BOOK REVIEWS 77

WINSTON FLETCHER, The Seven Keys to Superefficiency, London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1986, 164 pp. Price (UK) f9.95.

On being invited to review this book, I was reminded that I once fixed a meeting with a self-styled expert and teacher of time-management. It was a period when many managers in my organization had, like me, time-management, stress and work-overload problems, much as today. It seemed appropriate to arrange some educational pro- grammes to help us deal with these self-management issues, and t o ask a specialist t o help. I arranged to meet the expert in his London hotel where he was running a time- management course for executives. I had set aside 45 minutes, after a busy day, e n route to start a long train journey home, and arrived promptly at the agreed meeting place. The man did not show up. I waited 25 minutes, then set off for the station, leaving him a note saying that I thought I was managing my own time effectively and had organized myself, but since he could not keep an appointment with a potential client he either did not need the work, or was not practising what he taught. He lost out on what could have been a lucrative consultancy assignment, and I was reminded that no one is perfect - not even reputable and successful consultants.

This book is written by another ‘successful’ man, we are told, who, rightly, asserts that we all could be more efficient than we are, setting out his own personal recipe for ‘superefficiency’ - presented as seven key themes. Sharing learning, and possibly making a little extra income in the process, are commendable pursuits, but the danger with being a self-appointed expert is that one invites critics to find cracks in the edifice of perfection, something which, I regret to say, is not difficult in the case of Winston Fletcher’s book.

I found this book extremely irritating. It deals with many topics, already well covered by other, more specialist books, and in many organizations’ basic supervisory and management training programmes. The book seems to be a pot-pourri of many partially remembered management texts, liberally laced with the author’s personal philosophy and opinions, platitudes and statements of the obvious. The book certainly is not the simple seven keys which it purports to be, the first chapter alone containing well over 100 imperatives and injunctions. The finished product is a sort of Baden Powell’s scout’s code for managers, written in a 20th-century style reminiscent of a cross between t h e Book of Proverbs and The Ten Commandments, but lacking their consistency or honesty of purpose.

The author frequently resorts to statements such as ‘Recent American research has shown’; ‘Psychologists have proved’; ‘Surveys have shown’; ‘Scientific research into executive stress invariably shows . . .’; unsupported by evidence or data or references. Such a presentation will test the credulity of the most naive reader.

This style appears as a flimsy cloak of devices designed to lend spurious weight t o what would have been more honestly presented as ‘I think’; ‘I believe’; ‘In my opinion’; and ‘In my experience’. If this book is truly a distillation of one man’s experience, a less disingenuous approach would have been more engaging and attractive. Surveys, recent or otherwise; American or any other; scientific or ‘psychological’ research, like statistics, are not necessarily per se proof of anything. Thus the presentation of what may, originally, have been pieces of academically respectable research is rendered suspect. I found myself repeatedly challenging and questioning statements such as ‘studies show aggression in meetings to be surprisingly uncommon’, which ran counter to my experience and to my perceptions and understanding of human behaviour. ‘Always lean forward rather than slouch back - leaning forwards shows interest and enthusiasm’ (even when you are really bored and withdrawn? (my question)) is just one example of a recipe for dishonesty and insincerity which sits uncomfortably alongside a later exhor- tation ‘To thine own self be true’. This is just one illustration of occasional inconsistencies in the messages in this book.

I found the style of presentation condescending. Whilst Konrad Lorenz might b e gratified to be referred to as ‘the great Psychologist’, he might also feel patronized and

78 BOOK REVIEWS

perhaps apprehensive about the assertions in support of which he is adduced as an authority. Name-dropping is a poor substitute for a well-argued case.

The thing I disliked most about this book was its advocacy of trickery and deceit in interpersonal dealings at work. If you want to learn how to dispose of an unfortunate job applicant; transfer an unwanted visitor to ‘an amiable subordinate whose time is less expensive than your own’; knock on your desk to simulate someone knocking on your door - to justify terminating an unwanted phone call; or invent non-existent meetings by hiding in the lavatory - this is the book for you. If you want tips on how to achieve perfection as an utterly cynical, egocentric and inconsiderate person - this book is a mine of handy devices. It is also sexist. It implies that all senior executives are male and have female secretaries attending to their every need, and makes the extraordinary statement that ‘your aura of wisdom should never diminish in your secretary’s eyes; if it does - she’s a lousy secretary, you’d better get another’. I would be sorry for any young student of management who adopted any of the devious tactics and frankly offensive attitudes advocated by Mr. Fletcher.

In such a wide-ranging recital of managerial bons mots and aphorisms there is bound to be some useful advice; indeed, there is the odd nugget such as ‘Don’t agree to a commitment in six months’ time which you wouldn’t want to fulfil tomorrow’, but I found it hard work to cull what little value from the book it held for me, and this was despite my receptiveness to help with better time-management and self efficiency.

As a personnel director I took particular interest in the chapter on people manage- ment. The author indulges in an unimaginative dismissal of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with an almost derisory assertion that it is ‘academic’ and therefore irrelevant. This is necessary presumably because the paradigm is well known, but conflicts inconveniently with the author’s values or his reflections on his own experience. I wonder if the author ever went to the original Maslow works and appreciated the scope and profundity of his ideas? We are then given a most sweeping generalization about what motivates executives, unsupported by evidence. A superficial and inaccurate treatment of motiv- ation follows, masquerading as authoritative, but in reality a presentation of personal prejudice, blithe truisms, ignorance, saloon-bar psychology and life’s lessons which, in places, verges on the banal.

In conclusion, I regret that this book adds nothing to the fund of management theory and practice. If it were well written it would compensate for its lack of originality and artlessness by being, at least, a contribution to literature. If it were sincerely cynical it would be funny. Sadly, it does not achieve either of these and I shall not be finding it ‘indispensable’.

JIM GEORGE

Trent Regional Health Authority, Shefield, England Regional Director of Personnel Services and Manpower,

PETER HINGLEY and G A R Y L. COOPER, Stress and the Nurse Manager, Chiches- ter: John Wiley, 1986, 229 pp. Price (UK) f16.50.

This book is not written for nurses and nurse managers alone; it is a study that will be of interest and help to general managers, personnel managers, and occupational health nurses as well as to the nursing profession. It addresses some of the major issues facing those responsible for managing, planning and accountable for professional nursing standards. Len Peach, Chief Executive, NHS Management Board, constantly emphasizes that recruitment, training, morale and, most importantly, retention of nurses is a priority for the NHS, and this book’s findings affect all of these areas. It is often said by general managers: ‘I wish I could get to grips with the problems of the nursing profession’. This