A monkey wrench in the works of HR, bean-counting, and other such enterprises and a pleasure for contrarians in a...
For every quantification, there’s a way of gaming it. So argues this timely manifesto against measured accountability and other “knowledge that seems solid but that is actually deceptive.”
“Man is the measure of all things,” said Greek philosopher Protagoras. These days, it seems that humans are the most measured of all things, endlessly tested and quantified. As Muller (History/Catholic Univ. of America; The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought, 2002, etc.) observes, “a key premise of metric fixation concerns the relationship between measurement and improvement.” In other words, we are measured so that we provide more productivity, better test scores, and more money. In fact, as the author notes, when we are measured so fixedly and fixatedly, we tend to figure out ingenious workarounds: surgeons whose success rates are so quantified, with hospital ratings and pay scales set accordingly, tend to avoid difficult cases that can skew the score. The quality of information gathered tends to be degraded with increasing standardization—witness the phenomenon of teaching to the test, which in the end teaches almost nothing but improves the numbers by lowering the expectations and the standards. In a spirited, nicely wrought diatribe that is of a piece with Edward Tufte’s much-studied excoriation of our addiction to PowerPoint presentations, Muller delivers some sharp arguments against received wisdom. He is the rare college professor who allows that not everyone should be in college, that “the metric goal of ever more college students is dubious even by the economistic criteria by which higher education is often measured.” So what is to be done? Deprecate metric fixation, the author argues, in favor of “the key functions of management: thinking ahead, judging, and deciding.” Ask the old cui bono question: who benefits from more metrics? And other such revolutionary stuff.
A monkey wrench in the works of HR, bean-counting, and other such enterprises and a pleasure for contrarians in a hypernumerate world.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-691-17495-2
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
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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