Sense and Nonsense in the Office [Paperback]

The book's short snippets of thinking are easily digestible and will, I'm sure, provide both amusement and comfort to many overstretched managers who are bravely trying to resist an increasing barrage of new thinking at the expense of tried and tested alternatives.

On the one hand it is useful to have this collection to hand - I will certainly lend my copy to friends and colleagues (I agree, Lucy, that the two need not be synonymous). Indeed, I have thoroughly enjoyed rereading many of the pieces. On the other, there is little new material for the weekly column's regular readers.

My other gripe is that... it is a little dear for an impulse buy.

Kellaway is brave and daring, willing to take on anyone from captains of industry to the cream of the consulting world to even her own employer.

Kellaway must read a great deal and have exposure to top names in management to be so in tune with the latest trends. She manages to distill all this in wonderfully clean and clear prose, and is no stranger to good, dry humour.

For them, this best-of collection promises no less than a roaring good time. With a mind so clear it could cut any corporate ego to size, her wry wit and sarcasm - characteristically British -is extra icing on the cake. Best of all, she spares you "no theories, no flow charts, no big words", just good old-fashioned common sense.

In Sense and Nonsense in the Office, Kellaway slices through a broad range of subjects from women managers and management speakers to business books. But it is at consultants that she hurls her most wicked remarks.

Her writing is best described as a deconstruction of fashionable management jargons, which she claims are consultants' stock-in-trade. Sample this section titled deliciously, "Passion Fashion": "Once upon a time it was enough to enjoy your work, to find it interesting and, if you were lucky to believe in it, too. Those days are gone forever, and modern companies are insisting on passion. "All the smartest mission statements now have the p-word in them; passion is being specified in job descriptions; it is in advertisements; it is everywhere. "According to my dictionary, passionate means 'having easily aroused emotions, ardent, intense, easily angered, sexually ardent.' None of these is what work is about. Thank goodness."

Her flippancy might be offensive, particularly to consultants who no doubt have had a hand in popularising passion as the latest motivation tool, but she does have a point and says it very well too: Return to basics, because good old terrestrial wisdom seldom goes wrong.

She opines on every bright idea that has swept the managerial revolution, only to conclude that, really, consultants and management writers should get down to earth. And just for good measure, charge less.

Ever heard of Richard Koch's 80:20 principle? But of course: It promises that by focusing on the most important goals/objectives/principles/persons, one can achieve maximum results from minimum effort. For much less than what consultants pocket, she has this trenchant comeback: "I am living proof that it is quite possible to know all that, and possess neither a first-class degree nor a fortune." And what are we to make of such buzzwords as "ownership", "principle-centered leadership", "think win-win" and "change"? All cliches, she argues, and without a modicum of reality.

On that last concept called "change", for instance, she singles out that notorious pronouncement made these days about there being no jobs for life in the years to come. Amid what countdown to doom this might incite, she injects a moment of calm with this: "Plenty of studies show remarkable consistency in employment, at least among those who survived the great downsizing purge. The heads of many big companies agree that all this talk is hogwash."

Admittedly, there is little research thrown in to back what she has to say. Particularly if you are a sucker for statistics as a measure of objectivity, be prepared for none. But as a journalist, she has had some 15 years of experience talking to top-flight CEOs and executives, not to mention real financial expertise minted at a top-tier investment bank, so her pearls of wisdom aren't exactly hog-wash.

In fact, they are a great service to managers and organizations alike. Because in putting common sense back into management, she clears the slate of muddled thinking and keeps the art of managing, well, simple. Productivity and leadership would be better served by simple rules, with the simplest of all being this: Change need not be the only constant in life. And may be this: Constant change breeds neurotics. When all is said and done, the upshot of her arguments is that running an organization need not be expensive: Just keep out the consultants.

For what they are worth, her thoughts must be a welcome relief to managers who face daily pressures from the floor for "empowerment" and "stakeholder relationships". Better yet, Kellawayism is exactly the balm that is needed for a conscience prodded and pricked sick by consultants working behind the scenes, wielding the real power. So out they go.

On the other hand, her brand of thinking is bad news to the rest of us shop-floor toilers who crave daily for a piece of the management pie. Let's admit it: haven't most of us dreamt of when our organizations would boot out middle management because "we are all managers now"? Change is what we need - now.

Still, there is no reason to believe that the world of business won't be rocked by consultant-speak from today any more than that Kellaway will become tomorrow's management must-read. It is hard to imagine a voice so against-the-grain, and therefore so marginal, taking center-stage among B-school gurus. So the world will change, and change will still be the only constant to expect.

Pity, because it means consultants will be paid ever more.