Managing from A to Z

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Q is for quantum mechanics
The Newtonian world is rational, predictable, ruled by numbers. The quantum world -- governed by the motion of subatomic particles -- is uncertain, unpredictable, prone to paradox. Which better describes your business? Probably the latter, says Ralph H. Kilmann, author of Quantum Organizations: A New Paradigm for Achieving Organizational Success and Personal Meaning. Kilmann prefers the quantum model because companies are made up of human beings (which he calls "self-motion monads") with minds of their own. Managers cannot predict human behavior in the same way they can predict, say, what will happen to a billiard ball when you hit it from a certain angle. Consequently, Kilmann argues, they should design strategies, processes, and reward systems with particulate care. (It is tempting to suggest that the quantum view is most appropriate for small companies because they are somewhat closer in size than large organizations to the atom. Tempting but silly.)

R is for religion
In this religious country, who better to dispense business wisdom than the results-oriented leaders of the Bible? Laurie Beth Jones has turned Jesus, CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership into a mini consulting-and-publishing empire based on her subject's motivational and managerial strengths. But Jesus has some Old Testament competition, as evidenced by Moses on Management: 50 Leadership Lessons From the Greatest Manager of All Time. The authors of The Wisdom of Solomon at Work: Ancient Virtues for Living and Leading Today urge managers to also consider Ruth, Job, David, and especially Solomon, who may be the most relevant for entrepreneurs. "The great buildings of Solomon's reign serve as a monument to traditional ideas about prosperity and material wealth," the authors write. "However, if we reflect more deeply, we may face the question, 'for whom do you build up and why?"

S is for Star Trek
Great leadership is about the future, not the past. So why bother with long-dead heroes when you can study someone who won't be born for 200 years? Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the starship Enterprise, epitomizes strong, caring leadership, say Wess Roberts and Bill Ross in Make It So: Leadership Lessons From Star Trek: The Next Generation. Readers will marvel at Picard's focus during run-ins with the Borg and at his deft management of challenging employees, including Data, a humanoid android, and Worf, a Klingon. (This is the definitive book about managing diversity.) Jean-Luc is also a font of inspiration: "We must recognize that in the most dire circumstances, an officer must retain a sense of hope -- trusting in his own ability and in the competence of others to stand firm against what would otherwise be an overpowering tide of helplessness and gloom." Go boldly, Captain Picard. Go boldly.

T is for Tyrannosaurus Rex
Jurassic Park was released in 1993, so the 1994 publication of William Lareau's Dancing With the Dinosaur: Learning to Live in the Corporate Jungle was probably unavoidable. Lareau's focus on the jungle primeval, a conceit achieved chiefly by slapping suffixes such as "-asaurus" or "-adon" onto office stereotypes, is as elegant as it is effective (which is to say, not at all). A metaphor-translation chart explains that a "hotshotadon" is a hotshot and an "executiv-adon bloatasaurus" is an executive. Little can be learned by imagining employees pursued by a Faceupadon Tofailureasaurus, however, since Lareau chose his metaphor for its ability to cause "cognitive dissonance" rather than because corporate types are more like dinosaurs than, say, circus performers or roving packs of baboons. Honest to Godasaurus.

U is for U.S. Marines
Business loves boot camps. But bull-dogged drill sergeants and shorn recruits are not all that the U.S. Marines offer companies. "Everything about the marines -- their culture, their organizational structure, their management style, their logistics, their decision-making process -- is geared toward high-speed, high-complexity environments," writes David H. Freedman in Corps Business: The 30 Management Principles of the U.S. Marines. Marines make decisions quickly but never irresponsibly. Their range of capabilities allows them to handle any assignment. Most important, they get the job done even when the mission is poorly defined and the environment chaotic -- status quo for business today. The marine ethos is embodied by such business leaders as Robert Lutz, now of General Motors, and Fred Smith of FedEx. Of course, other branches of the armed forces have also spawned corporate leaders. But as Freedman reminds us, Ross Perot -- who built rigid, conservative EDS -- was a navy man.

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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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