While some business executives may find the author’s assessment sobering if not downright depressing, this book provides the...
A welcome update on building a sales force in the new economic environment.
The financial meltdown of 2008 claimed many victims, but an area that surely felt intense pressure was the corporate sales force. Every company’s sales force had to adjust to a new market reality. The author of this timely book, an international business consultant who highlights some of her firm’s research into sales organizations, writes that a “new customer profile” started to take shape after the financial crisis. Customers “were less trusting and found heavy selling tactics repulsive...they wanted price and if that was right, then they would look at other key factors.” Crane says, “Effective salespeople now are those that are able to confront and challenge their customers’ thinking and influence them in such a way that changes their minds.” This new requirement, the author says, demands a new kind of salesperson: “It is about a sales force that is enabled with a broader degree of knowledge and skill that can take a strong case to customers and influence them to change their minds about how they do business.” Crane offers important advice to companies, including how to refocus, why a new kind of sales manager is necessary, the importance of systems, keys to developing the right relationship between sales and marketing, and perhaps most importantly, ways to transform not just the sales force but the manner in which the company does business. Rather than serve up a sugarcoated, lightweight primer, Crane delves deeply into the messy, complex world of corporate selling. She strongly lobbies for “embracing transformation from within,” even though she makes clear that there are no easy answers. Of course, making a case for taking action is one thing; executing a plan of action is quite another, so it’s helpful that Crane includes three pertinent case studies at the end of the book to show in detail how business’ transformations can impact sales in today’s market. “Don’t be yesterday’s company in tomorrow’s world,” she urges.
While some business executives may find the author’s assessment sobering if not downright depressing, this book provides the wake-up call many may need to stoke up their sales forces.Pub Date: March 28, 2010
ISBN: 978-1449960353
Page Count: 226
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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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A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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