Book Review — Mergers & Acquisitions: A Guide to Creating Value for Stakeholders

M&A Troika

Mergers & Acquisitions: A Guide to Creating Value for Stakeholders

By Michael A. Hitt, Jeffrey S. Harrison and R. Duane Ireland

Oxford University Press, 2001, $27.50

Mistrust any business book that has three authors. Writing by committee doesn’t work any better than doing anything else by committee. Billed as a guide to successful mergers and acquisitions, this slight tome, Mergers & Acquisitions (how many e-mails did it take to come up with that one?) is a cobbled-together regurgitation of recent media articles and academic studies. It lacks a cohesive viewpoint about how companies should do mergers and acquisitions. It is puffed up with bland case studies that offer mostly numbers and events?with minimal interpretation and insight. If you plan to use this book as a basis for performing a merger or acquisition as the authors suggest, good luck. You may as well do it by committee.

-Christopher Koch

And…

The Deep Blue Sea: Rethinking the Source of Leadership

By Wilfred Drath

Jossey-Bass, 2001, $27.95

Karl Zoffner, fictitious founder of a fictitious piano company, is forced to pass his leadership to his daughter Elena. She then faces the daunting task of leading employees who remain fiercely loyal to her father. Complicating matters further, she too is convinced that she will not be able to escape the shadow of her father’s influence.

Using this corporate and personal drama as his backdrop, Wilfred Drath, a senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership, explores three principles of leadership: personal dominance, interpersonal influence and relational dialogue. The Deep Blue Sea is dense with such terminology, but by interweaving the Zoffners’ story with his text, Drath fortunately lightens its tone overall, even as he nudges the reader to think outside the box with regard to corporate leadership.

-Lisa Sydney

CIO Best-Seller List

5. The Art of War

by Sun Tzu, ed. by James Clavell

Delacorte Press, 1989

4. First, Break All the Rules:

What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently

by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

Simon & Schuster, 1999

3. Now, Discover Your Strengths:

The Revolutionary Program That Shows You How to Develop Your Unique Talents and Strengths?And Those of the People You Manage

by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

The Free Press, 2001

2. Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost

Morale and Improve Results

by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen

Hyperion, 2000

1. Who Moved My Cheese?

An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

by Spencer Johnson

The Putnam Publishing Group, 1998

SOURCE: April 11, 2001-July 11, 2001 data, compiled by Powell’s Books, Portland, Ore.

Book Talk

“If you’re going to pursue a strategy, you must be willing to make hard choices and act as if you truly believe in your own strategy. In short, executing a strategy takes courage. You must be willing to practice what you preach, when it is convenient and (most importantly) when it is not.”

-From Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do To Create a High Achievement Culture, by David H. Maister (The Free Press, 2001)