A knowledgeable and convincing call to view SDG and ESG initiatives as profitable.
Two forward-thinking logistics experts weigh in on environmentally and economically responsible leadership strategies in this nonfiction debut.
Wood and Nakazawa offer a vision of better, more responsible corporate leadership that, they assert, is both realistic and good for the bottom line: “If they choose to, corporations and governments can utilize resources without damaging the environment,” they write. “They can find ways to add value to the world while being extraordinarily profitable.” The authors take as their starting point the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), pointing out that in the modern era, investors are becoming more sophisticated when it comes to environmental goals, as well as concepts such as gender equality, antipoverty, and antihunger initiatives. Those who ignore such issues may actually do damage to their companies, they point out, by creating “social problems, management problems, and even legal problems and lawsuits from employees.” The authors, who in 2019 co-founded Smart Vision Logistics,draw on their experiences advising other companies to examine, in part, the ways that “environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals” can affect future performance. To aid the formulation of such strategies, Wood and Nakazawa present researched chapters, key takeaways, and “guided reflections” such as “How are you currently demonstrating to investors that your business is not only in the business of making outsized profits, but is also adding value to society?” The authors infuse most of their discussion with an infectious enthusiasm, urging their readers to see SDGs not as a burden but as a series of opportunities: “For while a company doesn’t have to solve the world’s problems, it’s time to consider that solving someof them is the right business strategy,” as it can not only attract investors who want the same goals, but also reduce risks of scandals. Their narrative can sometimes take surprising turns, as when they digress about the “very authoritarian” corporate environment of Japan, comparing the system to China’s. However, the bulk of the book deals effectively and very knowledgeably with fundamental changes in the business world.
A knowledgeable and convincing call to view SDG and ESG initiatives as profitable.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781544540948
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
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
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A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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