The Financial Times has just posted a review of How Will You Measure Your Life?, entitled “Life Lessons for the Office”. From the article:

The interrogative title, three short sections on careers, relationships and ethics, and no index – to its comfortable, chatty tone, it will appeal to readers avid for that type of advice.

But what makes the title valuable for a wider audience is that it is more genuinely a self-help book than the genre it disparages. Instead of force-feeding readers with orders on how to improve, it aims to give them the tools to set their own course.

Prof Christensen picks these tools from businesses that he has studied. Honda’s breakthrough into the US motorcycle market – based on the accidental success of its smaller bikes – becomes a lesson in how to balance a career plan with an openness to other opportunities. Dell’s willingness to outsource everything except its brand to Asus, which eventually became its arch-rival, teaches how parents can gauge what their children need to do to meet future challenges.

In the process, the book neatly reverses the technique of those business bestsellers that use the lives and careers of great leaders – from Attila the Hun to General George Patton – to lay down timeless rules for corporate executives.

The full review is available on the FT’s website.