A fast-paced and engaging account of taking a business from weakness to strength.
A turnaround expert advises business leaders on moving to profitability.
In this business book, Canady draws on his experience as a CEO often hired to rehabilitate companies in financial and operational trouble to discuss how to establish the conditions that allow businesses to thrive. The Pareto principle underlies the author’s approach—Canady explains to readers how to shift a company’s focus to the 20% of products and customers that deliver the majority of the business’ revenue, resulting in more profitable operations. The author contends that businesses need to earn “the right to grow,” which they can do by setting a goal and making an action plan. The book provides a detailed example of such a process, using a pseudonymous company Canady once ran on behalf of its private equity owners. The author takes readers through the process of segmenting both products and customers into the profitable 20% and the unprofitable 80%, offering suggestions on how to maximize the value of the unprofitable majority. Canady advises readers on how to get staff aligned with corporate goals, how to measure progress and profitability, and how to approach an existing business with a fresh mindset in order to make the changes needed for its survival. Sometimes, the author’s analogies are overstretched (like his claim that Thoreau set a goal of “achieving a trivial-to-critical ratio of 95/5” when he moved into a cabin by Walden Pond), but readers will generally find enough substance in the text to allow them to overlook some rhetorical excesses and unnecessary repetition (the concept of “zeroing-up” is defined at length twice). On the whole, the book is highly readable, offers actionable advice, and gives readers a solid understanding of what it takes to make a business profitable. Canady’s enthusiasm for the turnaround process drives the narrative pace, making the book a quick read with meaty sections readers will return to when they are ready to apply its lessons to their own workplaces.
A fast-paced and engaging account of taking a business from weakness to strength.Pub Date: April 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781394331581
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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IN THE NEWS
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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