A pleasant but familiar and sometimes-spacey take on common self-improvement themes.
Consultants Desiderio and Frino, the authors of The Beekeeper(2023), offer a starry-eyed tale that connects nature, business, and personal growth.
Inspired by “the energy from our star system,” visits to wolf sanctuaries and wilderness trails, and the work of astronomers, this book is an upbeat, self-described “leadership fable” focused on “unleashing the brilliance of building brighter teams.” In it, Jack, a small winery owner, meets Grayce, an astronomer and teacher. Jack has doubts about his business and struggles to define his personal concepts of purpose and growth. On a retreat at a state park, Grayce introduces him to the “star system”—the celestial bodies that the book uses as a metaphor for how to build a supportive network and embrace one’s curiosity and sense of connectedness. From chapter to chapter (each with partially italicized titles such as “Starburst” and “Lodestar”), Jack and Grayce stargaze and have meandering conversations about work, nature, and their pasts. Jack writes in his journal about how to “be brilliant” and his thoughts on plants and the natural world, interpolating facts he learns from signs posted in the park. He begins to reevaluate his challenges and apply lessons from astronomy and the environment to his leadership style. Thanks to his conversations with Grayce and a series of others, he begins to see setbacks as opportunities for growth, and parallels between the stars and his relationships. Desiderio and Frino’s bookworks well as a companion on a self-help journey, as it’s as cozy and reassuring as a glass of red wine while lounging by a firepit. However, some koanlike passages, such as “sometimes in the dark we need the light of the moon to illuminate the path forward,” may strike some readers as too far out to be effective advice. The book touches on common personal and professional challenges, and tries to share actionable advice about resilience, connectedness, and pursuing greatness. That said, its major insight—that focusing on human connection and fostering a “growth mindset” can transform one’s business—will already be well known to most readers.
A pleasant but familiar and sometimes-spacey take on common self-improvement themes.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781394280537
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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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