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
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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