Wednesday, July 22, 2009

This Blog Can Change Your Life!

There are two kinds of books in this world (and I’m not talking about textbooks here): books that are interesting to read and don’t teach you anything, and books that try to try to teach you something and ought to be burnt. Business/management books happen to fall squarely in the second category, along with self-help books, motivational books and anything ever written by Deepak Chopra.

Business books first started when people (probably MBAs) with a lot of time on their hands decided that MBAs should not have so much free time on their hands. The truth is that MBAs hardly learn anything during their two-year course. If you don’t believe me, ask any MBA what they learnt in B-School, and they would look lost for a good few minutes before sheepishly telling you something vague about how being in a B-School changed their mindset and made them more confident even when they have no clue what they’re talking about. But no one would ever be able to tell you something specific that they learnt, like the Second Law of Thermodynamics. To plug this gap, B-School students were forced to read business books with the false claim that they contain learnings essential for any aspiring manager.

After having read precisely two business books, I am thoroughly convinced that the entire business book industry is a big hoax. The biggest problem with Business books is that...well, they don’t really deserve to be books. Most of these are books that can be summarised in ONE SENTENCE!

For instance, I happened to read one such business book, called “Who Moved My Cheese?” While the title may hint at a boring in-depth analysis of the dairy-farming industry, the book is actually an infinitely more boring allegorical tale about people needing to adapt to changing circumstances instead of moping about and clinging to the past. The author goes on and on rambling about how this one mouse went into a heightened state of depression when the cheese in his regular place went mysteriously missing and refused to go looking about for more cheese. The other mouse, on the other hand, goes looking for new cheese, all the while scribbling profound quotes on the wall on what he’s learnt for the day (don’t ask me why!):

“The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Find New Cheese”, “Old Beliefs Do Not Lead You To New Cheese” and “Movement in a New Direction Helps You Find New Cheese”.

For a mouse hung up on change, it’s ironic that he doesn’t realize he's writing the exact same message over and over again in a slightly different way. Predictably, this mouse finally manages to get a new mountain of cheese after going through the usual series of struggles and hardships where he feels down and out and as if it’s a hopeless cause. The first mouse, equally predictably, finally dies of hunger, or realises the error of his ways...I cannot exactly remember. But the underlying point of the book is that if you don’t adapt to change, you starve.

Now, I’m not suggesting that no-one ever learnt anything from the book. I’m sure there are a large number of people whose lives changed dramatically after reading this book and who went on to have super-successful careers attending meetings and pocketing bonuses. All I’m saying is that, like cigarette packs, there should at least be some sort of a warning or disclaimer to alert one that this book could be a monumental waste of time for anyone whose intellectual depth exceeds that of an earthworm. The publishers and the author should come right out and state that:

DISCLAIMER: IF YOU’RE THE TYPE OF PERSON WHO FEELS THAT READING ABOUT THE SAME IDEA FOR ABOUT A HUNDRED-ODD PAGES NARRATED TO YOU IN A VERY CHILDLIKE AND SIMPLE MANNER WOULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE DRAMATICALLY THEN GO AHEAD AND READ THIS BOOK. ELSE THE MESSAGE BELOW WILL SUFFICE.

“Dear Reader

When stuff around you changes, you need to adapt to succeed; otherwise you’ll be left behind while others rake in the dough.

Come to think of it, Darwin had said something along these lines when he talked about Survival of the Fittest, so this isn’t even anything new. I don’t even know why I’m writing a whole book on this. Forget I ever brought it up.

Regards

Dr. Spencer Johnson, MD”

Or take the other business book that I’d been forced to read, Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done. Written by a big-time former-CEO chap called Larry Bossidy, he painstakingly rambles on for three-hundred odd pages about the same idea, filling the book up with examples of his visits to various offices and plants and using top-management-y sounding words like paradigm, adaptability, actionable, incentivize, leverage, etc.

It would’ve saved everyone so much time and effort if the publishers had just stated upfront:

DISCLAIMER: THIS BOOK CONTAINS AN ENDLESS REPETITION OF ONE CENTRAL IDEA SIMPLY BECAUSE BIG-TIME CEO LARRY BOSSIDY HAS NOW RETIRED AND IS NO LONGER DRAWING THAT SIX-FIGURE SALARY SO HE THOUGHT WRITING THIS BOOK WOULD HELP GET HIM ONE LAST BIG PAYCHECK. IF YOU’RE THE TYPE TO LAP UP ANYTHING EVER TOLD BY A BIG-TIME CEO AND BE INSPIRED BY IT THEN BY ALL MEANS PURCHASE THIS BOOK. ELSE THE MESSAGE BELOW SHOULD SUFFICE.

“Dear Reader

Even though I’m a big-time business leader who spends all his time jet-setting to far-flung plants and attending strategic meetings, all that amounts to nothing unless you see to it that the plans you make are implemented.

Many of you might think that’s a pretty obvious thing to say, but I’m a big-time CEO and have a lot of real-life examples to prove my point, so I thought I’d write an entire book on this.

Sincerely,

Larry Bossidy”

For some of these books, the title itself gives away the fact that it does not deserve to be a book. Take “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” – you would think it should’ve just been one paragraph with seven bullet points; yet the author manages to stretch it to an entire book! As if that wasn’t enough, the sequel to that book (The Eighth Habit of Highly Successful People) talks about only ONE habit! Although I haven’t read the book, I’m willing to bet that the eighth habit would be something that Stephen Covey learnt after his previous book:

Habit # 8 – “Write a self-help book with a simple yet purposeful/life-changing-sounding title such as ‘Seven Habits...’, ‘You Can Win’, ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, etc”!

6 comments:

Subarna said...

Simply awesome!! I don't know how these books even sell. I read exactly one business book and I totally agree with your analysis. The book was called Blue Ocean Strategy...sounds quite fancy doesn't it? All it says is that to succeed in any business, you must come up with a new idea (like no one knew that). The new idea is the blue ocean. And they wrote a whole book on it. The funniest part is, when in GDs and interviews and generally to show off during class, some guys used to quothe these books. I found it really hilarious. There is nothing much to say about self-help books. I think even an 8 year old can write some of those. I am thinking of writing one, called "Help Yourself--You don't need to read a book for that!!" Howz that for a title?

Orgho said...

Thanks :)
I think it's a pretty good title for a book, hehehehehehh...for some reason, I've noticed that self-help books tend to be even more popular at airport book-stalls or rly station book stalls...I wonder why!

Abhinav said...

True...very true...infact im also going to write a book titled "Reading Self help books for Dummies"...

tania said...

absolutely true.....n ya about reading in railways n airports, like u sed, self help books revolve around dat one message, so u can simply flip thru ONE page of it in the airport n yet hav the satisfaction f finishing the entire book!...so they shud b subtitled--"All in a page book",specially suited for short time reads in areas f noise pollution n low concentration.

A____ Through the Looking Glass said...

Dude..how can u junk ur MBA?? look at wot u've learnt to do damn well....
executive summaries!! awesome precis of the two books in the post!

Kim said...

Quite frankly these books should be borrowed or stolen. They're a bigger scam than advertising. Though in all fairness William Eng's "50 Golden Trading Strategies" was quite usefull, but that's abt it. Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch and all the other wannabe's ought to be whacked over the head with their own books. I have given up on the whole sorry mess and switched entirely into thrashy romances.... sooo much more relaxing.