Overall Thoughts
My impression is that The Personal MBA presents a model on business that has been meticulously constructed from common sense and real relationships with customers. It’s built from Kaufman’s study and filtered through his notion of what makes sense for a business, and this is where the book’s sense of authority comes from. If you are the type of person who bases action on your own thinking rather than blindly following what other people are telling you to do, you’ll probably find that this book speaks your language. If you are the sort of person who likes to see a big map of business from 10,000 feet up and then drill-down to see how the individual parts work together so you understand HOW it all fits, you’ll probably love this book. I certainly do. This book has already saved me quite a bit of time. It contains a critical mass of material for me to think productively about my business, and it’s even indexed and hyperlinked for my convenience. Should I need to investigate a particular topic in more depth, Kaufman recommends the business books that he found most useful for each and every part of the book.
Although I didn’t find the book overwhelming, I can imagine that my artist friends would shrivel up and die on just the first chapter; they are not inherently interested in the patterns and principles that drive business. I’ll let you know what happens. Kaufman does recommend that you feel free to jump around and just read sections randomly, not trying to read it all at once. I think there’s value in that approach; I certainly enjoy picking it up and browsing through it to see what ideas it sparks.
I should again mention that while I find this book comprehensive in its mapping of business knowledge, it’s not the kind of book that will walk you through the steps of making the real decisions about how to run your business. Instead, TPMBA gives you the ability, as Kaufman says, to ask the right questions. The reflection needed answer those questions, as well as the intelligence you need to synthesize your solutions, will have to come from you. There are a few exercises spread throughout the book that will help you, for example, determine whether a particular idea has a sustainable market size, but it’s not a workbook. I imagine that these supporting materials are or will be available on The Personal MBA Website, and indeed I see it has a growing and active reference and course section.
If anything, The Personal MBA is an excellent foundational book on which you can base your business studies. It’s a clearly organized and lucid text that helps you internalize the kind of thinking that will lead to business success. I have a sneaking suspicion that quite a few of the principles in the PMBA could be applied to other fields, but that’s a post for another day.
Recommended!