Corporate Capers : Book Review

About the Author

The author Dinesh Kumar is a consultant and a visiting faculty at various business schools in the country. Apart from specializing in areas like total quality management he teaches on leadership, executive emotional intelligence, business communications and public speaking.

Book Review - By Yati Doshi

The book is a classic treatise on what they don't teach you in management schools but what you really need to know in the practical business world. On a rather chatty note, Corporate Capers deals with those aspects of the corporate world that are normally never spoken - about boardroom politics to the real truth behind the meaningful glances. Nothing is sacred or sacrosanct here, from the boardroom to the dining room to the allusions of ever-obliging personal secretaries. There are references to Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, C. K. Prahlad and others; as also apt quotations from various management gurus.

With chapters like Balance sheet botoxing, Seven habits of highly perfidious people, A deadly disease called founderitis or Fear is not the key - in all it the book makes for a highly interesting read. It is understandable, under these circumstances that no names can be mentioned either of the people or of the companies dealt with.

One wishes though at least some names could've been mentioned, as at times the books read more like an expos?. The author's style is a bit reminiscent of the way Khushwant Singh writes. What stands out is the light hearted earthiness and self-deprecating humour in the entire book on certain important and ethical issues.

A well-rounded book, Kumar scores points without sounding as if he is speaking from a pulpit. In fact, the chapters on dining etiquette and corporate dressing are interspersed with biting British humour. Then, on a philosophical note there are chapters on the Karma of Business and the Business of Karma. Without sounding too preachy at all, the author poses a question on can whether profit-making organizations be spiritual. They get you thinking about what is and what should be.

The last section of the book veers away and tells us how things should be, busting popular management myths and bringing home rarely mentioned facts. It's in this section that the author supplies the healing balm for all the rot that has been exposed in the other chapters.

Insightful, funny, hilarious, philosophical, realistic and thought provoking. In all, this book makes for a good read and caters to a wide cross-section of people from businessmen to middle-level managers from students to professors.