Especially following a historic banking crisis, this is a timely lesson on the importance and commercial value of ethical...
A practical business guide that advocates a correlation between success and integrity.
Author Silverstein (No More Excuses, 2015) has devoted his career to building successful corporate cultures centered around the principle of accountability—his previous works are all attempts to catalog and systematize his life’s labor. In his latest book, he documents the extraordinary success of the Happy State Bank, headquartered in a tiny town called Happy in the Texas Panhandle. The work is the result of interviews he conducted with the bank’s CEO, J. Pat Hickman, who attributes its success—even during the recent dark days for banking—to a belief system built around what he calls “non-negotiables,” basic moral principles unconditionally held. “Some people use the word belief as though it’s a moving target,” says Silverstein. “I believe that hidden deep within the deepest meaning of the word belief are the words conviction, trust, and faith. That kind of belief means you don’t sway when something or someone pulls at you.” Rather than merely moral prohibitions, Hickman interprets nonnegotiables as instruments of greater control and freedom, premised upon a reflection on which parts of life can be mastered and which are matters of chance. For all its inspirational rhetoric, the book maintains a healthy pragmatism regarding its message: “You can’t have a non-negotiable for something you can’t control.” The underlying moral of Silverstein’s examination is that an uncompromisable moral worldview is necessary to achieve true accountability and is, therefore, an indispensable ingredient in prosperity. The culmination of the work is the list of Hickman’s own nonnegotiables, some of which might be too vague to be all that helpful (“Do what’s right”), while others seem especially timely in an age of notorious malfeasance (“Don’t forget that it’s other people’s money”). Silverstein’s writing is clear and straightforward, making this both an accessible and actionable book.
Especially following a historic banking crisis, this is a timely lesson on the importance and commercial value of ethical commitment.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0768407242
Page Count: -
Publisher: Sound Wisdom
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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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