About the author

Chris Grey is Reader in Organizational theory at the Judge institute of Management, University of Cambridge.and Fellow of Wolfson College. For about six years he was Editor-in-chief of Management Learning and is European Co-editor of the journal of Management Inquiry.

Book Review
Simply put, the book is an scholarly effort on understanding organizations and their different management styles. So, with an extremely difficult and boring task at hand; the author finds a easy way out. He somehow smartly manages to skip all the indecipherable jargon and takes a rather personal approach to the subject.

Chris Grey argues that, in a way, studying organizations is akin to really understanding every facet of human life; which is what makes it incredibly interesting. It's all about studying ideas, theories, models and values which shape organizations and in turn affect people. To quote him the author verbatim - `organizations matter because just about everything that we do occurs within an organization.'

The first few chapters take a look at the types of organizations which go a long way in defining people efficiency. Like, if it's a bureaucratic setup then it naturally saps energy and initiative. From describing the different types of organizations, Grey has delved deep into issues like - motivation, leadership, teambuilding, harassment at workplace, exploitation, unequal power relations and sabotage.

The book is simple but definitely not simplistic. The authors' style of writing is argumentative, provocative and irreverent. Some of the interesting chapters are - What is rationalism? Bureaucratic dysfunctionalism and Taylorism and What is it to be human?

Though, at times, the book gets a bit too heavy but then the author tries to simplify by drawing in references from different walks of life. While drawing parallels between life and organizations, he draws examples from the life of Hitler and Nazism, references to cricket, quotes from luminaries in various fields. In fact, each chapter begins with an apt quote and foretells what the chapter is going to elucidate. God and the Church, Kafka, Taylor - all are found in here. Geographically not bound to any location, he has brought in case studies from across the globe.

Definitely recommended for executives who're grappling to understand their own organizations!

Book Review by - Anand Gurnani

Think Disney and the following automatically comes to your mind

1) Animation & family entertainment
2) Media Conglomerate

Think Disney again and you probably will think about Michael Eisner vs Roy Disney - the boardroom battles reported every day on the front pages of international business dailies.

DisneyWar by James B. Stewart, one of America's most acclaimed journalists, zooms in on the changing equations between the powerful people at Disney during the last two decades. As the title aptly describes, the book is an inside story of what drove the iconic entertainment company to a civil war.

The boardroom battles however are not the only high point of the book. DisneyWarhas a multidimensional pull. The fascinating thing about the book is that it demonstrates the extent of influence that Individuals at the helm of large Media Conglomerates can have, over decisions that alter the history of popular culture. Even more interesting is the background of the action which is Hollywood, Animation, Broadway, Theme Parks, Television Networks and the entire entertainment sphere; all this viewed from the seats of power.

The book throws light on the past 20 years of Eisner's tenure at Disney during which the company had 10-12 individuals who served in various capacities and later since moved on to lead major corporations in Hollywood and beyond. These include Dreamworks Animation Chairman and CEO Jeffery Katzenberg, Comcast President Steve Burke, Revolution Studios Chairman Joe Roth, NFL networks CEO Steve Bornstein, Yahoo Media & Entertainment head Lloyd Braun, Hilton Hotels Chairman and CEO Steve Bollenbach, eBay Chairman and CEO Meg Whitman, Martha Stewart Omnimedia CEO Susan Lyne and Former Chariman of 20th Century Fox Bill Mechanic.

DisneyWar closes in on the changing equations that Eisner had with these individuals before, during and after they were at Disney. Add to that the changing equations with Pixar and Miramax and you have a blockbuster Book which no media & entertainment professional would be able to resist reading.

Yet another aspect of the book is the first hand knowledge quotient that it offers in terms of the subject and background being entertainment.Sample the following memo issued by Eisner while still at Paramount:

"We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make a statement. But to make money. It is important to make history, to make art or to make some significant statement....In order to make money, we must always make entertaining movies, and if we make entertaining movies, at times we will reliably make history, make art, a statement or all three. We may even win awards... we cannot expect numerous hits but if every film has an original and imaginative concept, then we can be confident something can break through"

Or sample Eisner's singles and doubles formula for making films:
"We should generally resist making expensive overall deals with box office stars and top directors because we can attract then with strong material later on." During the course of his career however, the same Eisner who issued these memos did sanction quite a few event movies (as he referred to big budget, top stars and director movies).

Identical to Eisner's career graph just before he got into Disney and while there, the book takes off with an exciting part and the tempo stays upbeat until somewhere in the middle where the book begins to drag a bit, gradually hovering towards a dramatic climax.

Overall the 538 page non fiction saga is definitely a compelling read.

About the Author - Walter Vieira is the President of Marketing Advisory Services Group, which he founded in 1975. Prior to that, he spent 14 years working with various corporations - Glaxo, Warner Lambert and the boots Company.

Vieira has authored ten books of which three were written jointly with C Northcote Parkinson and M K Rustomji. His most recent books include The Winning Manager and Successful Selling.

The book is a sequel to the authors' earlier book - The Winning Manager which covered the period of an exec's life from being a trainee to the middle management. But the real challenge is when senior mangers clamber to rise up the corporate ladder and try to ssmake it perhaps to the CEO's post.

Vieira points out that there are greater conflicts, greater competition as the tapering of the corporate pyramid is taking place. A Darwinian process of selection where only the fittest will survive. And sometimes not the most efficient but the most ruthless climb up the ladder making it all seem very unfair.

