by Ian Maclaurin
(Macmillan)

The remarkable thing about this book is how it rips the lid off the family infighting in the old Tesco boardroom.

All good knockabout stuff, but Maclaurin cast a more revealing light on the relationship when talking to Director recently about high managerial rewards in the UK. He had no qualms about Tesco's top managers being paid a lot because "one could say we brought more good to Tesco and its people in our tenure than the Cohens did, but we will never, ever be as rich as they were, because they founded it."

The book has a threnody of guilt running through it at the workaholic days and weeks lost to wife and family, and there is a serious lesson here on the price so often paid for business success. "In writing so much about the importance of people, I have neglected the most important people of them all," he laments. Sadly, his wife died just a week after this book was published.

October 1999
In Sam we Trust by Bob Ortega
(Kogan Page)

Small-town America with its mom and pop stores did not always welcome Wal-Mart, but old Sam, who became America's richest man in 1983...and was renowned for his eccentric frugality, was happy to give tips to smaller competitors: develop niches that Wal-Mart doesn't cover, for example, and concentrate on things a giant discounter can't do, such as really personal service. Good advice, even for those not in the direct path of the asteroid.

November 2000
Surfing the Edge of Chaos by Richard Pascale
(Texere)

Pascale's book analyses how a few visionary CEOs—among them Sir John Browne of BP—have radically changed their organisations using the principles of chaos and renewal found in nature's living systems. If this sounds a touch off-the-wall, corporations currently spend $50bn a year on "change consulting" alone—yet 60 per cent fail because people have a tendency to resist change.

This is a book of profound importance whose ideas will undoubtedly be mainstream by the time Pascale gets around to writing his next one in 10 years.