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Part - II

In the 33 chapters on Gurus, Taylor, Weber, McGregor, Maslow, Elton Mayo, Drucker et al are discussed along with some more "not so famous" and "famous" names. For example, Edgar Schein, typically discussed amongst HR professionals (Career anchors and psychological contract), shares pages with Kenichi Ohmae of the Japanese global business strategy fame. Reg Revans of Action Learning fame is next to Michael Porter, quoted by every management student worth her salt.

This balance of the Guruhood, renders the book a very interesting read, provoking and enlightening at the same time. One discovers to one's humility, that the ideas of a certain Chester Barnard, buried in an impossibly tough book called, "The functions of the Executive", was the one toasted by Tom Peters and Waterman as, "The first balanced treatment of the management process." He apparently identified the essence of the word "Organization man" - the quintessence of a typical bureaucrat! Phew!

Very interesting tidbits emerged from some readings. Like the fact that both the Quality Gurus, Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, had worked at the Western Electric's Hawthorne Plant, some years prior to Elton Mayo's famous experiment! Also consider Reg Revans citing the Buddha for justifying the antiquity of Action Learning: "As an early believer in action learning, (he was) teaching others that it is from their own real experiences that the most fundamental truths are most likely to be learned" *. Or Charles Handy's tongue-in-cheek comment on why he often came out with far-reaching ideas like the Shamrock organization: "... a slightly irreverent streak and a tendency to ask WHY?" **

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* Chapter on Reg Revans, pg.140.
** Ibid, pg.55.