For our time out from English grammar this week, I suggest two highly provocative readings: the first about a book that mercilessly devastates management theory and management consulting, and the second an optimistic but rationally lucid prescription for ending all warfare.
The first article, “Bogus Theories, Bad for Business,” is a book review by Philip Delves Broughton in the
Wall Street Journal of Matthew Stewart’s
The Management Myth. In the newly released book that builds on an article that he had written for
The Atlantic magazine in 2006, Stewart, a former management consultant himself, describes the management consulting profession as “built on a science of management that is both narrow-minded and intellectually bogus” and one that “ignores the broader purpose of business.”
Read Philip Broughton’s “Bogus Theories, Bad for Business” in the WSJ now!Read Matthew Stewart’s article “The Management Myth” in The Atlantic now!In the second article, John Horgan’s “Winning the ultimate battle: How humans could end war” in the July 7, 2009 issue of
New Scientist magazine, the author cites a number of studies showing that warfare is not a product of the human genes as some scientists had suggested but simply a response to changing lifestyles brought about by changing environmental conditions and dwindling food supplies. “War is not in our DNA,” he concludes. “And if warfare is not innate then, surely, neither is it inevitable.”
Read John Horgan’s article “How humans could end war” in New Scientist now!
