New Releases by Walter Kiechel

Imagine, if you can, the world of business - without corporate strategy. Remarkably, fifty years ago that's the way it was. Businesses made plans, certainly, but without understanding the underlying dynamics of competition, costs, and customers. It was like trying to design a large-scale engineering project without knowing the laws of physics. But in the 1960s, four mavericks and their posses instigated a profound shift in thinking that turbocharged business as never before, with implications far beyond what even they imagined. In The Lords of Strategy, renowned business journalist and editor Walter Kiechel tells, for the first time, the story of the four men who invented corporate strategy as we know it and set in motion the modern, multibillion-dollar consulting industry: Bruce Henderson, founder of Boston Consulting Group Bill Bain, creator of Bain & Company Fred Gluck, longtime Managing Director of McKinsey & Company Michael Porter, Harvard Business School professor Providing a window into how to think about strategy today, Kiechel tells their story with novelistic flair. At times inspiring, at times nearly terrifying, this book is a revealing account of how these iconoclasts and the organizations they led revolutionized the way we think about business, changed the very soul of the corporation, and transformed the way we work.

Did you know that asking for a raise can set you on the road to being fired? Or that your career may be in jeopardy when you get a new boss? How should you handle the steady barrage of interruptions from your subordinates? Whether the problem is managing creativity or managing stress, finding a new job or firing an unproductive employee, dealing with sexism, careerism, alcoholism, or absenteeism, Fortune editor Walter Kiechel puts things in their proper perspective in Office Hours. He serves up not just his own ideas, but the views of some of the most reputable experts on management, together with the firsthand experience of actual veterans of the corporate wars. - Back cover.

Case summary: "Arizona v. California was a 12-year epic battle including three years of trial in front of a special master appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The trial involved 106 witnesses and hundreds of volumes of exhibits, ultimately producing a 433-page final report from the Master in December of 1960. Proceedings at the U.S. Supreme Court required two oral arguments, producing a 5-3 decision in 1963 with two dissenting opinions, with the majority opinion implemented by a decree in 1964. The case was an original action in the U.S. Supreme Court, with Arizona seeking to clarify its rights to the use of Colorado River basin water. It was filed 30 years after the seven basin states drafted the Colorado River Compact, which apportioned the waters of the basin roughly equally between the states of the Upper and Lower Divisions, but did not apportion shares to individual states. In addition to Arizona and California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah were party to the case because they had lands located within the Lower Basin. The United States was also party to the case because of the federal water projects and lands located within the Lower Basin. It was perhaps the most high profile water case ever to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and produced considerable commentary."-- Lawrence J. MacDonnell, Arizona v. California Revisited, 52 Nat. Resources J. 363, 365-66 (2012) (quoted with permission of the author).

Case summary: "Arizona v. California was a 12-year epic battle including three years of trial in front of a special master appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The trial involved 106 witnesses and hundreds of volumes of exhibits, ultimately producing a 433-page final report from the Master in December of 1960. Proceedings at the U.S. Supreme Court required two oral arguments, producing a 5-3 decision in 1963 with two dissenting opinions, with the majority opinion implemented by a decree in 1964. The case was an original action in the U.S. Supreme Court, with Arizona seeking to clarify its rights to the use of Colorado River basin water. It was filed 30 years after the seven basin states drafted the Colorado River Compact, which apportioned the waters of the basin roughly equally between the states of the Upper and Lower Divisions, but did not apportion shares to individual states. In addition to Arizona and California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah were party to the case because they had lands located within the Lower Basin. The United States was also party to the case because of the federal water projects and lands located within the Lower Basin. It was perhaps the most high profile water case ever to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and produced considerable commentary."-- Lawrence J. MacDonnell, Arizona v. California Revisited, 52 Nat. Resources J. 363, 365-66 (2012) (quoted with permission of the author).