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STRAIGHT A'S NEVER MADE ANYBODY RICH

Name: STRAIGHT A'S NEVER MADE ANYBODY RICH
Author: Wess Roberts
ISBN: 0-06-017918-X

by Wess Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 22, 1991

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Roberts seems to have lost the fine sardonic edge that made his Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun (1989) a diverting bit of comic relief. Even more disappointing for readers in search of tongue-in-cheek insights, the author has turned deadly earnest, poaching on preachy preserves overcrowded by the likes of Robert Fulghum and Og Mandino. This time around, Roberts is bent on attesting to the rewards (psychic and otherwise) of living up to one's full potential. To this end, he combines straw-man case studies with cautionary tales drawn from a welter of oddly coupled sourcesthe Bible, Cervantes, classical mythology, Dickens, etc. With appreciably more piety than wit, he then offers capsule commentaries on the lessons to be learned. After recounting the unhappy fates of Narcissus and an upwardly mobile MBA cursed with a baseless sense of infallibility, for example, Roberts solemnly warns that false pride has pitfalls. Without apparent embarrassment, he also reminds slow learners: ``There is more to success and happiness than simply acquiring skills and knowledge.'' Nor, despite his test's suggestive title, does Roberts set great store by either fortune or fame as a benchmark of achievement; report cards, he argues along similar lines, are equally unreliable measures of academic excellence. Roberts gets off a few sallies, including the injunction to resist trying to get more out of an experience than circumstances warrant. In the main, however, his do-the-right-thing counsel consists of advisories that are either self-evident or so much syrupy twaddle. Late bloomers, ugly ducklings, and other of life's presumptive also-rans should probably wait for Rasputin's Complete Guide to Self-Realization.

Pub Date: May 22, 1991

ISBN: 0-06-017918-X

Page Count: 182

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1991

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY

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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

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.

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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

Categories:

BUSINESS | PSYCHOLOGY

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.