Showing posts with label business ethics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business ethics. Show all posts

The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders Review

The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders
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The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders Review

The author, dean of the Yale business school, has rendered a most valuable service to the business leaders of America, and in the process opened the possibility that new forms of business education, new forms of business practice, and new forms of moral global governance might yet emerge in America.
Originally inspired by the "double-whammy" of 9-11 and Enron on business--(the one costing America, by Fortune's estimate for businesses alone, $150B in additional security measures, or close to 1.5% of the Gross Domestic Product; while others suggest 9-11 has reduced profits by 5-6%), the author provides an easy to read, well-documented overview of why CEOs have to engage in rebuilding the integrity of business, protecting the homeland, preserving global economic security and free trade, taking on global poverty, and influencing foreign policy.
The author excells at pointing out, in the most gracious way possible, how all of the preconceptions of the current administration, and in particular its penchant for unilateralist military bullying, have proven both unworkable in achieving their intended results, while also unsuitable in being translated to economic gains. Military power does not translate into economic power or added prosperity.
This book is *loaded* with common sense and specific ideas for getting business leadership back into the global stabilization dialog. The author focused on two ideas that I consider to be especially important: the need to reexamine how the taxpayer dollar is being spent on national security, with a view to redirecting funds (I add: from military heavy metal to what Joe Nye calls soft power: diplomacy, assistance, intelligence); and on the urgency of restoring the independence and expanding the mandate of the U.S. Information Agency so as to overcome the acute misperceptions of the US fostered by Saudi-funded schools for youths being taught to hate, and little else.
The non-governmental organizations come in for special scrutiny, and the author has many good ideas, not only for promoting better business-NGO partnerships, but for auditing the NGOs and not ceding to them the moral high ground. As he points out, many organizations that oppose globalization or specific business practices do not have any standards or transparency with respect to who funds them, how decisions are made, and so on.
Finally, the author concludes with a focus on business education. While citing many improvements made by many schools, he notes that a comprehensive study and reengineering overall has not occurred since the late 1950's and early 1960's, and that the time is long past when graduate business education must be completely revamped. He is exceptionally astute and credible throughout the book as he explores the many things that CEOs need to know but do not receive training on, to include understanding and dealing with government, NGOs, citizen advocates, and the real world. As he notes, Master's in Business Administration tend to train students for the first years in the corporation, not the long-haul. He places some emphasis on the need to consider continuing education as an extension of the original program, and I immediately thought of an MBA as a limited-term license that must be renewed by recurring personal investments in education.
As someone whose opening lecture line to citizens and businessmen is "if the State fails, you fail," I found this book extraordinarily valuable and urgent. We get the government we deserve. If citizens do not vote, if businessmen do not think of the larger social goods and social contexts within which they operate, then the government will prove incapable and at some point the party will be over.
Yale has always had an extra helping of morality and humanity; in this book the dean of the business school ably makes the case that business leadership and engagement in national security and global stabilization is the sine qua non for continued prosperity. He's got my vote--if I were a mature student looking for a place to learn, he's put Yale right at the top of my list.The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders Overview

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Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches Review

Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches
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Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches ReviewThis book is a decent one for your library shelf. It includes a fair variety of articles, quite often featuring widely known names in the CI field. The idea of "proven" and "strategies" may be a bit misleading however, as some of these so-caled proven strategies were really philosphies, tactics or concepts that worked for a short time but were shown to be difficult to sustain. Witness the recent public difficulties at Procter & Gamble or Daimler Benz for example and you'll understand this.
For those people who read or have seen the CI Review, you'll recognize that these chapters first appeared as articles in that venue. Some of the chapters are now several years old, stale, and the individuals, departments or companies involved have undergone major shifts in their approaches to CI and to the topics of these articles. I should note that this doesn't mean that the information is invalid, indeed, it is helpful more often than not. However, "proven" strategies are enduring... some of the ones highlighted here were "practiced" for sure, but "proven" may be a bit of a marketing stretch. I'd still recommend this book to those individuals new to the field, and those who haven't accessed this material before in its other forms.Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches Overview

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Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten) Review

Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten)
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Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten) ReviewThis little book is small in size only as it covers significant and wide ranging discussions on a persons moral compass. The author is probably one of the most successful and positive people I have ever read that would write a book that focuses on the positive side of human nature. The author believes in being honest, fair and gracious at almost all costs. He argues that if we all focused on these aspects of our human contact, then many other positive results will present themselves.
Not only is this book a wonderful pick me up for anyone fighting their way through the corporate jungle, but it is full of bits of solid management techniques for those of us in the business world. Even the authors personal story is a wonderful look at how someone can become such a success treating people fairly and honestly. Overall I can not say enough positive about this book. It is a great shot in the arm and a road map for a positive legacy. This book is a keeper and one that you will find reading over and over.Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten) Overview

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Make It Glow: How to Build a Company Reputation for Human Goodness, Flawless Execution, and Being Best-in-class Review

