Thorough and highly applicable advice for communications consultants.
A public relations professional pulls back the curtain on his consulting practice.
In this second installment of a two-volume series, agency principal Darnell offers a comprehensive manual that delves into how to operate a public relations/communications consulting business. The first book, The Communications Consultant’s Foundation (2021), provided an introductory framework for starting such a business. This sequel takes a deep dive into the nuts and bolts, first covering communications strategies and account management, then discussing the business of running an agency, and finally providing an action plan for implementation. Darnell not only explains communications consulting in sometimes-dense detail, he also liberally cites examples, many very specific, from his own career. The author’s experience is credible and considerable; he has worked for other firms and run his own small communications agency for over two decades. It’s a credit to Darnell that he willingly discloses his business philosophy, strategies, and practices, right down to how (and how much) he charges his clients. In Part 1 of the guide, readers will get a solid understanding of the process of pitching accounts as well as insights into more mundane topics such as record-keeping and billing. Also in this section is useful information about client positioning, internal versus external communications, the specialized area of investor relations, and a helpful rundown of various media and public relations tactics that could be employed on behalf of clients. The second part of the work focuses on agency management, professional development, how to scale a business, and potential exit strategies. Here, Darnell delivers some wise suggestions for how best to research media as well as seasoned observations about trade associations and industry gatherings. Perhaps most intriguing is the author’s advice on ways to scale a business, in which he draws from examples of other practitioners. Part 3 summarizes previous material and shows how to apply it in the form of a “Marketing Action Plan” that can be developed for clients. The level of detail in this section is particularly impressive. As in his first book, Darnell includes a wealth of questions to answer and relevant exercises to complete.
Thorough and highly applicable advice for communications consultants.Pub Date: Dec. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-03-201257-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Routledge
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
IN THE NEWS
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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