The book uses four Greek gods to describe different styles of management culture. Zeus represents the club culture, revolving around one central leader, flexible and dynamic, or wilful and arbitrary - depending on that leader. Apollo embodies the role culture, organised, structured and stable, or hidebound, slow and expensive - depending on whether it evolves. Athena symbolises the task culture, focussed around achieving some goal, great if the goal is well understood and desired by the whole organisation, but at risk of fracturing under disagreements. Dionysus designates the existential culture, almost a non-culture in which a group of individuals share some resources because it is convenient for them, but not necessarily a common goal - they can become an Apollo culture if the management of the shared resources becomes non-trivial.

The book covers the evolution, advantages and disadvantages of these four types, though it does not relate them to political systems.