Comaford has experienced undeniable success in the business world, but she fails to adequately translate her methods into a...
Standard techniques from the fields of self-help and salesmanship, repackaged as neuroscience and presented as a method to build effective teams.
Business consultant Comaford (Rules for Renegades: How to Make More Money, Rock Your Career and Revel in Your Individuality, 2007) claims to offer a way to grow businesses into their next phase of activity by focusing on what she calls the brain's “smart state,” rather than its opposing “critter state.” These states are derived from her view of the functions of different physical parts of the brain, brain stem/reptilian part, mammalian limbic system and neocortex. The prefrontal cortex, where “everyone from quantum physicists to voodoo doctors knows there is a huge untapped potential,” is responsible for advanced behaviors. From these divisions, Comaford proceeds to discuss how to mobilize the powers of the smart state to take advantage of inflection points that arise in the course of a business' development. Like the exponents of sales and closing techniques marketed in real estate, the author offers herself as “your scout and your coach, not your professor.” Her emphasis is on the practical, and she concludes each section with a wrap-up, featuring action points and expected returns—but little substantiation for her claims. Meanwhile, such techniques as “mirroring” and “matching,” which involve copying physical movements and postures of others, adopting their tones of voice and inflection, and inferring personality types from word use, are neither new nor related to neuroscience but rather are established parts of a salesman’s repertoire. Not surprisingly, creating more effective marketing and sales messages is one of the projected results of adopting these techniques, along with closing deals faster.
Comaford has experienced undeniable success in the business world, but she fails to adequately translate her methods into a compelling narrative.Pub Date: June 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59184-648-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
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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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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