The Management Myth

This book is so many things at once. It’s a history of management education. It’s a damning indictment of the consulting world. It’s an acerbic memoir of life as a consultant that had me laughing out loud.

But what resonated most with me is that it’s also a profound and rigorous argument for why business schools are not the right place to learn about management and that the traditional liberal arts give you more skills and mental models for assuming responsibility for leading an organization.  

Stewart reflects on the hollowness of management consulting dogma in a way that can only be appreciated by a former management consultant. He compares his past field to the Ottoman empire, who he says used to isolate the young from the rest of the society and grant them extraordinary compensation in exchange for absolute loyalty to the throne. Stewart’s writing on this mercenary mentality of work is widely researched and often funny; this is one of my most highlighted books. Stewart’s conclusion is simple and true: a good manager is “nothing more or less than a good and well-educated person.”