This week's New Yorker has a very interesting article called The Talent Myth. The suggestion is that companies that rely solely on recruiting very "talented" people, and promote a culture that rewards perceived "talent", and sometimes self nominated or elected "talent" at that, without any rational measure of performance, are more likely to fail. It's a great read, and a nice antidote to the business cult that attributed success to the "individual super star" style of upper management.

On a similar note I've recently been listening to (the library didn't have a copy of the book) a condensed version of The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker. The things he wrote in 1954 are still relevant today, and in fact if more people went back and rediscovered these basics it would be to their, and our, benefit. Just take a look at the reviews on Amazon for an idea of its impact. The only thing that grated when I listened to the recorded version was the obvious asumption that everyone involved in management was male. It's weird, but a good thing, how that really stands out when you read or hear it these days.