Two dolphins contemplate midlife career moves in this business parable.
Ventura and Status Quo are brother and sister dolphin performers at Dolphinarium, a tourist destination run by harsh hammerhead shark owners. “Trapped in the throes of their midlife crisis,” the siblings discuss how they should push beyond their comfort zones and look for new opportunities. Status Quo stays put, but Ventura takes a new job with another employer, which unfortunately ends after nine months. He then attends seminars, motivating him to form his own Dolphin Tours business, which turns out to be “both slow and competitive,” so he calls it quits. Ventura then suggests to unemployed former colleague Applica that they journey to the unknown northeast part of the Red Sea to look for work. There, they meet an osprey that tells them of an amazing Deep Blue ocean to be found after leaping over a land mass called The Rubicon. Impatient Applica misjudges The Rubicon’s size, gets beached, and dies. More mindful Ventura spots an underwater opening, emerges into what he thinks is Deep Blue, and convinces his sister to accompany him there on his return. They get caught in nets, but dolphin Livita frees them, telling them Deep Blue is still farther off and that oysters only offer the opportunity, not the certainty, of pearls. Fearful Status Quo goes home, but Ventura ultimately finds Deep Blue and develops a conglomerate that makes “huge profits” but doesn’t “neglect its corporate social responsibility.” Singapore-based business coach Lum has quite a bit of fun with this tale, including mocking the meaningless, demoralizing performance mantras promulgated by the Dolphinarium’s overlords. His narrative, both brief and amusing, makes his message to shake off complacency an easily digestible and entertaining experience. While parts of this story are alarming, particularly the death of Applica, these elements underscore the necessary caution required when embarking on new business ventures. Perhaps the best part of the volume remains Lum’s back-of-the-book exercises, allowing readers to plot their own ways out of potentially deadening comfort zones. A vivid tale about sea creatures that highlights the need for strategic risk-taking.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5116-2614-9
Page Count: 106
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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