4.5 out of 5 stars.
by Susan Cain, Viking, London, 2012, RRP$29.95
“If we assume quiet and loud people have roughly the same number of good (and bad) ideas, then we should worry if the louder and more forceful people always carry the day.”
That statement comes fairly early in this book and it’s a theme which sits ominously in the background of every chapter. Research shows neither introverts nor extroverts to have any advantage in intelligence. Both types share a similar IQ profile.
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4 out of 5 stars.
by Ed Smith, Bloomsbury, London, 2012, RRP$35.00
It’s fashionable to talk about the connection between sport and business at the moment. Luck, however, doesn’t hold such pretensions. It’s basically about, well, luck.
Luck does not present any groundbreaking research in the fields of chance or risk. In some ways it is more an armchair survey of recent literature on the subject.
But despite the compendium nature of the work, it raises serious questions about the notion of luck and it’s changing role in business and society. Not all of it for the best.
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4.5 out of 5 stars.
by Richard Branson, Virgin Books, London, 2012, RRP$32.95
You have to admire Richard Branson. Here’s someone who just doesn’t fit the mould.
His early CV would hardly suggest him as “the most likely to succeed” – dyslexic, expelled from school and no clear direction.
You can also add to the mix attention deficit and the failure of his early start-ups.
Branson has never denied those things; rather, he has embraced them. He is a great example of the power of the easily distracted personality. Without those traits he would likely never have built such a diverse empire.
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4.5 out of 5 stars.
by Tony Schwartz, with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy, Simon & Schuster, London, 2010, 334pp, RRP$29.95
Here’s a nifty little book. You may have heard some of it before, but Schwartz and his collaborators have put the best management thinking – both old and new – into a very practical volume.
This is a manual rather than a book. Yes, there is theory, but it’s engagingly presented and always leads to a practical idea.
At first glance it looks like another one of those titles that gives you The Five Key Rules to Do Everything. There’s a bit of that. For them, it’s the Four Primary Needs. There’s alliteration as well. All those needs start with “S”.
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3 out of 5 stars.
by Patrick Dixon and Johan Gorecki, Kogan Page, London, 2010, 212pp, RRP$29.95
If you want to get anything out of this book, you’ll need to get over two things: The dreadful title and the assumptions of the authors.
We can simply forgive the first. Perhaps it sounded like a good idea at the time. Everyone was probably pretty excited.
As to the second, just skip the predictions. This book starts by telling us what it will be like in forty years’ time.
The more certain people are about that, the less likely they’ll be right, be they Thomas Malthus or Paul Ehrlich. Scary stuff often lacks credibility.
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3 out of 5 stars.
by Jonah Lehrer, Text Publishing, Melbourne, 2010, 294pp, RRP$29.99
Here’s a book that tells us what we already know: We often make decisions without thinking.
In The Decisive Moment, Jonah Lehrer also tells us that we are often right and explains why that can be the case.
A neuroscientist and a contributing editor to Wired magazine, Lehrer strings together an array of fascinating stories and experiments to unpack our decision-making processes.
Central to his thesis is that emotions play a key part. They should not to be consigned to the waste bin of irrational functions.
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4 out of 5 stars.
by Gregory Berns, Harvard Business Press, 2010, 250pp, RRP$29.99
According to author Gregory Berns, an iconoclast is a person who does something that others say can’t be done.
So you want to be an iconoclast? This book won’t tell you exactly how to become one, but it will point you in the right direction.
Berns is a professor of neuroeconomics, which is a sub-discipline at the leading edge of neuroscience.
In turn, neuroscience looks at the chemical crossfire behind our brain’s decision-making. It’s all about dopamine, neurons and the pre-frontal cortex.
It’s a field of study fruitful in providing new insights for behavioural analysis.
Despite all that, it’s a pretty readable book.
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4.5 out of 5 stars.
by Andrew Griffiths, Allen & Unwin, 2011, 368pp, RRP$35
I first picked up an Andrew Griffiths book five years ago in tropical north Queensland. It was the only business book in the Port Douglas bookshop.
I know. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs. Instead of snorkelling and parasailing, I was in a bookshop, not even browsing the thriller section. Instead I was thumbing my way through a management text.
My wife, appalled, thought this behaviour uncool. My teenage daughter said it was not fully like wow.
In truth, I had just finished an Ian Rankin thriller. I was pretty relaxed, my head was clear and I was up for some ideas.
I got some in Griffiths’ 101 Ways to Build a Winning Business.
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3.5 out of 5 stars.
by Michael Lewis, Allen Lane, UK, 2011, RRP $40
Michael Lewis’ earlier book, The Big Short, was a widely acclaimed, definitive book on the sub-prime crisis and everything that followed.
It achieved that status not by telling the story from the heart of Wall Street. Rather he worked his way in via the actions of smaller players far from the financial epicenter.
That gave the work a context with which anyone could identify. It led readers gently into the complexity of what turned out to be a monumental scam. The world is still paying for that, along with the shenanigans of the countries visited in Boomerang, his latest book.
Lewis likes a good financial disaster. He is a crafty and at times eloquent writer. He gives you a point-blank view of what happened at the coalface.
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4 out of 5 stars.
by Henry Mintzberg, Prentice Hall, UK, 2011, RRP $24.95
“One damn thing after another.” For many a manager, that tidily sums up what they do.
It’s a quote from one of twenty-nine managers Henry Mintzberg studied in putting this book together. It’s simple title: Managing.
As pithy as that quote might sound, it will ring a realistic bell with a lot of people. Strategy, analysis and leadership models play a big role in business theories.
But in reality, it’s day-to-day action that defines their job. It’s also at the core of the author’s critique of management theory and practice.
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