Mostly entertaining autobiography beats out the usual business textbook approach.
Virgin Group founder Branson (Screw Business As Usual, 2011, etc.) reveals the methods that have helped him build his unconventional multibillion-dollar business empire.
A prolific and outrageously successful promoter of himself and his myriad businesses, the author provides a rollicking romp through Virgin’s fun-loving, iconoclastic approach to building a business and reputation. Underneath the April Fool's jokes (one of which earned Branson a cooling-off period in a London police station) and the deftness of the humor with which the author recounts his battles against much larger and well-established opponents (e.g., British Airways, Qantas and British Telephone) lies a much more brass-knuckled story. Beginning with Virgin Records, Branson has simply given customers a product and service they wanted—in that case, beanbag cushions and coffee in a record store. The author presents both a well-calibrated sense of the relationship between risk and opportunity and a commitment to excellence in service. Branson introduces us to many of the people who influenced his business methods—e.g., Freddie Laker, who pioneered cheap, no-frills trans-Atlantic passenger flights. Branson writes that Laker helped him outmaneuver British Airways and provided “another piece of guidance that would change my approach to business forever, and with it, the way we set about taking Virgin brand down hundreds of new and diverse global alleyways.” Laker also provided the essence of Branson's public relations mantra when he told him, “get your arse out there. Be visible, take risks, get creative, make yourself heard and take the fight to them before they bring it to you.” Of course, the PR initiative wouldn’t mean much without the company's brandwide commitment to excellence in service, highlighted by the examples of such startups as Virgin Hotels. Branson takes no prisoners when discussing recruitment, training and empowerment of his employees, as well as how leadership standards are set.
Mostly entertaining autobiography beats out the usual business textbook approach.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1591847373
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
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