Roadside MBA: Backroad Lessons for Entrepreneurs, Executives, and Small Business Owners

Enjoying some downtime after a conference, Mazzeo, Oyer, and Schaefer (professors at the business schools of Northwestern, Stanford, and the University of Utah, respectively) walked into a small shoe store and ended up discussing management techniques and business strategies with the manager and sales team. The three realized that small business strategy is just as robust and complex as that of huge corporations. Determined that Wall Street should learn from Main Street, the authors visited small business across the U.S., including a orthodontist’s office in Arkansas; a women’s fitness center in Kentucky; and a machine shop and small law firm in Iowa. From this experience, they brought back lessons on scaling a business, negotiation, hiring, and delegation, among other topics. The friendly tone keeps the reader’s attention through easy-to-remember business wisdom: “Mazzeo’s Law: The answer to every strategic question is ‘It depends.’ Corollary 1: The trick is knowing what it depends on. Corollary 2: If the answer to a question isn’t ‘It depends,’ then it’s not a strategic question.” This bird’s-eye-view business title is gimmicky, but fun. Agent: Zoë Pagnamenta, Zoë Pagnamenta Agency. (June)