Alexander, C.E.O.

Business advice from the Macedonian Conqueror

Bose, Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy | Kurke, The Wisdom of Alexander The Great | Miscellaneous

Bose, Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy

Amazon. Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy: The Timeless Leadership Lessons of History's Greatest Empire Builder by Partha Sarathi Bose. Also available in hardcover. Apart from an irritable Greek nationalist, the reviews are mostly positive.

Review by S. S. George, Dean of the ICFAI Center for Management Research, India. Reviews the facts of Alexander's life, but doesn't, in the end, buy Bose's comparisons:

"One must also consider the fact that today's business leaders cannot—however much they may wish to—punish their minions with death for disloyalty. And few people consider their bosses to be living gods (excet, perhaps, the bosses themselves)—making it even more difficult for today's CEOs to do in the world of business, what Alexander did so successfully in the worlds of politics and warfare."

Review by James Pawlak, Columbus (Ohio) Business First (April 9, 2004). Business-y.

Review by Jaya Banerji, Asian Review of Books. Positive.

Kurke, The Wisdom of Alexander The Great

Amazon. The Wisdom of Alexander The Great: Enduring Leadership Lessons From The Man Who Created An Empire by Lance B. Kurke.

The author's mini-site. Also includes an excerpt, all of chapter two. Kurke's is more liberal with business parallels than Bose. The author compares Alexander's policy of using natives with today's multicultural challenges, and concludes:

"The effect of Alexander's action was as though Martin Luther King and the other civil rights leaders brought about the Civil Rights Bill in a day."

"Egads! Alexander the Great as a business coach?" by Joe Vanacore, Sacramento Business Journal (September 24, 2004). Ouch! Some highlights, as befits the topic in bullet form:

• "Kurke's "The Wisdom of Alexander the Great" hits with a dull thud."
• "Mercifully, the book ends after 150 pages."
• "Kurke … [dares] ask $21.95 for this hardback book."

Blurb/review by Cecil Johnson, Knight Ridder News Service, picked up by Macedonian nationalists.

Miscellaneous

Gordian Solutions, Inc. "Our modern warriors now wield sharp answers to the knotty business problems of today."

More business-inspiration from Alexander.

Paradigm Busters: Hercules, Alexander, and You.

Abstract: "'Doing an Alexander': Lessons on Leadership by a Master Conqueror" by Manfred Kets de Vries (subscription required).

History's First Paradigm Buster