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THE THINKING LIFE

Name: THE THINKING LIFE
Author: P.M. Forni
ISBN: 978-0-312-62571-9

HOW TO THRIVE IN THE AGE OF DISTRACTION

by P.M. Forni ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2011

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Insightful meditation on how changing the way we think can improve our daily lives.

Forni (The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude, 2009, etc.) encourages the pursuit of thinking in an age when “serious thinking is often the illustrious casualty in the digital revolution.” The author explores dependency on modern technology and its associated problems but primarily focuses on the greater value of thinking. He argues against those who write off the lost art of pondering, revealing the reality of wasted time and providing practical suggestions on how to create space in busy lives. He addresses multitasking as “our attempt to do the maximum amount of things in the shortest amount of time with the minimum amount of thinking.” To illustrate his ideas, Forni effectively blends a combination of ideas from classical and modern philosophers, myth, current events and personal anecdotes. He chides parents and schools for not properly instructing the next generation in how to make good decisions, and how this is detrimental to society at large: “I wish I could tell you that I had the good fortune of undergoing a solid home training in decision making, but I did not. I wish that just one of my teachers had managed to impress upon me and my schoolmates that being happy depends upon making sound decisions.” A deft exploration that urges us to think before speaking.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-312-62571-9

Page Count: 192

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP

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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

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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

Categories:

BUSINESS | PSYCHOLOGY

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.