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HOW WORK WORKS

THE SUBTLE SCIENCE OF GETTING AHEAD WITHOUT LOSING YOURSELF

With the authority of experience, King shows how knowing the informal rules is the path to advancement and fulfillment.

A respected expert on the way workplaces really operate provides a wealth of advice.

In her latest book, King, a successful consultant on organizational culture and the author of The Fix: Overcome the Invisible Barriers That Are Holding Women Back at Work, casts a wide net, examining the informal rules and practices of workplaces. These rules are often more important than workflow charts and duty statements, but they can be difficult to discern, especially for people whose training is primarily in a technical field. The author focuses on a few essential areas: navigating informal networks, developing awareness, learning adaptive skills, gaining promotions, and finding meaning. She sees “soft skills” as critically important in the age of diversity and remote work. “In the new world, we must learn how to bridge our differences with others so we can collaborate, innovate, and solve complex problems,” she writes. “This means working with people who don’t share your background or identity.” She tracks the process of observing colleagues and more senior executives for guidance on the implicit rules, and she suggests that offering assistance to others is a positive avenue for building connections. For leaders, creating a more inclusive workplace means sharing information and being willing to take chances when allocating projects to stretch employees’ abilities. For employees, readiness to move outside your comfort zone and then seeking feedback builds a presence in crucial networks and marks you as capable of bigger things. In terms of job satisfaction, the keys are good personal relationships and linking individual efforts to a greater objective. King provides practical advice although she has a tendency to repeat her points more than needed. But this is a small issue with a book that would be a useful read for anyone trying to navigate the modern workplace.

With the authority of experience, King shows how knowing the informal rules is the path to advancement and fulfillment.

Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023

ISBN: 9780063224575

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Harper Business

Review Posted Online: June 20, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023

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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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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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