Mostly entertaining autobiography beats out the usual business textbook approach.
Virgin Group founder Branson (Screw Business As Usual, 2011, etc.) reveals the methods that have helped him build his unconventional multibillion-dollar business empire.
A prolific and outrageously successful promoter of himself and his myriad businesses, the author provides a rollicking romp through Virgin’s fun-loving, iconoclastic approach to building a business and reputation. Underneath the April Fool's jokes (one of which earned Branson a cooling-off period in a London police station) and the deftness of the humor with which the author recounts his battles against much larger and well-established opponents (e.g., British Airways, Qantas and British Telephone) lies a much more brass-knuckled story. Beginning with Virgin Records, Branson has simply given customers a product and service they wanted—in that case, beanbag cushions and coffee in a record store. The author presents both a well-calibrated sense of the relationship between risk and opportunity and a commitment to excellence in service. Branson introduces us to many of the people who influenced his business methods—e.g., Freddie Laker, who pioneered cheap, no-frills trans-Atlantic passenger flights. Branson writes that Laker helped him outmaneuver British Airways and provided “another piece of guidance that would change my approach to business forever, and with it, the way we set about taking Virgin brand down hundreds of new and diverse global alleyways.” Laker also provided the essence of Branson's public relations mantra when he told him, “get your arse out there. Be visible, take risks, get creative, make yourself heard and take the fight to them before they bring it to you.” Of course, the PR initiative wouldn’t mean much without the company's brandwide commitment to excellence in service, highlighted by the examples of such startups as Virgin Hotels. Branson takes no prisoners when discussing recruitment, training and empowerment of his employees, as well as how leadership standards are set.
Mostly entertaining autobiography beats out the usual business textbook approach.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2014
ISBN: 978-1591847373
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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