No Man's Land: What to Do When Your Company Is Too Big to Be Small but TooSmall to Be Big

This is a great book that addresses a serious issue for businesses. There is an old axiom that you either need to be big or be small, to stay in the middle is to be crushed. Read this book to find out some of the reasons why businesses choose to stay small or grow. Find out how these choices will impact your overall business structure in the long term. Important book- read it or get trapped in No Man's Land!

I guess I'm not a real self help book guy. It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know or thought I should be doing. Not a bad book, just not what I need or thought I would need.

I work with smaller companies (Revenue $5-50 million) and this book capsulizes the challenges and beauty of a smaller company. It is a very important read for CEO's, but equally important to those who are trusted advisors to small company CEO's.

Works Great

A quick read without jargon, with the valuable premise that having more capital (money)is not the solution many business owners think it to be, the first time I've seen this discussed. The author understands the many challenges facing entrepreneurs.

This book is full of business school jargon and buzzwords and contains precious little clear, concise writing or information. At times it is so puffed up and repetitive that it is practically unreadable. Basically it is an hour long speakers' presentation stretched out to book length.I will sum up its message here: in order to succeed as a larger business, a small business must maintain its quality and customer service as it grows.There, I just saved you the cost of the book.

The media could not be loaded. No Man's Land is a must read for Entrepreneurs, CEOs and Executives of growing companies.

This book was recommended by a consultant/entrepreneur that has a growing business.On a positive note, the book provides some interesting views for companies transitioning from one size to the next scale. The best parts are the brief discussions about Management Myths and Cash Flow Crunch. Among the highlights are "boredom with the hard work of systematizing the core business" (which is a concern for companies trying to adopt Lean manufacturing strategies), the definition of culture, and the complexity of balancing the order ("clean it up") and the chaos ("mess it up"). With few concerns, it was an easy book to read all the way through.Unfortunately, most of the topics in the book are covered more thoroughly by other sources, most of which Tatum references: Small Giants by Buckingham, Good To Great by Collins, and Professor David Birch's definition of "gazelles". Some of the more interesting parts are redundant (Introduction & Chapter 1; Chapter 3:Management & Chapter 6:the 5th M). Throughout the book, there are relatively few examples of businesses going through No Man's Land, and their issues are not explored very deeply. The advice about eliminating employees is a disturbing philosophy without understanding the values, principles, and culture of the people and of the business. The political discussions are one-sided (taxes and government grants; Growth companies vs other types of companies; The BRIDGE Act).The book could have explored other ideas of No Man's Land:- there isn't just one No Man's Land, but several No Man's Lands, for every factor of 10 increase in revenue- there's minimal discussion on the desire for a company to remain privately held- there's minimal discussion about raising cash through saving money (most discussion is on capital infusions)- how does No Man's Land apply to countries and the world, such as the recessions of the last 35 years and national debt concerns/crises (USA, Greece, etc.)I might be interested in another book by Tatum with more original and thorough exploration of a subject.