A thorough, highly engaging, and superbly written exploration of organizational culture.
A business book offers an example-filled deep dive into organizational culture.
Culture is arguably one of the most puzzling areas in today’s business organizations. In this impressive and vibrant treatment of the subject, academicians/consultants Moussa, Newberry, and Urban seek to demystify organizational culture by analyzing its “four forces” (“vision, interests, habits, and innovation”) and showing how they fit together, as do the pieces of a puzzle. The pragmatic approach of the authors is revealed in a careful, methodical way. They first introduce the puzzle pieces in a broad brush stroke, then discuss the four forces in depth, and finally demonstrate how to sustain a healthy organizational culture. Along the way, the book features countless case studies and anecdotes that perfectly illustrate the typical cultural challenges faced and the opportunities available to take organizational culture to the next level. In Part 1, the authors employ memorable metaphors to highlight the importance of corporate culture. They liken those CEOs who may be tone deaf about culture to Akhenaten, an Egyptian pharaoh who was an innovative genius but could not convince the populace to follow his lead: “This tale of a prideful pharaoh who fails to change long-standing cultural beliefs remains keenly relevant today.” Just as effective is the metaphorical gardener who is responsible for “thoughtfully and carefully tending the culture garden.” An example employed by the authors is the decidedly nonmilitary leadership style of American Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Iraq. McChrystal recalled his mother’s penchant for vegetable gardening and applied three lessons he learned from her to managing his troops: adapting to changing conditions, being “the protector in chief,” and creating the right environment.
Part 2 addresses the four forces in precise detail; chapters devoted to each one are brimming with relevant examples, all of which are accompanied by authoritative commentary and keen insights. In discussing vision, the authors demonstrate how storytelling helps build strong cultures. The chapter regarding interests covers several vital issues, such as how to keep organizational tribes from fragmenting and how to become a “culture virtuoso.” An outstanding vignette in this chapter is an anecdote about retired Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who returned during the 2008 financial crisis to transform a “loose collection” of 10,000 store managers “into a tribe of tribes.” In the chapter about habits, the authors explain “four principles for creating moments that usher in new habits.” Concerning innovation, the authors identify three characteristics associated with “the true nature of innovation and the sort of environment that fosters it.” In Part 3, Moussa, Newberry, and Urban reprise the gardener metaphor, aptly describing how a culture leader takes responsibility for “Pulling Weeds and Cultivating Wildflowers.” The authors close the book on a hopeful note, observing that during the Covid-19 pandemic, they were encouraged to see many organizations “thinking village rather than self.” Crammed with stories across a broad spectrum of industries and organizational sizes, this book delivers much of value that any manager should be able to glean.
A thorough, highly engaging, and superbly written exploration of organizational culture.Pub Date: June 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-52-309182-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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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IN THE NEWS
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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