A mixed bag, but it contains solid contributions to the literature of creativity and organizational change.
An exploration of how “we are all prone to coincidental encounters”—and how we can use them to our advantage.
A horrific car accident as an 18-year-old set Busch to thinking about good luck—or, as he calls it, serendipity, “the hidden force in the world, and it is present all around us, from the smallest day-to-day events to life-changing, and sometimes world-changing, breakthroughs.” Surely, surviving a wreck counts as good luck, and being open to good luck probably leads to more rather than less of it—as Louis Pasteur said, “chance favors only the prepared mind.” Busch delivers a narrative that is partly common-sensical but that too often veers off into pseudo-science, speculation, and New Age–y platitudes: “Things such as synchronicity—these meaningful coincidences in time—tend to happen when we put energy into the universe.” Those practical elements are squarely in the business/self-help tradition, and while there’s not much surprising about them, it’s useful to be reminded: Reframe a problem as an opportunity, and you’re likely to come up with something interesting. Surround yourself with interesting people, diverse but not so diverse as to be diffuse. Build networks and be active in doing good things for their members; “nobody appreciates being in your address book just because of what they can do for you.” The author is adept at analyzing specific events and institutions to help drive home his points. For example, he studies the physical layout of Burning Man to deduce that its closely spaced public places foster meetings while filling their centers with art provides an opportunity for people admiring the same piece to interact. After all, plenty of things happen as a result of chance encounters. Even so, readers interested in luck and accident would do just as well to read Arthur Koestler’s 1972 book The Roots of Coincidence.
A mixed bag, but it contains solid contributions to the literature of creativity and organizational change.Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08602-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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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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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