A review by wolvereader
The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong by Matthew Stewart

4.0

Interleaving chapters about the history of business education and the "discipline" of business strategy with the author's own story of his time as a management consultant, this was an entertaining read that calls into question whole genres of popular business books. Built on the shaky foundations* of Frederick Taylor and expanded on by a series of professors and self-styled 'gurus' that are more interested in selectively choosing case studies that fit into their favorite frameworks than applying the scientific method, Stewart makes it clear that if you're expecting to strategize your way to business success, you might have better luck reading tea leaves. Having read a number of the books that Stewart skewers, I'm in thorough agreement with him about the efficacy of such theories.

This book was informative and a bit eye-opening. And Stewart's personal story was worth reading as well.

* No, I'm not saying this from a Software Development perspective--in which even if not false, Taylorism doesn't apply--but Taylorism really is built on fabricated results, rampant self-promotion, and poorly-designed experiments.