The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business the RICHARD BRANSON WAY 10 Secrets Of The World’s Greatest Brand Builder by Des Dearlove Pages:158          ₤9.99	The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business  the BILL GATES WAY 10 Secrets Of The World’s Richest Business Leader by Des Dearlove Pages:177              ₤9.99
The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business  the DUNCAN BANNATYNE WAY 10 Secrets To The Rags To Riches Dragon By Liz Barclay Pages: 168    ₤9.99	The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business the PHILIP GREEN WAY 10 Secrets Of The Billionaire Retail Greatest By Liz Barclay Pages: 156    ₤9.99
The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business  the JAMIE OLIVER WAY 10 Secrets Of The Irrepressible One-man Brand By Trevor Clawson Pages: 210    ₤9.99 Wiley and Sons / Capstone Publishing Ltd (3rd Edition)

In these times of name-dropping and authentication of every other thingamajig the Capstone venture into ‘unauthorised guides’ is strange, to say the least. The frontispiece explains the ‘unauthorised’ part of it to some extent though the need to emblazon it across the main title of the book(s) is not quite clear. It claims to be ‘...  an unofficial, independent publication, and Capstone Publishing Ltd is not endorsed, sponsored, affiliated with or otherwise authorised by’ Des Dearlove / Jamie Oliver / Liz Barclay (the three authors of the five books under review). But the ‘unauthorised’ aspect ends there. The books, brought out in convenient hand-book sizes, contain everything you ever wanted to know about Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Duncan Bannatyne, Philip Green and Jamie Oliver – referred to as ‘the leaders’ hereafter for reasons largely of brevity.  

There is in each of the books, a brief sketch of the life of each of the leaders – generally eulogistic (even starry-eyed) but quite detailed. The extent of detail would alone belie the claim of being unauthorised. The undiluted eulogy is seen throughout all the books: Philip Green’s heavy-handed arrogance, for instance, is covered over with ‘…it’s easy to see how some … could find his manner difficult to deal with.’ Not quite the warts-and-all depiction that one would expect from a work that is not ‘endorsed, sponsored …’

Each of the books then covers the lessons to be learnt from the leaders, neatly framed into sets of ten. It is interesting to note that at their core most strategies boil down to the same basic materials. There is the need to have a driving passion deep down inside somewhere that takes you out of the mediocre to the billionaire brackets, to growing from scratch to being a competitor to Marks & Spencer (Philip Green) or being awarded an OBE for services to business and charity (Duncan Bannatyne); the importance of people/employees pervades their thought processes; agility of mind, the need to remain private yet ‘smile for the cameras’…the themes are similar. This is not to discount the power of these themes – it rather emphasises the fact that many of the basic thoughts of achievers, and leaders, converge on the point of superior achievement through greater efforts and clearer focus than the ordinary. Each of the chapters covering the ‘ten secrets’ has a summary of the ideas that make up the particular ‘secret’ – including steps taken by ‘the leaders’ in implementing/executing them, making it easier to keep the ‘lessons’ in focus.

Each of the books ends with a kind of summing up under the title: The Last Word. The starry-eyed eulogies however continue:

Branson has been fortunate to live in exciting times. You can’t help thinking that he would have made any time interesting. Gates was there standing on the threshold of the PC revolution, to usher in the new era… there will never be another quite like him. Oliver prides himself on working with creative, ambitious people who can move his companies forward, and he’s successfully launched ventures based around his brand rather than his personality. Retailing has rarely had someone so high profile and colourful – as Philip Green. Bannatyne is a man who will always be looking for the next deal, the next money making venture. The old entrepreneurial restlessness seems to be unabated.

Perhaps the eulogies are justified. Maybe the leaders deserve all that is said about them and more – as persons who have risen to their respective heights with nothing but what they had between their ears, and some. One however expects writers to maintain a minimum level of their knowledge of the English language – whatever services the personal computer may offer by way of spell-check. The word “whose” is “who” in the possessive mood; and the variety with an apostrophe, used on page 3 (Philip Green / Liz Barclay) is the shortening of “who is” – and the two are not interchangeable. “Who’s” can never mean “whose.” While the Barclays of the world snigger at what is now commonly known as ‘Hinglish’ they should also be careful to avoid what may soon be termed as ‘Bringlish’ i.e. abuse of the English language by the British!