A cogent presentation of a somewhat narrow aspect of business.
This debut guide details how a simple business technique can improve employee communication.
At first glance, business leaders might dismiss the idea of a “daily huddle” as trivial or even inconsequential. But business owner/consultant Hemmer makes a compelling case for how a 12- minute-a-day employee meeting can substantively impact a company’s bottom line. The author learned the daily huddle technique at a workshop for new beauty salon owners, later recognizing it could apply more broadly to most any business. Her book is a justification for using daily huddles as well as a step-by-step action plan. The volume also supercharges the idea by turning the daily huddle into an “Intelligent Huddle,” a term trademarked by Hemmer. The author first presents the problems businesses face, such as employee turnover, a weak company culture, and poor communication. Then Hemmer diligently provides a detailed overview of neuroscience basics and how to apply them, supporting the argument that there is real depth behind an Intelligent Huddle. For some readers, it may seem unrealistic that something as simple as a daily huddle can offer such key benefits as saving time, reducing stress, creating a problem-solving team, and increasing productivity. Hemmer makes a valiant effort to plead her case with well-written, convincing prose. But except for the author’s personal experiences, case studies and specific examples depicting the daily huddle in use are lacking; they would have been helpful in swaying skeptics. Still, Hemmer does lay out a very thorough implementation plan, right down to the number of minutes that should be spent on specific huddle elements. She also covers how to introduce the idea of daily huddles, enumerates “rules of engagement,” and suggests ways to deal with push back from employees. Perhaps the most critical part of the book is a chapter on measuring the effectiveness of daily huddles. Here, the author discusses common mistakes and suggests ways to track success. Hemmer’s acronym CONNECT (“Conversational Flow,” “Opportunity,” “Neuroscience,” “Needs,” “Engagement,” “Commitment,” “Trust”), referenced in the final chapter, is a handy way to “remember the key principles of the Intelligent Huddle.” The real question is whether business leaders will embrace the idea.
A cogent presentation of a somewhat narrow aspect of business.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985190205
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Innovator Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A savvy journalist's timely take on the evanescence of Japan's economic invincibility. Fresh from a stint as Tokyo bureau chief for The Economist, Wood (Boom and Bust, 1989) argues convincingly that the island nation poses a fading threat to Asian as well as Western rivals. Among other woes, he asserts, Dai Nihon's industrial base is burdened by overcapacity and swollen payrolls. The kind of mass dismissals that have kept America's labor costs at acceptable levels, the author observes, are inevitable if Japan is to remain competitive in world markets. By his tellingly detailed account, moreover, the country's financial institutions are not only primitive by Western standards but also vulnerable to future shocks created by the deflation of overvalued assets (in particular, urban property) and a rigged securities market that is not geared to provide corporations with either venture or expansion capital. Nor is Japan abreast, let alone ahead, of the pack in advanced technologies like computer software and wireless communications, which could offset declining demand for entertainment goods (TVs, VCRs, et al.). Wood points out as well that scandals have fractured the so-called iron triangle (business, the once-vaunted bureaucracy, professional politicians), effectively ending the Liberal Democratic Party's dominion and making Japan's governance more Italianate than Asian. He goes on to predict that civil disorders are likely once private enterprise starts downsizing and bargain-minded consumers systematically seek better deals in the nation's protected retail marketplace. In the meantime, the US is no longer willing to overlook the sharp practices of an ally no longer needed as a Pacific Basin buffer against the erstwhile Soviet Union. The subtitle notwithstanding, the text offers precious few perspectives on how Japan might emerge from its possibly convulsive renewal and restructuring. A worst-case audit that, if longer on reportage than analysis, provides ample evidence that Japan's challenge to the Global Village's economy has been put on hold by a host of home-front problems.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-50145-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
A suspenseful, user-friendly account of Microsoft's five-year effort to develop Windows NT (for new technology). Wall Street Journal correspondent Zachary delineates the blood, toil, tears, and sweat required to produce a breakthrough operating system that would not only work on all available personal computers but also allow customers to retain familiar applications programs. Throughout his accessible text, Zachary tries to keep readers in the loop. He provides illuminating reminders of how operating systems (which control a processor's basic functions) differ from applications software (the visible programs that retrieve information, maintain databases, prepare documents for printing, and otherwise satisfy human needs). While NT, which reached the marketplace last summer, has yet to achieve critical sales mass, the author leaves little doubt that the $150 million project yielded its creator a host of payoffs: by advancing the state of the networking art, defining the shape of software to come, and giving Microsoft (which last month settled potentially troublesome antitrust charges) an inside track on the interactive information highway. The bulk of the narrative is devoted to anecdotal reportage on how a consequential enterprise managed to harness its varied, volatile, very human resources (many of whom had become independently wealthy by cashing in options on the company's common stock) and meet the self-imposed schedule for NT's introduction. Covered as well are the time and technical tradeoffs made in the course of an undertaking whose final features included more compromises than indisputably correct answers. Nor does the author ignore the human costs of economic and scientific success in his reckoning of the NT balance sheet. An engrossing and instructive case history of programming under fire on the front lines of software technology. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 17, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-935671-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
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