January is always a hot month for selling self-help books. Publishers say they fly off the shelves as we all attempt to put our new year resolutions into action (unlike last year and the year before).
One of January's hits will almost certainly be Tony Buzan's Embracing Change (BBC Worldwide, £7.99) which builds on his previous 79 books about the workings of the brain. Mr Buzan is renowned for his mind-mapping techniques that get away from formal text-based learning. Many devotees say they have become more organised and confident after adopting the Buzan way.
Over the past year the biggest hit among the legions of self-help books was And Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, by Spencer Johnson. It topped the list of Amazon.com's best selling business/ self-help books ahead of Fish!: A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results by Stephen C Lundin (Coronet Books, £5.99) and Good to Great by Jim Collins (Random House Business Books, £20).
The central message of Who Moved My Cheese, presented as a fable about dealing with change in business and personal life, is that modern workers and their bosses have to learn not to depend on the state of their businesses. Instead the boardroom and the shopfloor must realise that change is inevitable and circumstances that may have favoured the organisation in the past don't anymore.
That said, Peter Drucker's The Practice of Management, first published in 1954, still makes as much sense as any new age outpouring about the real work of managers. Many managers say budding execs who put Drucker's The Practice of Management and the Concept of Corporation (1946) plus Management Challenges for the 21st Century (1999) on their reading list will soon discover that much of it is resistible.
However, none of the executives who spoke to Jobs & Money about their favourite self-help/management books mentioned Drucker. Senior managers from commerce, industry and academia have told us the books they believe give the most inspiration or help to anyone building their career. Maybe Drucker is such a fixture of the scene that he is overlooked when people make their recommendations.
A 21st century Drucker could be the winner of magazine Management Today's best management book in 2004 - Journey to Lean - Making Operational Change Stick, by John Drew, Blair MacCallum and Stefan Roggenhofe (Palgrave Macmillan, £25). It draws on work carried out by the authors, operational experts at management consultant McKinsey, in corporations worldwide. They urge that, for their ideas to deliver significant and sustainable business impact, it cannot be treated as a "project" but must become central to the strategy and mindset of the organisation. The first half of the book deconstructs the various elements of what it takes to transform operations based on McKinsey's manufacturing approach and the Lean principles pioneered by Japanese carmaker, Toyota. The authors then bring the theory to life through the story of "Arboria", a fictional kitchen equipment manufacturer. The story is told in documentary form with scenes from the fictional company's journey to Lean bringing out the key lessons.
However, McKinsey, as a firm, has its critics. The management consultancy has often been accused of giving out duff advice about how the future will look and feel and charging a huge fee for the privilege.
