CHAIRMAN MAO'S BUSINESS SCHOOL

A business book that uses the words of Mao Zedong to illustrate key strategies.

Taking voluminous writings–from books, speeches and articles–that laid out the chairman’s instructions for running China, Kleivan adapts Mao’s philosophy to modern business management. Describing Chairman Mao’s Business School as a “cookbook,” the author endeavors to “give ideas and inspiration to build corporations that will succeed in the competitive world.” Each of his chapters and subchapters–ranging in subject matter from “How to be an Efficient Business Executive” to “The Three Stages of Your Company’s Route to Success”–begin with lengthy quotations from the chairman. To apply these dictates to Western business practices, Kleivan provides a glossary of substitutions (for example, read “cadres” as “first line managers” and “peasants” as employees or workers). Then, using personal experience–the Norwegian author has worked for international companies like Dupont, IBM, Scandinavian Airlines, Diners Club and Citibank–and case studies from successful companies, he lays out his recommendations for success in business. From the outset, he stresses that his book should not be construed as “an endorsement of the politics that Chairman Mao carried out during his years in power” and he succeeds in drawing convincing parallels between Mao’s writing and modern management goals. But despite his enduring influence, Mao remains a controversial figure. By choosing as his centerpiece a divisive communist leader, Kleivan risks alienating potential readers before they even open his book. Furthermore, communism as an ideology and political system is very much at odds with the capitalist economy to which the author’s business advice is geared. Ultimately, the book is a bit of misnomer, since the vast majority of the book is rooted in the author’s experience in the business world, not Mao’s experience in the Cultural Revolution. Perhaps Kleivan should take more credit–his book is comprehensive, impassioned and clearly informed by a deep understanding of modern management.

Instructive, but limited by its central gimmick.