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GROW

HOW IDEALS POWER GROWTH AND PROFIT AT THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMPANIES

Business professionals not flummoxed by the book’s infomercial aftertaste will find the marketing pep-talk galvanizing.

A global-marketing guru extols the power of idealism in business.

From a childhood paper route as a kid in central Pennsylvania to a pivotal seven-year stint as a marketing officer at Proctor & Gamble, Stengel knows his territory well and demonstrates a distinct business savvy. He stresses early on that the core of any business model should be in the establishment of a brand “ideal factor,” a term which the author longwindedly translates throughout the book as the focused attention a business pays to the improvement of its customers’ lives. Stengel lays out five core “must-do” principles based on a decade-long growth study he performed on 50,000 businesses worldwide brands in conjunction with a noted brand-consulting firm. From that research, the author presents his top businesses (“The Stengel 50”), which he believes are industry role models for their sustainability, financial profitability and consumer loyalty. In the book’s more practical second section, Stengel expansively vets the strengths of successful powerhouse brands like Jack Daniel’s, Discovery Communications, Pampers and Visa, and introduces important leadership-building “culture cues.” Additionally, he astutely analyzes how and why each of the five interlocking pieces of his business model will prove successful when applied to any company eager for sustained growth, enhanced profitability and increased morale. Stengel capably conveys the merits of corporate idealism, but the message becomes messy with the frequent repetition of core principles and continuous mentions of his executive position at Proctor & Gamble.

Business professionals not flummoxed by the book’s infomercial aftertaste will find the marketing pep-talk galvanizing.

Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-307-72035-1

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown Business

Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011

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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

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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THINKING, FAST AND SLOW

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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