MBA in a Box: Practical Ideas from the Best Brains in Business

By Joel Kurtzman with Glenn Rifkin and Victoria Griffith
Crown Business, May 2004
448 pages, $34.95

The twist here is simple: Instead of focusing on the nitty-gritty taught in business school—how to do a regression analysis, for example—why not have Mike Milken talk about how finance is really about "the art and science of sustaining growth, building wealth and creating jobs." And instead of slogging through books like Reengineering the Corporation, why not have Jim Champy, one of the co-authors of the concept, point out what the theory means in today's workplace. All the standard B-school issues—leadership, marketing, human resources, innovation, strategy and communication—are addressed. You won't learn how to do a regression analysis, but you'll learn to sound like you know.