Instructing managers in the art of management

When originally asked to review Freedom and Order I declined - I do not read management books as a rule, finding them generally, as Ray Prosser, the Welsh front row forward once said memorably to Tony O'Reilly, "too full of long words like corrugated and marmalade".

I realised, however, that in the past when I had broken my self-imposed rule to read Ivor Kenny, and in particular his trilogy on leadership, I had enjoyed them. This new volume, I was pleasantly surprised, proved no exception to the Kenny hit ratio for me.

The book mainly consists of extracts from a series of "Studies" Ivor Kenny has undertaken in Irish companies. A small starting quibble - why the capital S? - it gives the book a flavour of over profoundity which can be a bit off-putting, and which is undeserved.

The major focus in this book is the chief executive officer of a variety of businesses - the problems he faces and how the team below him sees the same problems and, ultimately, how they resolve their problems jointly. As the author puts it, he helps managers to see more clearly what they already know.

Some of the companies are semi-State and some are private enterprise. At the outset, Mr Kenny reminds us that State companies operate in a culture significantly different from that of private enterprise - contact between the Minister's office and the operating manager is usually crisis-driven, not strategically focused on the marketplace. For this nugget alone, the book would be worth reading for a politician or civil servant, and where a resolution to change ways would probably improve performance.

Mr Kenny stresses the primacy of the chief executive - it is he who embodies the company - and the difficulty of providing leadership while encouraging consensual involved management but also the paramount importance of providing leadership even at the ultimate expense of consensus. He also provides examples of two major management myths: "There's light at the end of the tunnel" and "We're all in this together".

The Studies follow a pattern - including private feedback to the chief executive on what his people think of him. They offer an interesting insight into the various types of personal "contract" that a chief executive may make with his team as a result of the detailed in-depth analysis Mr Kenny conducts, typically over six to nine months. The reason the insights are interesting is that they all start with three simple questions for the CEO:

What do you want?

What's stopping you?

What are you going to do?

Each of the Studies is manifestly different. In some ways it's a pity that the companies are not directly identified (as in the trilogy on Leadership) because a large part of the reading time was spent (at least by me) asking was this Company X or did Mr Y really behave like that.

Most revolve around the lack of clarity in relation to strategy - a gap that clearly lies at the chief executive's door. It is interesting to learn that in all cases recommendations were seized with both hands by the chief executives and implemented. That, rather than this book as a mere output, is a tremendous testament to Ivor Kenny's skills as a strategic consultant. I am sure that those who read this book will not only enjoy it, and learn from it, but will be sorely tempted to try the Ivor Kenny recipe for themselves or their company.

David Went is group chief executive of Irish Life & Permanent