Make It Glow: How to Build a Company Reputation for Human Goodness, Flawless Execution, and Being Best-in-class
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Make It Glow: How to Build a Company Reputation for Human Goodness, Flawless Execution, and Being Best-in-class ReviewIn a universe of business books filled with platitudes and MBA jabber, "Make It Glow" shines through like a beacon. The book's author, Tom DeCotiis, is a PhD. who can write in a very direct and effective manner. His observations about the stages of business development, especially the notion of "wobble," ring true. At some level, the book is an expression of his personal philosophy about honorable conduct in business. And there is nothing more honorable - or profitable - than living up to the tenets of your company's brand.Make It Glow: How to Build a Company Reputation for Human Goodness, Flawless Execution, and Being Best-in-class Overview

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Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris is Wrecking Companies and Careers and How to Avoid the Trap Review

Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris is Wrecking Companies and Careers and How to Avoid the Trap
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Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris is Wrecking Companies and Careers and How to Avoid the Trap ReviewThe book Ego Check, by Mathew Hayward, seems like it was written exactly for me. It's about the tendency towards overconfidence in striving individuals. The four major hallmarks of same are: excessive pride and boastfulness; failure to listen to foils who tell you when you're wrong; refusal to get feedback about the outcome of your activities; and not planning for problems, consequences, and corrective measures in advance.
The author gives case studies that show how these four faults led to disaster in the case of mountain climber Rob Hall, business executives Jean Messiers, Meg Whitman, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Dean Kamen, Merck in the Vioxx disaster, NASA in the Challenger and Columbia disasters, and The National Kidney program.
The only problem with the book is that it relies mainly anecdotal methodology to prove its points. It includes numerous cases where pride was very successful, such as Apple and Dell, where the same executive was guilty of hubris and of perfectly rational overconfidence. It espouses people like Jack Welch and Warren Buffet as role models for how not to let hubris get the better of their organization. But anyone who seriously studies these executives' activities might conclude, as I do, that these are sanctimonious scoundrels who are masterful at retrofitting their personae into a form that the media will love and whose judgment is superior to the free market.
As I read the book, I found myself thinking about my hobby, electric circuits. So many of them go into short circuits and uncontrollable output because the output is tied to the input in a positive feedback loop rather than a negative one that dampens the volatility and controls the output. Anyone who plays with op amps or amplifier circuits will know exactly how important is the dampening influence of monitoring the output and then controlling it when it gets out of a range.
A bit of modeling with economic, electrical, or game theoretic concepts like this would have helped to put many of the points in a more systematic form for me and would have led to many more testable hypotheses. And yet, Hayward is a Columbia PhD who collaborated on Harvard works, and professor of psychology at Colorado University, who has interviewed many of the actors in the case studies that he writes about. I find him particularly insightful. And I agree with his point that hubris is the key fault that leads to great disaster in striving individuals.
To his credit, Hayward realized that the mantra espoused by Collins in Good to Great, i.e., that the successful executive should be meek and humble and prudent at all times, is retrospective mumbo jumbo not suitable for the risks and leadership role successful executives must take in today's dynamic and uncertain world. The problem is how to differentiate the overconfidence that has a positive expectation, from the ones that will lead to disaster.Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris is Wrecking Companies and Careers and How to Avoid the Trap Overview

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Permission to Steal: Revealing the Roots of Corporate Scandal--An Address to My Fellow Citizens (Wiley Desktop Editions) Review

Permission to Steal: Revealing the Roots of Corporate Scandal--An Address to My Fellow Citizens (Wiley Desktop Editions)
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Permission to Steal: Revealing the Roots of Corporate Scandal--An Address to My Fellow Citizens (Wiley Desktop Editions) ReviewLisa Newton's little book should be read by every serious politician, every student of management, and every business executive. I would also add that it should be read by every philosopher with an interest in writing clear and powerful prose, and with an interest in being relevant outside of the academy. Newton's explications of the nature of conservatism and liberalism, of "values," and of human motivations are mature and insightful, even if sketchy. Rare for a philosopher, she is unafraid to use the language of sin in her treatment of the business scandals of recent years, and this allows her to connect with a much wider swath of readers. Her insights into human psychology are akin to those of the acclaimed cognitive scientist (and political consultant) George Lakoff (whose books I also recommend); and her understanding of liberalism and conservatism resonate with the insights of thinkers on both sides of the political spectrum. If we are going to get a handle on what causes cycle after cycle of scandal in the business world, we will need to come to terms with what Lisa Newton is trying to get us to see in this slim but powerful book. I will be using it in my various courses in social and business ethics for as long as it stays in print.
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The Mind of the CEO Review

The Mind of the CEO
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The Mind of the CEO ReviewNothing new here. The book was moderately interesting. As CEO of a company company based in the midwest, I was looking for real insight. This book offered nothing new and frankly ended on a sour note for me. Clearly, Jeffrey Garten is without any serious and current operational experience or he would understand how his liberal, government centric views don't work in today's business environment. Had Mr. Garten operated his own business for any period of time, he would know that it is more than a full-time job to satisfy investors/shareholders, staff, boards, customers and other interested parties - not to mention directing trade policy for the federal government. If private business spends more time leading public policy and less time in business, what would that do for shareholders, domestic and global economy? I especially enjoyed the part towards the end of the book where Garten, as "part of the first Clinton Administration", take credit for the end of the Cold War with Russia and tearing down the Berlin Wall - sorry attempt to take credit for something he nothing to do with as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. This book is weak and I am sorry I took time out of my busy schedule to read about Garten's view of the world.The Mind of the CEO Overview

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