Concrete, comprehensive counsel for business leaders.
The co-founders of a global consulting practice propose an approach to scaling small- and medium-size businesses.
The title of this debut guide is also the name of the authors’ business, so it will come as no surprise that McGurgan and Colvin highlight a scaling methodology designed and implemented by their company. The obvious sales pitch aside, there is considerable value in the thorough scaling framework freely shared by the authors. They make it clear from the outset that their approach is not for startups; rather, they address established SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) ready to grow exponentially with a focus on “establishing, refining, and standardizing the processes, which enable repeatable, scalable, and profitable business.” According to their research, “Almost 98 percent of SMEs fail to scale.” The book aims to help change that statistic; it describes a highly structured framework of 10 principles, each of which is explained in richly detailed chapters. The principles are neatly divided into three sections. A handsome, if somewhat complex, circular graphic ties it all together. “Inspire” covers mindset, vision, and employees; “Orientate” describes planning, process, and performance; and “Accelerate” concentrates on value proposition, geographic coverage, and collaborations with partners. The 10th principle, “Positive Growth Culture,” is embedded in the “Inspire” section to make the framework come full circle. This work displays both breadth and depth; McGurgan and Colvin offer a start-to-finish scaling process as well as nuts-and-bolts descriptions for each of the principles. The authors provide specific, well-founded guidance supported by citations from other sources. Numerous relevant examples appear throughout, and a substantial case study related to each principle is included at the close of every chapter. At times, the writing may feel a bit gimmicky. For example, there seems to be an overabundance of alliteration, acronyms, cleverly constructed phrases, and the like—but it is not at the expense of generally solid and highly actionable content. In all, this book delivers a serious, pragmatic approach to scaling a business.
Concrete, comprehensive counsel for business leaders.Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5445-2590-7
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Houndstooth Press
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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