A skillfully written, professionally designed guide that offers tips and strategies that should resonate with anyone in a...
Two communication trainers attempt to redefine the concept of business presentations.
Given the way business is changing in an age of digital communications and social media, it was probably inevitable that someone would take a fresh look at live, in-person presentations. According to Ludwig and Owen-Boger, who professionally offer training in presentation skills, “much of what you have been taught about presenting has to be replaced.” The authors believe that people shouldn’t give speeches, but have conversations—“an exchange between a presenter and an audience.” They employ a nonthreatening method, and cleverly format the book to effectively immerse readers in their training techniques. Readers follow eight people, each with his or her own needs and objectives, as they go through a presentation training workshop. The authors describe the background of each participant (such as Terry, a new IT director who’s “[n]ervous with executive leadership,” or Luis, an entrepreneur who wants to “[p]roject a professional image”) and show how each learns new skills to alleviate his or her concerns. Along the way, readers are sure to identify with one or more of the participants, and relate to some of the challenges they face in their organizations. In addition to the book’s nice balance of explanation and demonstration, it has other novel features that make it stand out. For example, the authors use two different typefaces to identify themselves when they “speak,” and precede each chapter with key bullet points (much like presentation slides). The book uses graphics such as handwritten name cards, Post-it notes and flip charts to enhance the realism of the workshop environment, as well as helpful sidebars that address specific questions (such as, “How long should I pause?” and “How can I eliminate ‘ums’?”). The overall effect is both practical and involving.
A skillfully written, professionally designed guide that offers tips and strategies that should resonate with anyone in a business setting.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0983870326
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Granville Circle Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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