by Cassandra Frangos ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2018
A lean and bracingly straightforward look at the core paths to the executive suite.
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A debut guide delivers insights into what it takes to move into the much-coveted corner office in the business world.
In this compact book, Frangos focuses on the holy grail of the C-suite, which sits at the pinnacle of every professional career, and lays out not only a variety of reasons why people might want to achieve that goal, but also an assortment of methods for attaining it. The author has coached businesspeople for years, and in that time she’s noticed a comparative lack of literature on the philosophy and strategy of climbing to the executive level (as opposed to becoming a boss, about which there’s abundant reading matter available). In this volume’s clearly written, fast-paced chapters, she breaks down the characteristics of the four “core paths” to the C-suite: the Tenured Executive, who rises steadily through the corporate ranks in the traditional way; the Free Agent, who’s recruited from outside the firm but otherwise fulfills most of the same expectations; the Leapfrog Leader, an “internal or external candidate” who possesses an unconventional mindset or approach to the business; and the Founder, who succeeds by creating a company or vision, bypassing the establishment entirely. Frangos examines each of these paths in detail, providing examples from the business world, citing other motivational books and authors frequently, and listing accelerating and derailing factors endemic to each track. In all cases, the author demands of her readers a fairly high degree of brutal self-awareness; anyone looking primarily for feel-good motivational pep talks will find very little of such material here. Instead, the key idea running through all of the C-suite breakdowns in these pages is one of managed sacrifice: Reaching the peaks of their professional careers requires readers to know who they are and what they are willing to do. Do they have the managerial elements that are needed? Frangos summarizes it all with a disarmingly simple question: “Is this the right plan for you?”
A lean and bracingly straightforward look at the core paths to the executive suite.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61363-084-6
Page Count: 134
Publisher: Wharton Digital Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Eric Schmidt ; Jonathan Rosenberg with Alan Eagle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2014
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.
Two distinguished technology executives share the methodology behind what made Google a global business leader.
Former Google CEO Schmidt (co-author: The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, 2013) and former senior vice president of products Rosenberg share accumulated wisdom and business acumen from their early careers in technology, then later as management at the Internet search giant. Though little is particularly revelatory or unexpected, the companywide processes that have made Google a household name remain timely and relevant within today’s digitized culture. After several months at Google, the authors found it necessary to retool their management strategies by emphasizing employee culture, codifying company values, and rethinking the way staff is internally positioned in order to best compliment their efforts and potential. Their text places “Googlers” front and center as they adopted the business systems first implemented by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who stressed the importance of company-wide open communication. Schmidt and Rosenberg discuss the value of technological insights, Google’s effective “growth mindset” hiring practices, staff meeting maximization, email tips, and the company’s effective solutions to branding competition and product development complications. They also offer a condensed, two-page strategy checklist that serves as an apt blueprint for managers. At times, statements leak into self-congratulatory territory, as when Schmidt and Rosenberg insinuate that a majority of business plans are flawed and that the Google model is superior. Analogies focused on corporate retention and methods of maximizing Google’s historically impressive culture of “smart creatives” reflect the firm’s legacy of spinning intellect and creativity into Internet gold. The authors also demarcate legendary application missteps like “Wave” and “Buzz” while applauding the independent thinkers responsible for catapulting the company into the upper echelons of technological innovation.
An informative and creatively multilayered Google guidebook from the businessman’s perspective.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1455582341
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Business Plus/Grand Central
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
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by Eric Schmidt ; Jared Cohen
by Gene Sperling ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2020
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.
Noted number cruncher Sperling delivers an economist’s rejoinder to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Former director of the National Economic Council in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the author has long taken a view of the dismal science that takes economic justice fully into account. Alongside all the metrics and estimates and reckonings of GDP, inflation, and the supply curve, he holds the great goal of economic policy to be the advancement of human dignity, a concept intangible enough to chase the econometricians away. Growth, the sacred mantra of most economic policy, “should never be considered an appropriate ultimate end goal” for it, he counsels. Though 4% is the magic number for annual growth to be considered healthy, it is healthy only if everyone is getting the benefits and not just the ultrawealthy who are making away with the spoils today. Defining dignity, admits Sperling, can be a kind of “I know it when I see it” problem, but it does not exist where people are a paycheck away from homelessness; the fact, however, that people widely share a view of indignity suggests the “intuitive universality” of its opposite. That said, the author identifies three qualifications, one of them the “ability to meaningfully participate in the economy with respect, not domination and humiliation.” Though these latter terms are also essentially unquantifiable, Sperling holds that this respect—lack of abuse, in another phrasing—can be obtained through a tight labor market and monetary and fiscal policy that pushes for full employment. In other words, where management needs to come looking for workers, workers are likely to be better treated than when the opposite holds. In still other words, writes the author, dignity is in part a function of “ ‘take this job and shove it’ power,” which is a power worth fighting for.
A declaration worth hearing out in a time of growing inequality—and indignity.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-7987-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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