Management Secrets of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Book Review

By Michael Kennedy, CMC
Kennedy Management Services
Tel: (416) 385 - 3942
mkennedy@idirect.com

Book Title: Management Secrets of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Publication Information: Published in 2002 by Winding Stair Press. 294 pp. $32.95
ISBN: 1 - 55366 - 300 - 4

Author Profile: Michael Miller is the President and founder of the Molehill Group, a consulting firm based in Carmel, Indiana. A graduate in marketing from Indiana University, Miller is an accomplished author, consultant, and musician. Prior to founding the Molehill Group in 1999 he worked for seven years in his family's retail business, and later spent twelve years in various executive positions with Macmillan Publishing. Miller is the author of over 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles. He is also an avid musician and an alumnus of the Jazz Studies Program at Indiana University. For more information on his career and activities, please visit www.molehillgroup.com.

Synopsis:
As the title implies, Management Secrets of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is an analysis of 50 of the greatest Western films of all time and a summary of some of the key lessons about management that can be learned from them. Although at first glance many readers might not think that films of the Western genre have much to offer in the way of useful advice for 21st century managers, Miller's book actually proves to be pleasantly surprising in terms of the depth and usefulness of its content. The author is clearly an accomplished student of his subject, and he does a skillful job of dissecting the plots of many of the more critically-acclaimed Western films and extracting nuggets of practical wisdom that modern-day consultants and operating managers can use.

Management Secrets of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is organized into five main chapters, dealing respectively with the broader themes of Vision and Planning, Competitive Strategy, Taking Action, Team Management and Leadership, and Ethics and Personal Style. The book as a whole presents a collection of 50 "Business Bullet Points", each of which are illustrated by references to the plot and characters of a specific film. What's particularly enjoyable about this book is that as readers go through it, they'll see references to many films that are instantly recognizable, as well as a number of others that may now be largely forgotten but nevertheless would clearly be very worthwhile viewing.

Examples of some of the key "Business Bullet Points" in each chapter that Miller offers up for readers are the following:

Vision and Planning - "Create a Detailed Plan": Miller uses the events depicted in The Wild Bunch, Sam Peckinpah's1969 tale of how a gang of desperados successful pulls off a daring raid on a munitions train, to illustrate the importance of developing detailed plans in which every team member has a clearly defined role.

Competitive Strategy - "Don't Underestimate Your Competitors": Miller uses Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner's 1990 story of a Union Army officer adopted by a tribe of Sioux Indians, to illustrate his point. The file depicts the Sioux as viewing white men with disdain, incapable of adapting to the harsh demands of life in the 19th century Dakotas. Their undoing comes when government troops arrive to take over the territory, and the Sioux continue to underestimate how many troops will arrive, and how powerful they will be.

Taking Action - "Drive a Hard Bargain": Miller extracts this particular lesson from 1969's True Grit, which won John Wayne an Oscar for his portrayal of crusty old Sheriff Rooster Cogburn. The story of a young girl's hunt to track down her father's killer, True Grit showed how the young lady's persistence and resourcefulness frequently enabled her to bargain hard for what she wanted, and by so doing, successfully confront several of the villains in the film.

Team Management and Leadership - "Teach Your Team - Don't Do Their Jobs for Them": The focus of this nugget is the plot from The Magnificent Seven, the 1960 story of a band of mercenaries recruited to protect a poor Mexican village from a marauding bandit. Knowing that they cannot remain in the village forever, the seven hired guns fortify the town and then devote their energies to training its inhabitants to defend themselves. In the end the bandits are successfully routed, and those of the original seven who survive the spectacular gunfight move on to presumably live happily ever after.

Ethics and Personal Style - "Be Willing to Do Whatever Needs to Be Done": For this lesson, Miller refers to the 1976 drama The Shootist, a lesser-known film that marked John Wayne's final screen appearance. In the film, Wayne plays an aging gunfighter dying of cancer who strikes up a relationship with a lonely widow and winds up acting as a mentor to her teenage son. Much of the film's plot focuses on showing how Wayne's character teaches the young boy not only how to handle a gun, but also how to go through life remaining true to one's own personal sense of integrity and honour.

Why This Book Is Of Interest To Management Consultants:
Many business executives might initially tend to be a bit dismissive of a book that purports to illustrate principles of effective management by referring to films about the Old West. However, Management Secrets of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly manages to do a surprisingly good job of distilling practical business wisdom from the films that are discussed within its pages. Miller proves himself to be quite adept at relating the lessons he identifies in these films to the challenges that managers face every day in the modern business world.

Management Secrets of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly offers some particularly good advice for dealing with the people problems that executives are bound to encounter. Many of the "Bullet Points" that Miller identifies deal with interpersonal issues such as leadership, team building, negotiation, and teaching and mentoring others. This book is one of the few I've seen that manages to be relevant and insightful, and at the same time, highly entertaining and genuinely fun to read.