The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman - Book review

The Personal MBA

Master the Art of Business

By: Josh Kaufman

Published: December 30, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
ISBN-10: 1591843529
ISBN-13: 978-1591843528
Publisher: Portfolio/Penguin













"One of the beautiful things about learning any subject is the fact that you don't need to know everything - you only need to understand a few critically important concepts that provide most of the value", writes independent business educator Josh Kaufman, in his valuable and information packed book The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business. The author describes how to focus on learning and understanding the information that is most important for operating a business, without spending large amounts of time and money on an MBA degree.

Josh Kaufman recognizes that a business person doesn't have to be knowledgeable in every aspect of business theory. Instead, he provides an outline of business as practiced in the real world. For the author, the traditional MBA program offers an outdated curriculum that doesn't teach the students how business really works. Josh Kaufman maintains that true business leadership is not created in business schools. Instead, leaders make themselves through a combination of skills, knowledge, and on the job experience. At the same time, Josh Kaufman offers more than simply the standard business school education as a gateway into corporate middle management. The author also shares his knowledge and experience in entrepreneurship, start-ups, and the area of sales that is so often overlooked in academia



Josh Kaufman (photo left) understands that business school credentials will provide access to recruiters from major corporations. For Josh Kaufman, the cost of an MBA degree is more of an expensive and time consuming ticket to a job interview, than real business knowledge. The author points to the over use of case studies, where their sanitized situations and solutions, bear little resemblance to problems confronting managers and entrepreneurs in the real world of business. Instead of what Josh Kaufman considers an assembly line style of learning, he shares useful and practical knowledge and ideas that solve real problems. The author doesn't teach the widely taught Quantitative Analysis, Financial Analysis, and Accounting. Instead, he focuses on how businesses work and how to run them. For more detail and study on the standard business school subjects, Josh Kaufman suggests some books, should the need for such specialized knowledge arise.

For me, the power of the book is how Josh Kaufman distills the essentials of business knowledge into one book. By placing his emphasis on how business works, how people work, and how systems work, the author guides the reader toward what is really important in owning or managing a successful company. One of the real values of the book is how Josh Kaufman provides key sections of the book on psychology, and how people think and work. This human side of business is not always given much attention in business school courses, but is a crucial aspect of becoming an effective manager. The author also shares the principle that leaders make themselves, and that leadership is not an automatic byproduct of a business school education.

Josh Kaufman presents his information in an easy to understand, and well organized format. That ability to organize material, and to separate the critical elements from what is not so important, demonstrate that the author's ideas are sound and reliable. To further illustrate the well organized manner in which the information is presented, Josh Kaufman uses the business concept of mental models. These ideas provide a framework for solid and reliable decision making. As with the entire book, the mental model technique is rooted in the real world of business. The author provides a rare blend of strategies and tactics that work well in one person entrepreneur ventures, or in the very largest global corporations. By thinking in terms of how business really works, Josh Kaufman gives the reader what really matters, and what is really needed in the way of knowledge, to be a successful business leader.

I highly recommend the very practical and knowledge filled book The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh kaufman, to anyone seeking to acquire the essential knowledge for managing a successful company, without spending a small fortune on an MBA degree. This book is one that will stay on an manager's book shelf, and be read over and over again when the need for useful information arises.

Read the better than business school book The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman, and discover how business really works, and learn what a manager and business leader really needs to know and understand. This is a very valuable book that you will want to read and refer to, over and over again.

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