First Person: Tales of Management Courage and Tenacity. - book reviews

Entrepreneur, Oct, 1996 by Debra Phillips

What better way to learn how to handle management dilemmas than to get solutions straight from the horse's mouth? That's the premise of First Person: Tales of Management Courage and Tenacity (Harvard Business School Press, $19.95 cloth). Edited by Thomas Teal, this collection of Harvard Business Review articles explores a range of experiences.

Take, for example, the gut-wrenching account of one businessman faced with an unproductive Aids-stricken employee "On the one hand, I knew that removing Jim was necessary to meet my responsibilities as a manager. On the other hand, I believed that taking action against him meant failing my responsibilities as human being," he writes. "I had never had to force the ... reassignment of an employee who was facing death."

In another scenario, a casualty of corporate downsizing reflects on his many struggles to make the transition from highly paid executive to highly overworked entrepreneur. He became a franchisee to shield himself from the hazards of going it alone. That shield was removed, however, when his franchisor effectively went under.

Don't misunderstand, though: These aren't gloom-and-doom stories meant to dissuade the faint of heart. On the contrary, they're simply honest takes on the challenges that come with authority.