Book Review by - Anand Gurnani

Think Disney and the following automatically comes to your mind

1) Animation & family entertainment
2) Media Conglomerate

Think Disney again and you probably will think about Michael Eisner vs Roy Disney - the boardroom battles reported every day on the front pages of international business dailies.

DisneyWar by James B. Stewart, one of America's most acclaimed journalists, zooms in on the changing equations between the powerful people at Disney during the last two decades. As the title aptly describes, the book is an inside story of what drove the iconic entertainment company to a civil war.

The boardroom battles however are not the only high point of the book. DisneyWarhas a multidimensional pull. The fascinating thing about the book is that it demonstrates the extent of influence that Individuals at the helm of large Media Conglomerates can have, over decisions that alter the history of popular culture. Even more interesting is the background of the action which is Hollywood, Animation, Broadway, Theme Parks, Television Networks and the entire entertainment sphere; all this viewed from the seats of power.

The book throws light on the past 20 years of Eisner's tenure at Disney during which the company had 10-12 individuals who served in various capacities and later since moved on to lead major corporations in Hollywood and beyond. These include Dreamworks Animation Chairman and CEO Jeffery Katzenberg, Comcast President Steve Burke, Revolution Studios Chairman Joe Roth, NFL networks CEO Steve Bornstein, Yahoo Media & Entertainment head Lloyd Braun, Hilton Hotels Chairman and CEO Steve Bollenbach, eBay Chairman and CEO Meg Whitman, Martha Stewart Omnimedia CEO Susan Lyne and Former Chariman of 20th Century Fox Bill Mechanic.

DisneyWar closes in on the changing equations that Eisner had with these individuals before, during and after they were at Disney. Add to that the changing equations with Pixar and Miramax and you have a blockbuster Book which no media & entertainment professional would be able to resist reading.

Yet another aspect of the book is the first hand knowledge quotient that it offers in terms of the subject and background being entertainment.Sample the following memo issued by Eisner while still at Paramount:

"We have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make a statement. But to make money. It is important to make history, to make art or to make some significant statement....In order to make money, we must always make entertaining movies, and if we make entertaining movies, at times we will reliably make history, make art, a statement or all three. We may even win awards... we cannot expect numerous hits but if every film has an original and imaginative concept, then we can be confident something can break through"

Or sample Eisner's singles and doubles formula for making films:
"We should generally resist making expensive overall deals with box office stars and top directors because we can attract then with strong material later on." During the course of his career however, the same Eisner who issued these memos did sanction quite a few event movies (as he referred to big budget, top stars and director movies).

Identical to Eisner's career graph just before he got into Disney and while there, the book takes off with an exciting part and the tempo stays upbeat until somewhere in the middle where the book begins to drag a bit, gradually hovering towards a dramatic climax.

Overall the 538 page non fiction saga is definitely a compelling read.

About the author

Chris Grey is Reader in Organizational theory at the Judge institute of Management, University of Cambridge.and Fellow of Wolfson College. For about six years he was Editor-in-chief of Management Learning and is European Co-editor of the journal of Management Inquiry.

Book Review
Simply put, the book is an scholarly effort on understanding organizations and their different management styles. So, with an extremely difficult and boring task at hand; the author finds a easy way out. He somehow smartly manages to skip all the indecipherable jargon and takes a rather personal approach to the subject.

Chris Grey argues that, in a way, studying organizations is akin to really understanding every facet of human life; which is what makes it incredibly interesting. It's all about studying ideas, theories, models and values which shape organizations and in turn affect people. To quote him the author verbatim - `organizations matter because just about everything that we do occurs within an organization.'

The first few chapters take a look at the types of organizations which go a long way in defining people efficiency. Like, if it's a bureaucratic setup then it naturally saps energy and initiative. From describing the different types of organizations, Grey has delved deep into issues like - motivation, leadership, teambuilding, harassment at workplace, exploitation, unequal power relations and sabotage.

The book is simple but definitely not simplistic. The authors' style of writing is argumentative, provocative and irreverent. Some of the interesting chapters are - What is rationalism? Bureaucratic dysfunctionalism and Taylorism and What is it to be human?

Though, at times, the book gets a bit too heavy but then the author tries to simplify by drawing in references from different walks of life. While drawing parallels between life and organizations, he draws examples from the life of Hitler and Nazism, references to cricket, quotes from luminaries in various fields. In fact, each chapter begins with an apt quote and foretells what the chapter is going to elucidate. God and the Church, Kafka, Taylor - all are found in here. Geographically not bound to any location, he has brought in case studies from across the globe.

Definitely recommended for executives who're grappling to understand their own organizations!

