Overwritten but inspiring.
Virgin CEO Richard Branson (Reach for the Skies: Ballooning, Birdmen, and Blasting into Space, 2011, etc.) offers a stirring vision for a “new capitalism” that makes doing good for society a top business priority.
A maverick whose Virgin Group companies incorporate socially beneficial initiatives, the author seems to have anticipated the demands (“People Not Profits!”) of Occupy Wall Street, observing that people are becoming more aware of unfairness. “We must change the way we do business,” he writes, going so far as to predict that companies that exist only to maximize profits “will not be around for long.” Branson celebrates many entrepreneurs who have met people’s needs and made a profit, from pioneers like Ben & Jerry and Anita Roddick (founder of The Body Shop) to entrepreneurs around the world. The latter include Gyanesh Pandey, whose Husk Power delivers eco-friendly electricity to Indian families for only $2 per month; Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladesh-born economist and inventor of microfinance; Jane Tewson, who has reinvented British charity with Comic Relief; and Victoria Hale, creator of America’s first nonprofit pharmaceuticals company. “While the industrial age was all about wealth,” writes Branson, “unsustainable growth through depletion of natural resources and delivering profit to your shareholders, this new era, the ‘Age of People,’ is all about shifting the focus to how business can and must deliver benefits to people and the planet—as well as shareholders.” Besides recounting his own efforts to address world issues, the author describes opportunities in health, education and other areas, where fledgling entrepreneurs can help drive social change. Long known for thinking big, Branson certainly does not disappoint in this heartfelt but over-the-top view of socially engaged business. He serves it up in his engaging, name-dropping style, including a vignette about celebrity-visitor Kate Winslet saving his mother’s life during the fire that destroyed his vacation property in the British Virgin Islands.
Overwritten but inspiring.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59184-434-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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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