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THE MILLENNIAL WHISPERER

THE PRACTICAL, PROFIT-FOCUSED PLAYBOOK FOR WORKING WITH AND MOTIVATING THE WORLD'S LARGEST GENERATION

Perceptive, passionate, and actionable tips on managing millennials.

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An instructional guide focuses on the care and feeding of millennials in the workplace.

As an ad agency managing partner, Tuff found himself in charge of a team made up entirely of millennials. This appealing debut chronicles his challenges in this role while offering very specific, sensible tactics for how to lead those employees, who are now statistically the largest generation in the American labor force. The author begins by debunking some of the more negative, common myths about millennials, such as their supposed laziness and narcissism, citing research studies and his own firsthand observations. He also points out an important distinction between older millennials, who are less technologically savvy and more cynical, and younger ones, who are more connected and feedback-oriented. The heart of the well-executed book is Tuff’s philosophy of millennial management, which flows through eight short chapters that address company culture, recruitment and retention, rewards and recognition, motivation, and morale. Each chapter details ideas and on-the-job stories designed to assist any manager to become more adept at leading millennials appropriately. Perhaps most helpful are the “Make It Happen” sections that close each chapter with step-by-step tactics. For example, to create a millennial-friendly workplace, Tuff suggests such actions as “Hero your people,” “Permit your Millennial team members to help craft the culture,” and “Delete your negative attitude.” For those managers who scratch their heads about building relationships with millennials, he advises, “Follow your employees on social media and engage with their social channels” and “Provide Millennials with an opportunity to pursue their passions within their work.” Some of the author’s advice, such as encouraging millennials to be entrepreneurial, perhaps even by “starting a business incubator program” within a company, may give pause to traditionalists, but it reinforces Tuff’s premise that managing millennials requires a different mindset. Interestingly, the author has found that with millennials, public recognition of effort is as important as a reward and that small, regular, meaningful perks, such as concert tickets, may be perceived as more valuable than cash bonuses. Insights like these confirm Tuff’s self-proclaimed status as “The Millennial Whisperer.”

Perceptive, passionate, and actionable tips on managing millennials.

Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-64279-279-9

Page Count: 190

Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019

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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

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

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REIMAGINING CAPITALISM IN A WORLD ON FIRE

A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.

A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.

Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.

A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.

Pub Date: May 1, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1

Page Count: 336

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020

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