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BOOKS Words Chris Gibbons
WHAT’S WRONG WITH MANAGEMENT AND HOW TO GET IT RIGHT FAITH & COURAGE: THE POLITICAL PAPERS OF MEWA RAMGOBIN – ANTI-APARTHEID AND DEMOCRACY STRUGGLES, SOUTH AFRICA, 1960S TO 1994
GORDON INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS SCIENCE
EDITED BY IAIN EDWARDS I AMAZON.COM I $13.67 That apartheid was a monstrous system is common cause and the brutally tragic deaths of the likes of Steve Biko and the Cradock Four are well-documented. Far less so are the lives of lesser luminaries like Durban activist Mewa Ramgobin, a long-time foe of the National Party government, President of the Natal Indian Congress, Treasurer of the United Democratic Front and 1984-85 treason triallist. GIBS Professor Iain Edwards has moved to redress that imbalance with this meticulous new collection of Ramgobin’s memoirs and political papers, working closely with Ramgobin himself who is well into his 80s. What emerges is not only a picture of considerable personal courage, like so many of his contemporaries, but also of the grinding, soul-destroying bureaucracy of apartheid. Here is a man who spent more than a quarter of his adult life under either house arrest or banning order, which meant strict confinement to a building or a particular suburb, forbidden to meet with friends or relatives or to travel. For example, the sudden sickness of a relative was never an excuse, forcing late-night visits to a Kafkaesque magistrate asking for permission to travel to a Durban hospital. Permission was sometimes granted, sometimes not. This legal de-humanisation went on year after year, something that has, in my opinion, been quickly forgotten by many who did not experience it first-hand. In that sense, Ramgobin’s decision to allow Edwards access to his papers was important and one which will be of considerable assistance to future historians. Edwards has also written an extensive introductory chapter summarising Ramgobin’s life and achievements, and placing the documents that follow in their historical context. At this stage, the book is only available in e-format from Amazon. It would be a great pity if it were not finally published on old-fashioned paper.
TONY MANNING I PENGUIN I R250 Tony Manning is one of South Africa’s foremost strategy consultants and a prolific author on the subject. So it comes as something of a shock to read his new book which says, in essence, that the Management Emperor has no clothes. Or, to put it differently, there has been nothing new in the development of management theory and practice since Peter Drucker in the 1950s, and much of what he codified had been developed by the likes of Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan half a century earlier. Into the dustbin, then, go the likes of Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence), Jim Collins (Good to Great), W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne (Blue Ocean Strategy), Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad (The Core Competence of the Corporation) along with a veritable host of boxes, matrices, dashboards and balanced scorecards. Manning’s compelling argument is that “Every management idea is a framing device – and no more than that”. These are mere tools that force us to think and until “they provoke and shape conversations, they’re worthless”. He stipulates that those conversations need to revolve around eight critical practices which every single company must study if it wants to be competitive. If you love a glitzy new fad, you may find Manning’s list depressingly close to ordinary, basic common sense. Among the eight: • Be led by people who are driven to grow their business, and to do it by growing their people. • Learn what’s happening in the world, and adapt, faster than rivals. • Be highly effective at execution. Be warned, though. The fact that his list is so plain vanilla does not in any sense imply that the task is easy. Apply Manning’s eight practices to your business with rigour, and you will have to think as hard as you have ever thought about anything. That’s also perhaps Manning’s central message: to do the basics and do them brilliantly – all of them – takes immense mental application and great skill. And there are certainly no magic bullets or instant solutions to help.