Mobilizing Minds: Creating Wealth from Talent in the 21st Century Organization.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf - Brief article

Mobilizing Minds: Creating Wealth from Talent in the 21st Century Organization. By Lowell L. Bryan and Claudia I. Joyce. McGraw-Hill, 317 pages. $29.95.

Leave it to the folks at McKinsey & Co. to produce a "deep-think" book about corporate structure and how it can be adapted for the century we're now in. Mobilizing Minds is an eminently logical but highly conceptual book, and wears its intellectual heritage on its sleeve. That's hardly a bad thing, but readers need to be aware that absorbing its teachings requires a lot more than a stroll in the proverbial park.

The book actually builds on work done over the past dozen years by McKinsey. Lowell Bryan, long a leading financial services industry consultant, joins here with McKinsey colleague Claudia Joyce. As they sift through the variables that seem to drive performance, they came to certain conclusions and recommendations.

The top 30 global companies by market capitalization--the universe they study--is obviously an elite group, and clearly should be on top of their game. Yet, the authors conclude that for the most part, these giants...