Extremely timely and highly actionable advice on remote leadership.
A debut guide offers a levelheaded strategy for leading in the remote workplace.
One disruptive result of the Covid-19 pandemic was the rapid acceleration of work from home, leaving senior executives legitimately concerned about how to manage and lead remote employees. Pachter, founder and co-founder of several businesses, has personally navigated the ups and downs of remote leadership and shares both his experiences and his insights in this outstanding book. Primarily targeting the small company owner/CEO, the author makes a strong case for transformational change. He effectively suggests that it is time to jettison the traditional “command-and-control authority” of the CEO and instead adopt “leadership-based sharing” because “in your remote enterprise, each employee is in his or her own world, a single-serving CEO of themselves.” Pachter lays out a specific plan for making this transition, basing it on “the Three Pillars of great remote organizations”: “Reflective Leadership,” “Coaching Mindset and Culture,” and “Peer Learning.” An overview of the new workplace provides an unsparing look at how far-flung employees’ various locations affects not just the way they collaborate, but also the manner in which they need to be managed. Leaders, writes the author, must move out of their comfort zones, learning such potentially unsettling techniques as adopting “radical candor,” “giving up being the problem solver,” and embracing “skip-level management.” Ultimately, the most important measurement criterion for WFH success is “Accountability.” Pachter explores the Three Pillars in detail, thoroughly explains their importance, and illustrates each with superb examples drawn from his own experiences and other sources. The content surrounding Reflective Leadership is filled with wisdom that is sure to spark introspection. Here, the author talks about practicing “servant leadership,” “distinguishing between empathy and accountability,” and learning how to “slow down your reactions.” In Coaching, Pachter cites pertinent examples, makes salient observations, and provides perceptive counsel. Peer Learning is a captivating view into how the author’s own organization used “Circl.es,” a digital methodology designed to encourage participation with the objective of “reflecting the group’s shared purpose.” Pachter is a polished communicator; his writing is clear, fluid, and engaging.
Extremely timely and highly actionable advice on remote leadership.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64543-539-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.
Prolific writer Benedict has long blended two interests—sports and business—and the Patriots are emblematic of both. Founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots, the team built a strategic home field between that city and Providence. When original owner Billy Sullivan sold the flailing team in 1988, it was $126 million in the hole, a condition so dire that “Sullivan had to beg the NFL to release emergency funds so he could pay his players.” Victor Kiam, the razor magnate, bought the long since renamed New England Patriots, but rival Robert Kraft bought first the parking lots and then the stadium—and “it rankled Kiam that he bore all the risk as the owner of the team but virtually all of the revenue that the team generated went to Kraft.” Check and mate. Kraft finally took over the team in 1994. Kraft inherited coach Bill Parcells, who in turn brought in star quarterback Drew Bledsoe, “the Patriots’ most prized player.” However, as the book’s nimbly constructed opening recounts, in 2001, Bledsoe got smeared in a hit “so violent that players along the Patriots sideline compared the sound of the collision to a car crash.” After that, it was backup Tom Brady’s team. Gridiron nerds will debate whether Brady is the greatest QB and Bill Belichick the greatest coach the game has ever known, but certainly they’ve had their share of controversy. The infamous “Deflategate” incident of 2015 takes up plenty of space in the late pages of the narrative, and depending on how you read between the lines, Brady was either an accomplice or an unwitting beneficiary. Still, as the author writes, by that point Brady “had started in 223 straight regular-season games,” an enviable record on a team that itself has racked up impressive stats.
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982134-10-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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