ACCELERATING GROWTH

Davenport offers a business strategy manual outlining a new system for company growth.

In his nonfiction debut, the author describes a corporate strategy he developed to be implemented by his private equity firm, QHP Capital: “The Management System,” which he describes as “a proven methodology for getting your company from where it is now to where you dream of it being.” Davenport references his time as CEO of Misys Healthcare, as well as management decisions made by other executives, to flesh out how The Management System works to help businesses rapidly scale in nontraditional ways (“As I’ve said,” Davenport writes, “it’s not an evolutionary approach but a revolutionary one”). The system shifts the focus of corporate rethinking from personnel to operations: “You cannot scale a company when the performance is solely dependent on a few key people in the company,” the author asserts. “You can only scale the company when the work is process-dependent, not people-dependent.” The key to The Management System is “the clarity of your strategy and the engagement of your middle management team.” Davenport stresses vision, mission, and purpose, promising that The Management System “removes politics and parochialism from decision-making.” The author writes with a good deal of personable energy and provides helpful tools, like tracking sheets, though some of the book’s graphics are too cramped to be very clear. Davenport’s brisk attitude is the book’s strongest element. “What is needed is not an elaborate explanation of why a target wasn’t hit, but a plan to get it back on target,” he writes in one of many such passages; “the past is history.” The parameters of The Management System itself are perhaps too vague to register as truly revolutionary, but its designer makes an excellent corporate coach.

Largely familiar business motivation and advice delivered by a likable, seasoned pro.