A forceful, helpful, and smoothly readable collection of nuggets of CEO wisdom for entrepreneurs.
A famous CEO and entrepreneur offers his observations about life and business.
Thalheimer, the founder and former CEO of The Sharper Image when it was dominating its corner of the retail market—$750 million a year in revenues, 200 stores, 4,000 employees, and, of course, the famous catalog—now runs The Sharper Fund, a private investment fund. In these pages, he conveys all the lessons he’s learned along the way on matters large and small, everything from relevant technology to hiring and firing, cash flow, corporate savings, and many aspects of customer service. As he touches on each of these subjects, the author draws on his long experience in order to dispense some insights—acknowledging up front that his fellow entrepreneurs at any level of development will find some of these tips more useful than others. “Short and personal (but not too personal) conversations keep you in touch with the human side of the people you work with,” he writes at one point, spelling out what might otherwise be taken as a given. “Check in with them every month or so.” Thalheimer’s tone is brisk and very inviting; he comes across as an ideal boss, the type readers may have dreamed of encountering, the kind who’s always open to chatting and yet is still firm in leading. Readers of this category of business literature will be prepared for bromides, and they’ll certainly encounter plenty of them here. Like most CEOs looking back on their early endeavors, the author often resorts to truisms, such as “When you start, you need people around you who get things done,” and “It is crucial that you treat suppliers with respect.” Both the obvious observations and the original tips are always couched in a friendly, authoritative tone—Thalheimer is certainly correct in predicting that even experienced entrepreneurs will find thought-provoking ideas in these pages.
A forceful, helpful, and smoothly readable collection of nuggets of CEO wisdom for entrepreneurs.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5445-1791-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A friendly but highly derivative series of management lessons.
Leadership tips drawn from a lifetime of diverse encounters in the professional world.
In this compact business book, Howard looks over his own history of working for 16 years as chief security officer for Microsoft and 22 years before that working for the CIA, and pulls together all the most important lessons he learned along the way. He’s added many insights and precepts over the years to what he calls his “leadership toolkit.” Over the course of this book, he recounts specific incidents in his professional life—encounters with micromanagers, inspiring leaders, and a variety of challenges—and derives a series of lessons from them to pass along to his readers. Throughout, he seeks to stress the difference between managers and genuine leaders; managers “get things done” and “do not care if they leave dead bodies in their wake,” he contends, and thus don’t inspire those around them. Leaders, he asserts, are different; they can also get things done but are far more invested in creating a teaching culture and generating loyalty and cooperation. Howard’s stories from his colorful career history are often diverting, particularly when he recalls troubleshooting at Microsoft; when he started, he notes, he “went from having a few direct reports to 19!” The persistent disappointment of the book, however, is that the lessons that he conveys are so bland and predictable: “Never be satisfied with the status quo,” he writes at one point, for instance. “As a leader, you need to pursue things outside of your comfort zone and contribute where you can,” he writes at another. He also solemnly informs his readers that there should be coordination between the various parts of an organization. After encountering several such chestnuts, readers will start to wonder if the author’s impressively varied experience will yield greater insights; by the time they reach the end, in which Howard notes that “you should always be preparing for the future,” they may lose hope.
A friendly but highly derivative series of management lessons.Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-693750-1
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Sayuri Publishing Company
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An informative compilation of examples and exercises, but one that feels incomplete.
Lecturer and consultant Dale aims to teach women how to be more assertive in their everyday lives.
In this guide, the author, a professor emeritus of speech communication at Miami Dade College, presents a series of stories followed by resolutions, interactive examples, and exercises that attempt to define and encourage more confident and self-assured behavior. At times, the accounts seem to bleed into one another a bit; for example, readers learn about the fictional Pam and Carl’s dinner conversation, another woman and her lawyer’s scheduling conflict, and the author’s friend’s assertion that Dale is “aggressive”—all on the same page. However, the interactive exercises in each chapter are brief and specific and always include a sample solution that guides readers to a recommended approach to taking control of the situation. This format often works well, as it gives readers a tangible solution to situations that they come across every day; for example, in the same chapter, she provides the following example: “A client of yours asks you to reduce your customary fee for a service you provide. You know your charges are fair and competitive with the going rate for the same service charged by other local professionals.” When Dale provides assertive statements for use during confrontations—such as “I don’t appreciate your remark” or “There’s no need for sarcasm” in response to a put-down in a later chapter—it effectively allows the user to see how a simple, brief statement can be used to help one to stand one’s ground. There’s a clear shortcoming to the text, though, in that the perspective of women of color is entirely missing from the discussion. In Dale’s examinations of assertiveness versus aggressiveness, she mentions that “women who regularly use [a] submissive or nonassertive communication style report feelings of inferiority and low self-esteem,” and she portrays submissiveness as universally bad. At no point, though, does the book discuss the way that race and prejudice affect women of color’s approaches to problem-resolution or how they’re more likely to be coded as “aggressive” when, in fact, they’re being “assertive,” as defined by this book.
An informative compilation of examples and exercises, but one that feels incomplete.Pub Date: April 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-09-835220-2
Page Count: 268
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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