Book reviews

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The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Still Don't Work and What You Can Do About Yours — Michael E. Gerber

An inspirational book in its simplicity and effectiveness. Gerber assumes the business person wants to succeed and tells you exactly what you need to do. Almost every small business will recognise themselves and will be able to see what they can do to avoid the pitfalls of success.

Enabling knowledge Creation: how to unlock the mystery of tacit knowledge and release the power of innovation, by Georg von Krogh, Kazuo Ichijo, Ikujiro Nonaka. Oxford University Press, 2000.

The book tries to bring together the latest ideas in knowledge management to cover the individual, social and organisation issues of creating and using the various types of knowledge in an organisation. This is a tour-de-force of the whole subject and as such is a little hard going in places. Never the less there is a lot in here and we use it a lot.

The Living Company by Arie de Geus. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1997.

A treatise on organisations that approaches them as living entities and explores the idea for its consequences. Written by a major exponent of scenarios in strategy there is a lot here for thinking about scenarios. de Geus introduces the idea of a 'future memory' as a way of using scenarios to prepare the organisation to act in the face of future events.

The Entrepreneurial Mindset by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian MacMillan. HBS Press, 2000.

An impressive set of concepts and tools for creating, promoting and testing ideas for their business value. The book covers market analysis, organising, prioritising, and bringing the organisation along with you. It includes the author's excellent ideas on "discovery-driven planning".

Leading the Revolution by Gary Hamel. HBS Press 2000.

Gary Hamel at his best — berating the current practices of large corporations and promoting alternative ideas and approaches. If you feel your organisation is atrophying around you then this is the book to inspire you to try to change it and give you a load of ideas about how to go about it. Inspirational for those pushing change, you can see what you need to change and can start to identify the barriers.

Wellsprings of Knowledge by Dorothy Leonard. HBS Press 1995.

Leonard tackles a number of the key issues in creating and using knowledge through the innovation process. Starting with a number of barriers to effective innovation (change) she develops an understanding of the key activities in an innovation process. This is a handbook for doing innovation.

Learning in Action by David A. Garvin. HBS Press 2000.

Covers a number of issues, barriers and enablers, to organisational learning. There is an excellent chapter on After Action Reviews as a method for capturing learning.

Common Knowledge by Nancy Dixon. HBS Press, 2000

A knowledge management view of running a business. Chapter 3 on serial knowledge transfer is particular helpful in explaining the role of reviews (particularly After Action Reviewing) in creating knowledge.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

This little book explains how some ideas take off in a society to create new fashions. The concepts are particularly relevant if you are trying to introduce new ideas into your organisation. The book will help you set up a campaign to target key influencers and understand the dynamics of ideas in an organisation.

The Springboard: How Storytelling... by Stephen Denning

Stephen Denning used stories to introduce the benefits of knowledge management to the senior managers at the World Bank. In this book he tells how he developed his storytelling technique. He provides explicit help on structure and formats to help you use his ideas.