by Robert Greifeld ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 8, 2019
Good reading for fiscal wonks, especially those with an interest in financial technology and information systems.
Tales of financial wonder from the former CEO of Nasdaq.
Founded in 1971, Nasdaq was meant to bring “order and fairness” to the chaotic over-the-counter stock trading system, posting information regularly so traders didn’t have to make separate phone calls to keep buy-sell price quotes current but instead could call in only to make an actual trade. Where the New York Stock Exchange reigned supreme, Nasdaq came to specialize in technology—“the public-market parent to hundreds of promising children” that were too young to qualify for listing on the larger market. As Greifeld notes, representing technology also meant leveraging it, developing systems that sometimes lent themselves to gaming (think Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys). Those systems in turn were built by people in “jeans and sandals, not coats and ties,” who didn’t quite fit into the tidy corporate culture that the financial world represented. After wrestling with this violation of his rule of “cultural consistency,” Greifeld concluded that it was best to let the nerds have their way. The emphasis on consistency is well placed: As the author notes, Nasdaq, being highly regulated and central to the equity market generally, had to be at once innovative and reliable. The “disruptive innovation” that came with instances such as Facebook’s IPO proved a great test, as did the financial collapse that led to the great recession a decade ago, a scarifying event. “We all stared into the collective abyss in 2008,” writes Greifeld.” Anyone who took a good look into that dark and deep chasm, and came back from the brink, has not forgotten the view.” Most of the book is more upbeat than all that, peppered with “leadership lessons” along the lines of, “If you’ve been doing your job as a leader, you should be developing most of the talent you need in-house" and, “As long as you’re headed in the right direction, it’s less important how fast you are going.”
Good reading for fiscal wonks, especially those with an interest in financial technology and information systems.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5387-4513-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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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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BOOK REVIEW
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.
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
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