An honest, engaging work of management wisdom.
A software company CEO makes an impassioned case for kinder, gentler business management.
Singhal runs a successful, publicly traded company, NetScout, and his debut proves that success doesn’t always imply ruthlessness. His business philosophy, “Lean But Not Mean,” is as much about everyday living as it is about management. Singhal’s fundamental point is that it’s quite possible for a leader to run an efficient and profitable enterprise without being unfeeling. In short, well-crafted chapters, Singhal uncovers the various aspects of LBNM in a clear, conceptual discussion augmented by simple, straightforward examples. Much of what he says flies in the face of conventional wisdom. For example, although many CEOs put shareholder value above employees’ needs, Singhal believes the organizations run by such leaders “have their priorities backwards”; he asserts that excited, motivated employees create loyal customers who, in turn, lead to more profitable companies. Indeed, he says, the best way to build a successful enterprise “is to get as many of your employees as possible involved as shareholders.” He also expresses his deeply held belief that trust is the bedrock of business. One of his more provocative LBNM practices, “The 5 Percent Rule,” was first used for corporate acquisitions, but he says that it’s appropriate for “most consequential decisions”; he explains that he involves himself in major decisions or actions only during the first and last five percent of the process, trusting his staff to execute the remaining 90 percent. Throughout this discerning book, the author employs a personal writing style that adds an element of informality but never diminishes the importance of his overall message. For example, in an epilogue, Singhal candidly observes that, while writing the book, he realized he was “unconsciously practicing” LBNM across all aspects of his company—and that he came to believe that LBNM transcended management to be “a way of seeing the world.”
An honest, engaging work of management wisdom.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 184
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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
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