Managing from A to Z

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L is for Lear
King Lear may be the definitive work on succession management. But it is also about the failure of authority and the ability of omnipotent executives to destroy organizations with one poor decision. "One of Shakespeare's clearest lessons is that when this much power is placed in one person, there is a great chance that the power will be used in a capricious or whimsical way," writes Paul Corrigan in Shakespeare on Management: Leadership Lessons for Today's Managers. And though today's organizations are less feudal than the England of Shakespeare's plays, Corrigan sees no shortage of modern Lears. One sign of progress: When contemporary business leaders blow it, their followers end up without jobs. When Shakespeare's leaders blew it, their followers ended up without heads.

M is for martial arts
From the jujitsu-schooled warriors of feudal Japan to cinema's crouching tigers, practitioners of martial arts are celebrated for their agility, speed, and ability to use an opponent's power against him or her. For business leaders, what's not to like? Judo strategy is particularly important for small companies, explain David Yoffie and Mary Kwak in Judo Strategy: Turning Your Competitors' Strengths to Your Advantage, because "it values skill over size and strength." The business world is awash in successful judokas: for example, Charles Schwab turned Fidelity's fee-collection strength against the giant by eliminating many of Schwab's own charges. Then there's Netscape, which initially outfoxed Microsoft in the browser wars by championing cross-platform technology. Of course, the outcome of that battle was predictable to anyone who's seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. All the fancy fighting in the world won't help you if the other guy has a gun.

N is for Newtonian physics
The influence of Sir Isaac Newton has been pervasive in business -- and not just in the years when Apple's sales were falling. Newton's rationalist view of the universe influenced everything from the mechanical models that underlie organizations to modern accounting systems. But the juiciest management meat is in the laws of motion and gravitation, says Richard Koch, author of The Natural Laws of Business: How to Harness the Power of Evolution, Physics, and Economics to Achieve Business Success. For example, entrepreneurs guided by the principle of action and reaction will stake out not the hot market of the moment but rather the hot market destined to emerge in opposition to it. The business equivalent of gravity is competition. And intense competition imitates the forces that create black holes. But black holes are an Einstein thing. And we already have an entry for "E."

O is for organized crime
Wise guy is an imperfect synonym for guru. So Bob Andelman has an excuse to seek management lessons in the wiretapped conversations and court testimony of mobsters. (See Context magazine, February/March 2001.) Take this bit of advice from Boston capo Ilario Zannino: "If you're clipping people ... make sure you clip the people around him first. Get them together, 'cause everybody's got a friend. He could be the dirtiest [bleep] in the world, but someone likes this guy, that's the guy that sneaks you." Andelman makes the management connection by telling leaders to use a "killer app" to "knock off an entire class of competitors" -- much the way that Home Depot sent hundreds of hardware stores to sleep with the fishes. The entrepreneur's viewpoint comes from The Sopranos' Paulie Walnuts: "How did we miss out on this? Espresso, cappuccino, we [bleeping] invented this!"

P is for philosophy
Who'd a thunk that Tom Chappell, founder of Tom's of Maine, used the works of theologian Martin Buber to get his toothpaste company back on track? Or that pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus may have introduced change management? Philosophy is relevant to business, and not just the Hobbesian stuff that floats the boats of masters-of-the-universe types. In his book If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business, Tom Morris asserts that certain elemental truths "undergird any sort of human excellence or flourishing." The goal is to reinvent corporations along the principles of truth, beauty, goodness, and unity. And what would Aristotle do at General Motors? He'd make sure all the employees find their work personally fulfilling. That is, if his busy lecture-circuit schedule let him.

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Leigh Buchanan

Leigh Buchanan is an editor at large for Inc. Magazine. A former editor at Harvard Business Review and founding editor of WebMaster magazine, she writes regular columns on leadership and workplace culture, and she contributes Inc.'s capsule book reviews, "A Skimmer's Guide to the Latest Business Books."

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