About the Author - Walter Vieira is the President of Marketing Advisory Services Group, which he founded in 1975. Prior to that, he spent 14 years working with various corporations - Glaxo, Warner Lambert and the boots Company.

Vieira has authored ten books of which three were written jointly with C Northcote Parkinson and M K Rustomji. His most recent books include The Winning Manager and Successful Selling.

The book is a sequel to the authors' earlier book - The Winning Manager which covered the period of an exec's life from being a trainee to the middle management. But the real challenge is when senior mangers clamber to rise up the corporate ladder and try to ssmake it perhaps to the CEO's post.

Vieira points out that there are greater conflicts, greater competition as the tapering of the corporate pyramid is taking place. A Darwinian process of selection where only the fittest will survive. And sometimes not the most efficient but the most ruthless climb up the ladder making it all seem very unfair.

So, how should senior execs prepare themselves to survive in this quirky corporate world? Manager to CEO is the intelligent manager's guide to understanding and surviving in the real corporate environment. It gives a professional and comprehensive overview of the 21st century workplace, as well as discusses at length the wide range of issues that senior managers face in organizations.

The first chapter, Power Politics and Work, the author sets the pace of the book. The author points out that reaching to the top is all about understanding of the concept of power and politics in companies. It's definitely not just about what you can do or what you are efficiently do. So, how does one handle office politics. The author goes on to touch various issues like handling the boss, understanding the company culture, acquiring discretion & tact and most importantly understanding yourself.

Overall an insightful, practical book which is a must read for all execs. The author also touches upon various lighter issues as romance at the workplace, ethic and human values, cooperation and networking and most importantly what to do when you're down and out.

Director and COO of Graphiti Multimedia, Munjal Shroff tells Nidhi Jain about the kind of books that attract his attention.

My grandfather, Navin Shroff, used to read a lot of books. My school had an amazing library. Apart from that, our teachers made sure we read the right books, starting with Enid Blyton. I was a huge comic book fan, had a massive comic book collection. Due to space constraints, it's been given away to an orphanage. My family also nicknamed me Cartoon.

I love reading popular science.
Kind of book collection you have
Best sellers, science fiction and of late I have been reading management books to understand the method in the madness of the corporate world.

On favourite authors and well written books
Among authors I like Isabel Alende and Ashok Mehta's Ramayana. Also reading Afghan. I like to read a wide variety which are very genre specific like James Gleick's Chaos, I like to read books which explain things in different perspective like in Chaos. In the book it is stated how chaos is part of nature. In a way my reading is drawing those parallel in nature. Books I read co-relate to the work I do in life.

Do you find interesting things in every book? How do you choose books you read?
A recent example of Da Vinci Code. It was successful for merely because it broadened the content, the way the story was taken forward, the way the relevancy was brought in terms of taking clues of the places that exist, being pertinent about the location - the roofline, a particular cathedral, Da Vinci paintings. Fiction is all about creating an imaginary world. I like authors who draw so many relevant clues which exist, the perspective they bring. How gripping it is. It creates enough excitement for the reader to visualise them. As a filmmaker, a book should transport me visually to that place where I am able to feel the fear, that level of involvement comes with detailing. That's the mark of a writer.

Money and time you spend on books
You should confirm that with my wife Mona, especially since it's a competition between me, my wife and my books. Mostly while traveling, I catch up with my reading. I was a voracious reader now I don't even spend 10 % of my time reading.

Your reading pace
If the book is engrossing I can finish it in one night or it can take a month.

Browsing and e-reading
I e-browse a lot. My favourite site is wikipedia. I never managed to do e-reading since there is a limitation of screen space on a palmtop. Though I am a technology freak, I like the smell of the paper.

What do you think of self help books?
Some self help books are well written, some are repackaged like 7 habits, living the 7 habits. It's nice to pick up ideas, beyond a point it's your personality, self help books don't an make earth shattering difference in life.

Books that do not hold you
Self help books. Only a dumb person is going to pick up dummy series books.

Zubin Driver, national creative director, The cell, TV 18 Group, is putting together a book of short stories. He tells Nidhi Jain that the book is extremely close to his heart.

What made you write this book?
I am a writer, and have written a number of plays while I was a part of NCPA and Prithvi theatre group .I always wanted to have a short way of looking and going through a book.

Book and Character
The book is a compilation of short characters. It's all about what happens in peoples' minds, their thought processes and dreams. There are characters, no-characters, dream characters and also post modern kind of characters. In total, it's a compilation of 35 short stories, 2-3 of them are shorter than a page.

It highlights the darker side. They are not at all happy stories since I have grown up observing suffering around me like watching people going through graphs, chronicling relationships. I have personally gone through a cultural transition .Middle class life is tough when it comes to making ends meet. And I've also seen lots of fractured relationships.

