A smart, systematic approach to enlightened leadership.
An international coach shares her four-step approach to becoming an agile leader.
Agile leadership is a style that features the ability to be flexible and adapt to change. In this second edition, Yeo updates her guide to agile leadership. It is centered on “Re4,” a coaching model the author developed while working with large organizations, including Fortune 500 companies and the United Nations. Re4 consists of four steps: “Reconstruct the Map,” “Refresh the Lens,” “Renew the Identity,” and “Rebuild the Capabilities.” Instead of merely explaining the Re4 concept, Yeo deftly demonstrates its application by citing examples of how several of her clients employed it to improve their leadership approaches. In addition, she relates these cases to eight paradoxes that leaders generally face. Each of these is explained in a chapter that defines the paradox and shows how one of her clients applied Re4 to address the situation. For example, in the third paradox, “Self vs. System,” Yeo’s client Amy found it challenging to manage the conflict between her job and her family and used Re4 to solve the problem. The sixth paradox, “Executing vs. Inspiring,” depicts how the author’s client Prakash employed Re4 to learn how to facilitate team brainstorming and decision-making rather than taking on sole responsibility. The business book is organized in a useful way: After a general discussion of leadership agility (Part I), Yeo outlines the paradoxes (Part II). Then, in Part III, the author offers an in-depth examination of each client’s motivations and experiences with Re4 as well as posing questions for readers to answer. This is a very effective approach because it identifies a leadership challenge, depicts the implementation of a solution by an actual client, and encourages readers to immerse themselves in and reflect on the Re4 methodology. Yeo concludes that leaders who understand their “authentic” selves find that “the right answer” for their contexts can help them lead with “greater agility.” Well-constructed, clearly written, and replete with appropriate examples, this guide is a distinguished and welcome addition to an already burgeoning business book category.
A smart, systematic approach to enlightened leadership.Pub Date: May 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-981-14-5846-0
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Acesence
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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