A practical and well-considered road map to success through innovation.
A guide to transforming a business (and possibly entire industries) via disruption.
Keegan, a successful capital fundraiser, author, and podcast host who has sold a number of his own businesses, here teaches readers how to disrupt an industry or transform a business; the prerequisite, per the author, is learning to be a fearless leader. “To truly disrupt, you must channel your courageous self and instill that same level of courage in others,” Keegan writes. “And to do that, you must have true faith in yourself and your team, and they in turn must have that same faith in you.” Keegan takes readers through a thorough and engaging breakdown of his “eight pillars for transformational growth,” which include leadership, culture, people, systems, intelligence, emotional intelligence, flexibility, and fearlessness. The book begins with a concise description of what constitutes disruption (think of Amazon changing the way we shop or Google Maps changing the way we get driving directions) and proceeds to explore successful examples—and even some failures, such as Bed Bath & Beyond. A look at Lego and how it has evolved and changed over the years is particularly compelling, as is a discussion of Keegan’s own Merchants Fleet, which he led through transformations as chairman, CEO, and president. The bulk of the book takes deep dives into the author’s eight pillars, which aren’t anything new; plenty of books have been built around these concepts. What distinguishes this work is how engagingly and practically the author presents these ideas. It’s a near-perfect mix of Keegan’s considerable real-life experience (relevant and entertaining anecdotes are sprinkled throughout) and business theories that should work for anyone aspiring to become a stronger leader. The text is nicely paced and progresses logically, ending with four lessons the author learned while leading Merchants’ transformation: Use the author’s pillars framework, value your employees, expect short-term pain for long-term gain, and be daring. Here, Keegan serves up guidelines to do all of this successfully.
A practical and well-considered road map to success through innovation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2024
ISBN: 9798887501666
Page Count: 256
Publisher: ForbesBooks
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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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