An intensely personal guide to better self-esteem and kind but forceful management.
A detailed look at how to become a better leader through self-understanding.
Executive coach Barber says that she wrote this book in order to show people that anyone can change how they see themselves—and how others see them. The author confesses that she went through many years in the business world feeling “invisible” to management, until she decided to make a change, leave her position at Kraft Heinz in 2015, and become a leadership coach. She devotes her energies, she says, to helping others improve how they see themselves, and show them how to use their new realizations to help them become better leaders. She cites the old saw that “people don't leave companies, they leave managers,” and clarifies it, noting that “a bad manager who creates drama and, in some cases, a hostile work environment is a serious problem.” Unfortunately, she writes, too many leaders feel insecure, and a management style based on this feeling can have deleterious effects on people they manage. Barber smoothly weaves together stories from her own experience and case studies from coaching clients and co-workers she’s known, relating wide variety of scenarios involving workers in various capacities whose self-doubt or lack of clarity kept them in the “shadows,” and lacking the confidence to realize their own power. Her wish in all of this, she states, is “for everyone to see the value they bring and be able to talk about it.” In clear and ringingly optimistic prose, she effectively encourages her readers to throw off self-limiting beliefs that readers will find familiar, such as “I am not qualified to do this,” or “everybody else is good at this, but I am not,” and so on. Other readers may feel that some of this optimism may go too far; there are such things as qualifications, after all, that are based on different levels of skill and expertise. That said, its earnestness is genuine, and many in Barber’s audience will find that such positive feedback is exactly what they need to hear.
An intensely personal guide to better self-esteem and kind but forceful management.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73761-044-1
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2022
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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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