So, how should senior execs prepare themselves to survive in this quirky corporate world? Manager to CEO is the intelligent manager's guide to understanding and surviving in the real corporate environment. It gives a professional and comprehensive overview of the 21st century workplace, as well as discusses at length the wide range of issues that senior managers face in organizations.

The first chapter, Power Politics and Work, the author sets the pace of the book. The author points out that reaching to the top is all about understanding of the concept of power and politics in companies. It's definitely not just about what you can do or what you are efficiently do. So, how does one handle office politics. The author goes on to touch various issues like handling the boss, understanding the company culture, acquiring discretion & tact and most importantly understanding yourself.

Overall an insightful, practical book which is a must read for all execs. The author also touches upon various lighter issues as romance at the workplace, ethic and human values, cooperation and networking and most importantly what to do when you're down and out.

Zubin Driver, national creative director, The cell, TV 18 Group, is putting together a book of short stories. He tells Nidhi Jain that the book is extremely close to his heart.

What made you write this book?
I am a writer, and have written a number of plays while I was a part of NCPA and Prithvi theatre group .I always wanted to have a short way of looking and going through a book.

Book and Character
The book is a compilation of short characters. It's all about what happens in peoples' minds, their thought processes and dreams. There are characters, no-characters, dream characters and also post modern kind of characters. In total, it's a compilation of 35 short stories, 2-3 of them are shorter than a page.

It highlights the darker side. They are not at all happy stories since I have grown up observing suffering around me like watching people going through graphs, chronicling relationships. I have personally gone through a cultural transition .Middle class life is tough when it comes to making ends meet. And I've also seen lots of fractured relationships.

Crux of the book
It's an examination of physical and mental struggle.

Cover page
I have decided that it's going to be a painting because I love them. They are evokable, since we have to make an effort to interpret them and finally we get engaged in them.

Book that captured attention
The plague.

Finally a book on one of the most underplayed subjects in recent times- Customer Relationship Management. Creating Customer Delight: The How and Why of CRM authored by Rakesh Seth and Kirti Seth covers a plethora of subjects which are significantly crucial to the success of any organisation. The trigger points used in the book are market competition, wider consumer choice, fragmentation of the media along with the advent of the new media; technological advances and newer concepts like personalised customer management.

The book first looks at today's business environment where the customer is no more an underdog with choice restrictions, but the entity in command who can dictate the business decisions and marketing strategies.

The first chapter, The Growing Need for CRM puts into perspective today's highly competitive market environment, thanks to retail explosion and liberalisation. The theory of competition-centric marketing and the underlying customer relationship techniques are explained by analysing classic campaigns such as the cola wars, when the Pepsi and Coke marketing responses were determined by each other.The authors make it a point to talk about the importance of existing customers as companies tend to ignore the customer once the deal is over and think about only a prospect customer while planning the next steps. The sub-section analyses the significant role played by word-of-mouth publicity, a free-of-cost one, coming from a satisfied and loyal customer in a product's success in the market.

The Seths have something for the media as well. The second chapter, Taking an Integrated Approach details the significance of the present media segmentation to the business industry from a CRM point of view. Given the current fragmentation of the media the need of the hour is an integrated media approach. Then there is the emergence of new four Ps - Positioning, Passion, People and Personality to power the new strategy.

In the present scenario where Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is on a roll, CRM in Call Centres would sound very topical. Here, the authors try to break the myth that carelines are just for complaints. The argument is that - "Ideally, a careline should be set up not only to handle complaints but also to provide assistance in using the product."

But the book is not devoid of some debatable comments. Consider, the introductory statement - `Successful CRM is what successful enterprise is all about. Every other discipline is secondary, be it marketing, finance, sales or IT.' One also gets a feeling that to explain the basic concepts of CRM the author has spent a lot of space as compared to the other important topics like database management and marketing strategies.

Overall, interlaced with interesting anecdotes and case studies from the real corporate world, the book depicts the core subject in a very convincing and easy-to-gather manner.

About the Author - Ammu Joseph is an independent journalist based in Bangalore, India. She writes extensively on issues relating to gender, human development and the media. Previous publications include Storylines: Conversations with women writers, Just Between Us: Women speak about their writing (with four co-authors), Terror, Counter-Terror:Women Speak Out, and Whose News? The Media and Women's Issues.

Making News:Women in Journalism brings together the personal stories and professional assessments of more than 200 women, including familiar names such as Bachi Karkaria, Kalpana Sharma, Malini Parthasarathy, Mrinal Pande, Shobhaa De and Tavleen Singh. Capturing the experiences, opinions and distinct attitudes of a wide range of female journalists in print media, this book offers key insights into their views on their profession in general, as well as their perceptions of their own individual roles.

Ammu Joseph, a long-time media consultant and observer, analyses the various ways in which gender and gender-related issues affect women in journalism, and presents a frank and forthright picture of the ups and downs of this fascinating field. She traces the history of women's involvement in the mainstream media and probes the diverse perspectives of women working in different parts of the country, in various languages, in both small towns and big cities - some just starting out in their careers and others who are already well established.

Their voices reflect a gamut of complex issues - from sexual harassment at the workplace to marginalization and discrimination in a largely male-dominated profession. The book is also gives a synoptic view of the dilemmas which confront women in the media It also combines solid data and analytical depth with some brilliant researched book on women in the media in India. The author casts a damning spotlight on newsrooms in the world's most populous democracy that mirrors the reality across the globe.

In recent years substantial numbers of women have opted for, and achieved great success in journalism. However, as an occupation it has not received intensive scrutiny from within the profession, by women journalists themselves. Making News delves into the ground realities, as well as the exciting possibilities of a career in print media.