by Philip W. Struble ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2017
A remarkable business manual that delivers useful advice based on biblical passages.
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A debut business guide and memoir applies Judeo-Christian philosophy.
For the organizing focal point of his manual, small business owner Struble has chosen one of the least likely parts in the entire New Testament: the Galilean fisherman Zebedee. He’s mentioned glancingly in the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew as, in Struble’s words, “the proud owner of a small fishing company that operated several fishing boats on the Sea of Galilee and employed at least four men.” Zebedee’s partners were Simon Peter and Andrew, and his fellow fishermen were his sons James and John—and all four of them left the business to follow Jesus, presumably leaving Zebedee high and dry. “I imagine him smelling of fish and sweat while staring off at the backs of five men walking away,” Struble writes, in the kind of charming detail that fills this book. The author muses that Zebedee was thus forced to rethink his careful business plans completely. On such a slender foundation, Struble manages to construct a dense and consistently thought-provoking treatise on team building, accountability, employee discipline, negotiation, and dozens of other aspects of the modern business world. The author has absorbed a wide variety of the most popular business books written in the last 20 or 30 years, but from the start, he stresses that the orientation of his own work stems from a far older source. “Instead of looking at Fortune 500 companies or other twenty-first-century business studies that evaluate employee impacts on business success,” he writes, “I will look at that twenty-first-century issue through the lens of the Bible.” He deftly examines a wide spectrum of Scripture to draw lessons that can be applied to contemporary businesses. But his emphasis always returns to poor Zebedee, suddenly left with no partners or employees, marvelously dramatized by Struble as a template for small business owners everywhere. “As employers and employees, we are first and foremost the children of a gracious and loving God,” the author reminds his Christian readers and fellow professionals.
A remarkable business manual that delivers useful advice based on biblical passages.Pub Date: May 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5127-8335-3
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
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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by Rebecca Henderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2020
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
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