A must-read for managers who are trying to navigate today’s workplace.
In a business world where collaborative spaces frequently replace private offices, a productivity expert pleads for a balance between the two.
Though the author begins by stating that the purpose of her guide is to help harried workers regain control over their lives and jobs, she clearly aims her advice at the head office. In chapters such as “The ‘Human’ Part of Human Capital,” Thomas (Personal Productivity Secrets, 2012) addresses senior leadership directly. Using research that mines sources in businesses and academia, she makes a convincing case that managers in today’s economy must nurture employees physically and psychologically to coax the best job performance from them. She suggests, for instance, that workers have the opportunity to nap when tired, work outside the office when they want to, and experience nature—either by going outside or playing wildlife recordings at their desks. Lest CEOs think she wants to turn offices into playgrounds, Thomas repeatedly calls for moderation in their design. Some employees require quiet, private spaces to get things done, while others prefer to be surrounded by activity. The ideal office, she writes, combines several different settings along with the flexibility for employees to work remotely. With bold claims (“Managers who have the outdated bias that employees must be supervised in order to be productive should have a skill update”), she identifies the two biggest executive challenges today: customizing management style to suit individual workers’ needs and getting staff members the training they require to avoid distractions in the office. Thomas calls the latter “attention management” and explains that it doesn’t come naturally. Rather, both workers and managers must receive instruction on how to do it. With its succinct chapters and useful margin notes, the book is an ideal accompaniment for in-office training sessions. The end of each chapter offers helpful nuggets of information, such as “Takeaways You Can Tweet,” a fun and unusual aspect of this thorough work that acknowledges the importance of social media.
A must-read for managers who are trying to navigate today’s workplace.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9980095-0-6
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Burget Ave Press
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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