A finely crafted business fable steeped in meaning; made all the more remarkable by the author’s youth.
A parable reveals several business truths through the eyes of an enterprising paperboy.
Budding entrepreneurs and small-business owners should find this short story about a paperboy who employs 11 principles of success to be enlightening. They may also find it humbling that the fable was written by a debut author who is all of 16 years old. Patel says he modeled this tale after his father’s stint as a paperboy at age 16, realizing that he could weave in “universal business truths.” The narrative describes how Ty Chandler, anxious to raise money before going off to college, uses his ingenuity to acquire and service newspaper subscribers. The boy’s experiences are recounted in brief chapters, each of which illustrates a particular principle. For example, in the chapter “Investing in Success,” Ty takes some of his own money out of his bank account and invests it in greeting cards and photos so he can introduce himself to customers, engage them, and encourage their loyalty. The chapter “Delegating Authority” demonstrates how Ty recognizes that his booming business (which now includes a neighborhood lawn service) requires an additional worker. Every chapter is further enriched by a passage extracted from interviews the author conducted with 15 entrepreneurs and business professors. The construct of this entertaining book is ingenious; the cleverly devised tale depicts a business at its most basic level, dramatizing how even a paperboy can use proven strategies, skills, and techniques to grow a thriving enterprise. The author relates the business truths with a skill and sophistication that belie his age. An undercurrent of the story is also a nice touch: that it is possible to breathe life into a dying medium, the printed newspaper, by demonstrating its value to subscribers, supplemented by superior, personal service. The carefully chosen interview excerpts validate the principles, adding credibility to the approach. The complete interviews, each offering key insights, are included at the end of the book. Every principle, whether it is “Harnessing Ingenuity,” “Overcoming Objections,” or “Scaling for Growth,” should strike a chord with readers.
A finely crafted business fable steeped in meaning; made all the more remarkable by the author’s youth.Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68261-004-6
Page Count: 140
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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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
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