Despite some intriguing nuggets scattered throughout, this book is a booster piece seemingly based on science but proposing...
An introduction to a new kind of corporate management system modeled on the self-organizing structures of organic matter.
Management consultant Robertson, founder of HolacracyOne, offers a primer on the system he pioneered, accompanied by procedures required for its adoption and the outline of a training program. The author’s program incorporates elements of traditional organization theory as well as inputs from David Allen, who created the “Getting Things Done” time management system. As opposed to a hierarchy, a “holarchy” is analogous to complex, multilayered systems like those which the author writes are “all around us in the way nature organizes itself.” He points to the relationship between cells and their containing organs, which “simultaneously honor autonomy and enable self-organization at every level within.” The author argues that his system will enhance productivity and reduce time spent in unwieldy meetings, and he provides ways to help overcome resistance to the new procedures he recommends and the inevitable fears roused by the adoption of these radical innovations. Robertson expects that such structures will enable individuals to define roles for themselves within the overall framework of corporate governance. With the use of his system, organizations can reduce the impacts of personal, emotion-driven conflicts and political infighting. He outlines how each autonomous layer should deliberate and define choices for action, within and between each element of his proposed assembly. Robertson also describes the mechanics of agenda construction and the roles of participants. The primacy allotted to choice and deliberation seems to undermine the author’s intent to imitate the form of complex natural structures, which, thus far, have not provided evidence of either. Nor has there been found a formal structure that can substitute for transformative individuals like Bill Gates, Andy Grove, or Steve Jobs.
Despite some intriguing nuggets scattered throughout, this book is a booster piece seemingly based on science but proposing a remedy for not adequately specified conditions.Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-428-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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