Today I am hosting the second book on this three book Blog Blitz. MBA by Douglas Board. It's a thriller come tongue-in-cheek satirical story on the convoluted hand in hand world of business and business schools.
Get 30% off MBA with discount code BLOGTOURMBA at Lightning Books eye-books.com
Douglas Board is the author of the campus satire MBA (Lightning Books, 2015), which asked why so much of the business world is Managed By Arseholes. Time of Lies, his second novel, is a timely exploration of the collapse of democracy.
Born in Hong Kong, he has degrees from Cambridge and Harvard and worked for the UK Treasury and then as a headhunter. He has also had a distinguished career in public life, serving as treasurer of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and chairing the British Refugee Council.
As well as writing fiction, he is the author of two applied research books on leadership, which was the subject of his doctorate. He is currently a senior visiting fellow at the Cass Business School in London. He and his wife Tricia Sibbons live in London and Johannesburg.
Follow @BoardWryter on Twitter, on Amazon, Visit douglasboard.com
Buy MBA
About the book
Why is so much of the world managed by arseholes? When workaholic business school hot shot Ben Stillman is fired, he has the chance to find out. Not a guy to sit still, Ben jumps head first into turning his former business school into a world-class madrassa of capitalism.
Ben has ten days to rescue the launch of its spectacular glass tower, and his own career – ten days during which he will have to confront terrorist plots, undercover police, the extravagant demands of the super-rich, and the only woman who can save him from this madness.
A satirical thriller, a love story, and a wry look at modern management ideology all rolled into one – MBA is a piercing yet hopeful enquiry into the meaning of success.
Review
MBA stands for Managed By Arseholes. It certainly seems as if this a common theme nowadays. Managed by them, governed by them and often betrayed by them. This is a fast-paced thriller set around a 'fictional' business school.
Let me digress here for a minute, as I am wont to do.
People with a high number of psychopathic traits often end up in certain professions. An alleged 21% of CEOs are psychopaths (probably more - just saying, the study was based on a mere 261 senior professionals in the US), 1 in 5 CEOs. These traits are seen as favourable in the corporate world, and whilst I understand it means the endgame of profit, wealth and power is being achieved, there is an definitely argument to be made for the damage left in the wake of decisions made by those with said traits.
That doesn't mean corporate leaders or people in business can't make hardcore decisions that equate to a tidal wave of damage on the economy and common man, but one would hope their empathy would make them ponder longer on said tidal wave. Recently I was doing a test with a friend, we discuss data and results ect of certain areas, this time of narcissistic personality traits. Studies show there is a rise in those tendencies in undergraduates.
Where am I going with all of this? The mindset of men and women in the industry, and that of the those teaching them and defining the future senior leaders in economy, commerce, politics, government and business. Then, as is demonstrated quite well in this story the collusion between the teaching institutes and the big businesses who wield the power, and correlation between decisions and actions which are detrimental to the common man.
It's both ironic and amusing that the word ethics is used in combination with business and this premise is an example of how some people have no moral compass at all.
Towards the end the plot becomes a wee bit outlandish and perhaps hard to follow, because it seems a bit disjointed. Board has a very specific style though. Short rapid bursts of info, dialogue and actions. Look here, look over there, listen to this, whilst reading another thing. It's a clever way to conceal the information he wants to impart with his audience, whilst lulling the reader into a false sense of security with the more fictitious aspect of the story thereby distracting them. The result is you come away with tidbits of info that burrow in like moles and create connections you may previously have been unaware of.
It's a thriller come tongue-in-cheek satirical story on the convoluted hand in hand world of business and business schools.
Buy MBA at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Lightning Books: pub date 7 Sept. 2015. Buy at Amazon com.
Watch a Promotional Video for MBA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=hUOs5YqqkBg
Read my review of Time of Lies by Douglas Board here
Buy Time of Lies
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