An engaging, unusual business book full of practical advice.
McLaughlin’s debut self-help guide offers an allegorical tale that intertwines the concepts of leadership and driving automobiles.
Brian Alden is a lead programmer at SBC Technology who recently received a promotion to manage the company’s small-business accounting software products. He’s a great coder but has no management experience, so he quickly finds himself adrift. On a whim, he types the phrase “SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP” into his car’s GPS device. To his amazement, his grandfather’s voice congratulates him on taking the first step to becoming a great leader. It turns out that his grandfather, who gave Brian the GPS after teaching him to drive, had also recorded a series of lessons to teach him leadership skills. His grandfather compares each stage of leadership to the process of driving a car: The first phase of leadership, Relationship, is like planning for a successful road trip; the second, Understanding, is like teaching someone else to drive; and the third, Knowledge, is like taking care of one’s passengers and driving defensively. Brian absorbs these lessons, applies them to his job and helps his friends with their own career struggles. Other characters represent various archetypes from the business world, such as visionary former manager Lloyd and ultraconservative boss Arthur. Although the book’s use of analogy can be heavy-handed at times, its leadership lessons are on point and lavishly illustrated with stories of great leaders past and present, from Michelangelo to Steve Jobs. McLaughlin’s storytelling format brings each stage of leadership to life as Brian applies them in common, real-world scenarios. Brian’s friends apply the leadership lessons to their own widely varying industries, demonstrating how they can succeed or fail in different situations. Although many business books fail to give readers a clear idea of how to apply their principles, this book provides readers with a solid template.
An engaging, unusual business book full of practical advice.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1479263547
Page Count: 154
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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