Management and Organization Analysis

Knowing how to look for potential management issues when analyzing an organization is a fundamental skill in proposing value. Many basic investing books and Websites will explain how to analyze an organization. Here are a few that go beyond the norm to help you gain broader insights:

The Turnaround Prescription: Repositioning Troubled Companies . Goldston, M. R. ( 1992 ). New York : The Free Press .

Goldston built a reputation in the early 1990s as a company-turnaround expert. In this book, he lays out the symptoms to look for in troubled companies and recommends actions to take to get a company back on track. Although the book is very marketing-oriented, the symptom and transformation blueprints are applicable in a wide range of settings. The descriptions in this book can help anyone trying to discern the real value of potential solutions from a maze of financial statements, industry data, press releases, internal memos, and hearsay.

Selecting Your Employer: A Guide to an Informed Pursuit of the Best Career for You . Bing, G. ( 2002 ). Boston : Butterworth-Heinemann .

This book is the only one I have found that walks a job seeker through the appropriate financial, company ownership, and management issues that affect the decision of whether a company is a good one to want to join. This is an excellent perspective for many consultants and vendors as well, not to mention people within an organization who are evaluating how much of themselves to continue to invest in that organization. Bing does an excellent job of describing what traits to look for and questions to ask to uncover strengths and trouble signs in an organization.