A canny, insightful, and very readable take on the brave new world of work.
Economic upheavals—from the rise of artificial intelligence to the fall of 9-to-5 office jobs—will profoundly change companies and employees, according to this savvy business forecast.
Collaboration and technology consultant Simon explores nine trends facing organizations and their complex and often surprising implications. These include employees who are newly empowered by tight labor markets to demand more from employers on everything from wages to corporate political commitments; the new normal of work-from-home and hybrid jobs that take workers out from under distrustful bosses’ gazes; advances in automation and AI that will make business processes more efficient and lead to millions of layoffs—perhaps reining in some of those empowered workers—but not necessarily raise productivity much; and soaring inflation as disrupted supply chains and protectionist barriers bring production back to the United States. The author also examines blockchain technology that will make real estate transactions, accounting, and background checks more transparent; virtual and augmented reality systems that surgeons will use to repair spines and Walmart will utilize to train associates; the increased use—and abuse—of statistical analytics that give people ever more data, much of it unimportant or misleading; and the fractional ownership of artworks, office buildings, and executive positions in hyperfluid markets. From this overview, Simon distills a few pithy recommendations, advising business leaders to “Steer Into the Skid” of change by embracing new technology and accommodating workers’ preferences. (He takes a dim view of Elon Musk’s mass firing of Twitter underlings.) The author deftly mixes big-picture surveys of the drift of technology, demographics, and society with illustrative drilldowns on nuts-and-bolts examples, often taken from the tech sector, like Uber’s adoption of robotic processing automation to handle its accounts payable system. He manages to make this potentially dry material lively, writing in a witty, down-to-earth style. (“No one likes getting their teeth scraped, but the benefits of regular cleanings far exceed their costs. Does the same principle apply when you sit down with your boss to review your performance over the past year? In general, no. With rare exceptions, annual performance reviews…never really and consistently accomplished their stated goals: motivating employees and changing their behavior.”) Bosses and workers alike will find much nourishing food for thought here.
A canny, insightful, and very readable take on the brave new world of work.Pub Date: April 3, 2023
ISBN: 9798985814774
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Racket Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2023
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
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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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