Instant Management: The Best Ideas from the People Who Have Made a Difference in How We Manage

Kennedy, executive editor of the British Institute of Directors' journal, Director , provides a welcome guide to today's ever-growing flood of books by management ``gurus'' in 34 summaries of management theories and brief, lively biographies of authors and important titles. Claiming that many of the gurus ``build on each other's ideas and their own,'' she points out that the writings of General Motors decentralizer Alfred P. Sloan and AT&T's ``Organization Man,'' Chester Barnard, as well as F. W. Taylor's mechanistic management theories and Douglas McGregor's and Abraham Maslow's advocacy of human motivation have influenced generations of leaders. And she reports that while quality-control pioneers like W. E. Deming inspired Japan's industrial miracle, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman coauthored the world's bestselling business book, In Search of Excellence. (Feb.)