A well-crafted, engaging handbook for organizational problem-solving.
Two organizational management experts offer practical advice for problem-solving in this business guide.
“When handed a big, juicy problem and the vague marching orders ‘Figure it out,’ teams tend to go into smash-and-grab mode,” write Noonan and Segall, who compare the default approach of many organizational problem-solvers to people who are given a watermelon and proceed to bludgeon it. When given a heavy, awkward problem, their attempts to obliterate the challenge often result in even stickier messes. Per the authors, while these people may have the best of intentions, they’re limited by “bad habits,” particularly a tendency to “plunge in” and an inability to “self-regulate…without intention or self-critique.” This all-too-common “smash and grab” approach to problems not only leads to bigger issues, but also wastes valuable time and energy that could have otherwise been put to more constructive use in critically dissecting the matter. The heart of Noonan and Segall’s book is the authors’ “Structured Problem-Solving” (SPS) framework, which provides a systematic approach that can be applied to almost any problem in any organizational setting. Though some steps may sound obvious (define the problem, create a workable plan), Noonan and Segall make a compelling case that following these measured steps will help readers prevail against the psychological and sociological forces that often “confuse ‘furious activity’ with forward motion.” A practical work, the volume offers specific advice on such subjects as facilitating dialogue based on the responses of others. Conversing with a “non-talker,” for instance, involves building trust and a gradual transition from closed to open questions, while dealing with a “compulsive talker” may require frequent time checks and the avoidance of open-ended questions. The authors also offer guidelines for creating a customizable “plan for engagement” with stakeholders based on “their level of interest and influence on the project,” ranging from casual email check-ins to regularly scheduled meetings, based on the specific person. Noonan and Segall emphasize the ways in which learning the skills of problem-solving has a direct impact on the trajectory of one’s tenure within an organization. They build a convincing argument for the value of “critical thinking,” which they posit is not an innate ability but rather a set of “practical skills” that must be carefully developed to understand cause and effect, forecast outcomes, gather information, and apply logic.
The pragmatically oriented text includes a wealth of real-world examples drawn from the authors’ longtime experience in business, organizational management, consulting, and higher education. As academics (Noonan is professor emeritus in the Practice of Information Systems & Operations Management at Emory University, and Segall is an associate dean at Emory’s Goizueta Business School), the authors display a sound understanding of the underlying theories behind their arguments; the work is supported by scholarly references, but Noonan and Segall write in an engaging style that’s geared toward a wide variety of readers. The book’s accessible prose is supplemented by the inclusion of full-color, high-resolution visual sources on nearly every page, including photographs, illustrations, charts, tables, and graphs. Sprinkled throughout the text are a host of inspirational and witty quotes from famous authors and celebrities that provide welcome breaks from the hyper-detailed stratagems.
A well-crafted, engaging handbook for organizational problem-solving.Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9781646872350
Page Count: 474
Publisher: Ideapress Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2026
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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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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