Valuable high-level thinking about high performance in business.
A strategic business consultant discusses how to shift corporate culture, with an emphasis on improving performance.
Early in this excellent debut guide, Freedman cites research showing that “70 percent of the American workforce is disengaged at work” and that “70 percent of business transformation and change initiatives fail to deliver the intended results.” These two rather extraordinary conditions compellingly demonstrate why it is so tough for businesses to achieve high performance. In response, the author has neatly turned lessons learned from his consulting practice into a “blueprint” for dramatic improvement. As with many business books, this one has the requisite attributes: a systematized approach, appropriate case studies (“Case in Action”), specific tools (“THRIVE Accelerators”), and interactive exercises (“THRIVE Reflection”). The manual is packed with actionable strategic advice in two sections comprised of seven compact chapters. The first part of this well-constructed book is more general, covering what it takes for leaders to move their organizations into high-performance modes, while the second part lays out specific steps for building such a company. Anchoring the content is the “Exemplary Performance System,” a nifty framework the author’s firm uses to guide its clients in understanding six “influences” that underpin high-performance cultures. Several of the concepts in the guide are refreshing and perhaps even unconventional. One striking example is the notion of working “right to left.” Here, Freedman observes that high-performing leaders first strategically define organizational outcomes that employee roles need to produce. This is the reverse of the typical approach, in which leaders design a role and define its tasks in isolation. If there is a downside, it is the harsh truth that sweeping change is not easy for a leader to implement and manage across an entire organization. The case studies woven throughout the chapters are particularly apropos in this regard because they focus on specific challenges and present real solutions. In one instance, an organization instituted a simple yet powerful set of routines to enhance high performance. Freedman’s firm facilitated the process, so this and other case studies in the book (written with Elliott) cleverly act to promote the practice’s consulting services.
Valuable high-level thinking about high performance in business.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5445-1608-0
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
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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