A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about management theory

Sitting down to read a management theory textbook can be an uninspiring activity. They cover issues relevant to anybody who interacts with organisations (virtually everybody!). But the lengthy coverage of theories after theories makes the topic seem sterile. And because these theories have been regurgitated by so many people so many times, a reader not following the contemporary research published in journal articles (virtually everybody!) would form the impression that not much has been discovered in the last half a century or so. What one can expect from ‘a very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book’ in a field where even the heaviest textbook is not remotely interesting let alone inspiring? It turns out quite a lot – though perhaps not what one might expect