Crux of the book
It's an examination of physical and mental struggle.

Cover page
I have decided that it's going to be a painting because I love them. They are evokable, since we have to make an effort to interpret them and finally we get engaged in them.

Book that captured attention
The plague.

Gregarious, god fearing and genuine. Three words which perhaps describe writer producer Ashwani Dhir in a nutshell. Wearing a warm smile, Dhir greets us with a firm handshake as we settle down for a t?te-?-t?te in his simple but elegant drawing room. His homely-looking apartment situated at Goregaon (a suburb in Mumbai) is done up well and what really stands out against the dull purple walls are the huge photographs of his daughter Garima.

"My life revolves around my daughter. Not just that, she has also proved to be very lucky for me. I have prospered only after her birth. Before that life was a struggle." As the doting father continues to help his daughter finish off with her days homework, the tea and the cookies arrive.

There's a telltale frankness about the man, as he gets down to telling us the story of his life and how he managed to get where he is today. At the beginning of the conversation, he declares, "I am not really comfortable in English. When I came to Mumbai, I used to get an inferiority complex. But then that's when I decided to turn the negative into a positive. Over a period of time, because of my strong command over the language, people on the sets started consulting me for writing their dialogues. And till date, I refuse to speak in English."

And so, over a cup of tea, in shuddh Hindi, interspersed with some couplets and interesting anecdotes Dhir tells us the story of his life.

The journey from Kanpur to Mumbai
"I came to Mumbai to make it in the television industry. I knew no one here, so it was either make or break. I tried the film line and worked on two films (Farishte and Tehelka) with Anil Sharma. But somehow, money never came in and it was a matter of survival for me. So, I moved on to television and started work as Assistant Director on Thoda sa Aasman with Deepti Naval. I realised that television is regular and good money. So, I stuck to the medium and as fate would have it, I got into satire writing. Earlier on I used to write for myself. And later the big break came when I got to write Office Office where I could express the common man's angst and struggle. I strongly believe the real awe inspiring stories come from the middle class people. I seek inspiration from everyday situations.

Again it was fate or providence that I moved on from a writer to a producer. The first break was when I produced Ram Khilawan CM which got into controversy and had to be pulled off air. Later, the big break was Public Hai Sab Jaanti Ha. Currently, I am producing Chamca in Chief on SabTV.

On values in life
The city provides equal opportunities for women as well as men and treats them at par, which is wonderful," says the 37-year-old writer. However, I believe there has to be a good mix of our old values along with the new order. "It's like have a drink, but you should know your limits. At media parties one often gets to see people crossing their limits after a few drinks. Also, I feel there should be a certain decorum in the way we use language. I feel language need to be respected and I strongly detest the use of foul and lose language"

Life is a journey of faith
"I strongly believe there's a power above which controls our lives. And it's really the fear of the future which drives us towards faith and prayers,"he says.Reminiscing about his struggling days, Dhir says "there was a time in my life when I didn't have a roof over my head. It was during that phase, that I happened to tag along with a relative of mine to Shirdi . Just after the visit, I managed to wriggle out of all my problems. It was like a miracle in my life and I soon realised the power of prayer. Since then Dhir has become a great follower of Sai Baba and visits Shirdi at least once a month.

"There were times during my lean phase, when I didn't even have the money to buy two tickets for a journey to Shirdi. Then, just one of us either me or my wife would go for the darshan. But today life has changed. Dhir lives life on his own terms, owns a swanky apartment and drives a Honda City.

"I've got more than I had asked for and I am very happy with what I have got," says the contented man who makes it a point to celebrate almost all the festivals. He reveals further, "Though I am a Punjabi myself, I've adopted many things from Maharashtra. So, be it the Ganesh festival or the nine day Navratri, we definitely celebrate it with a lot of gusto.

I am currently on a Anjali Mukherjee Diet
The conversation now switches on to certain lighter issues in life. We chat about his regular diet habits, mobile phones amongst other things. He tells us that for the last few months he has been on a strict diet.

He says,"I am following the Anjali Mukherjee diet presently and have lost more than 12 kgs. I follow the diet strictly except that I've a weakness for sweets. And sometimes, when I can't control, I give in. Losing weight has other advantages from the fact that I feel lighter and healthier.

And what about gizmos and gadgets? He says, "I feel a mobile phone is a necessary devil which does not allow you any peace of mind. Now, people can contact you anywhere anytime and intrude on your privacy. So, one is forced to talk or else switch it off and then face a volley of questions from friends and family. I am sure, this is one device which will be responsible for many divorces in the country," he says on a lighter note. Just then his phone rings. And it's time to leave.