An instructive, if sometimes dry, guide to effective, principled leadership in the battlefield and the boardroom.
The career of an Army sergeant major–turned-Ph.D. offers lessons for aspiring leaders.
Being a paratrooper and an accountant is an unlikely combination, but Medley made an impressive career of it. For nearly 33 years, Medley served as a U.S. Army “fighting finance” solider—a combat-ready warrior whose mission is to ensure soldiers get paid, even if they’re fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. The memoir traces Medley’s military service from his enlistment in 1956 to his role as acting command sergeant major of the U.S. Army Finance Center. After retirement, Medley earned a doctorate in administration and management during a civilian career that culminated with a professorship at Martin University in Indiana. But to classify the book as the recollections of an overachiever wouldn’t do it justice. It’s more valuable as a leadership manual for managers seeking to build, as Medley puts it, a “success environment.” The author is a believer in the “universality of management,” the idea that effective leaders can apply their talents irrespective of the nature of the business. Medley exemplified this philosophy as he tackled assignments as diverse as commanding an Army mobile pay team under enemy attack and revamping a university budget process. Sprinkled throughout are practical lessons on employee motivation, conflict resolution, organizational politics and career development. While methodical and neatly organized, the unsparing use of military acronyms and detailed descriptions of finance operations can be tedious. And there’s a regrettable lack of balance between the author’s professional history and his personal life. Very little is said about how his stressful, international career affected his role as a husband and father. So the “journey” promised by the title unfolds more like a resume than a well-rounded memoir. Still, Medley’s enviable list of accomplishments means he writes with the insightful authority of someone who has earned his stripes.
An instructive, if sometimes dry, guide to effective, principled leadership in the battlefield and the boardroom.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1491718650
Page Count: 320
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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