Stanford University Press Blog

One last look at 2008

After the hiatus of the holidays and before we plunge into book news for 2009, I wanted to mention two books that made it on the bestsellers lists.

The China Beat mentioned Joan Judge's book, The Precious Raft of History, as the best book on Chinese women in 2008!  Judge looks at China's transition to modernity through the lens of changing perceptions of women. In particular, changes in representations of women in female biographies.  The book provides rich portraits of China's first generation of female political activists, overseas students, schoolteachers, and public writers,  who exemplified modern China.  However, Judge questions the success of these newly defined gender categories in redefining women's everyday lives.

And, 800-CEO-Read named David Herold and Don Fedor's book, Change the Way You Lead Change: Leadership Strategies that REALLY Work  as a runner up for the Best Business Book of the Year award in the HR and Business Development category.  Here is what the folks at  800-CEO-Read said about the book:

"Change has been the buzzword of the year, but only a few books have addressed change management in truly innovative and constructive ways. In Change the Way You Lead Change, Herold and Fedor examine flaws in change initiatives and take the results of their extensive research to advocate a more philosophical, holistic approach to change, starting with the leader's responsibility in understanding the context in which he or she is leading."

Congratulations to Joan Judge, David Herold and Don Fedor!

Do Performance Appraisals Really Measure Your Performance?

 In an article and podcast in the WSJ,  Samuel Culbert answers this question with the an emphatic no.

Although an army of HR consultants, HR professionals, and change management gurus would have us believe that managers should devote more time and energy to performance reviews, Samuel Culbert author of Beyond Bullsh*t, dismisses performance reviews as no more than "disorienting corporate theatre."  Inevitably they are political and subjective.

According to Culbert, this is because the boss and subordinate approach these appraisals from starkly different positions.  While the subordinate wants to secure the highest possible raise, the boss wants to talk about how the subordinate's  performance can be improved and where it is lacking.  What is worse, in Culbert's view, is that appraisals inject an unhealthy dose of bullsh*t in daily working relationships and often result in permanent schisms in the boss/employee relationship.

Culbert's alternative and innovative proposal is the de-linking of pay and performance reviews.  It is based on the desire for a workplace based on straight-talk and trusting relationships (for a full picture of what such a work culture would like you will need to read the book).  Straight-talk requires a paradigm shift in performance-based compensation.  It requires recognition of the fact that pay is a marketplace-dependent variable, and performance is connected to boss/subordinate chemistry and the ability to actualize predetermined company goals.

Culbert’s Beyond Bullsh*t Reviewed in Financial Times and Times Higher Ed

Beyond Bullsh*t (2008), Samuel A. Culbert’s engaging guide to straight-talk at work, has gotten some significant attention lately. Stefan Stern recently wrote a piece on the book for the Financial Times in which he says: “It is not, as you might expect, an appeal for honesty at all costs. Rather, the book takes a sophisticated look at why we talk to each other the way we do, and why a certain amount of BS at work may be necessary and even advisable.”

Susan Bassnett also reviewed the book for Times Higher Education, in which she explains: “Culbert's basic premise is that bullshit is inevitable in any working situation. Without it, he says, ‘the workplace would be about as serene as the lawless Wild West’. He shows, through a series of examples, how interaction in a working context involves a whole range of strategies and subterfuges, some of which aim to deceive, and others to shield people from a truth that might be unpalatable.”

Beyond Bullsh*t’s basic tenants have also caused a flurry of blog posts. The Assess Systems blog writes: “Readers will find this book personal—which is unusual for a business book; they will think that many of the stories are about them. They will be engaged and delighted as the text demystifies the obstacles to getting beyond bullsh*t and guides them in developing straight-talk relationships at work.”

 

Sustainability Is Needed for Business Leadership

According to the Alliance for Climate Protection, the organization running the “We” advocacy campaign that former Vice President Al Gore launched this morning, “many Americans are concerned about climate change but don't know what to do about it.” Stanford author Chris Laszlo is reaching out to business leaders to show them that they can actually become more profitable by making their companies environmentally conscious.

A “clean energy economy” is one of the solutions proposed by the We campaign, which agrees with Laszlo that sustainable business practices would help the US economy:

A clean and efficient economy would “lead to over 3 million new green-collar jobs, stimulate $1.4 trillion in new GDP, add billions in personal income and retail sales, produce $284 billion in net energy savings.”

In a recent interview, Laszlo argues that the economy has fundamentally shifted so that US companies must pay attention to environmental concerns if they want to remain competitive:

What has happened is that the marketplace has changed and today if you want to make an economic profit you have to pay attention to environmental and social issues in your business… because they’ve become enablers of competitive advantage. So we’re back to just a single purpose gain. So companies have come out with products that have environmental intelligence built in. Consumers tend to prefer those products if they don’t have to pay more for them.

Laszlo’s book, Sustainable Value, not only presents his argument for the necessity of sustainable business practices, but also provides the tools necessary for leaders to move their companies along that path.

Creating Sustainable Value

Chris Laszlo argues in his latest book, Sustainable Value: How the World’s Leading Companies Are Doing Well by Doing Good, that far from being a cost to society and business, sustainability is emerging as a huge opportunity for both.  CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies—General Electric, Toyota, and Wal-Mart, to name just a few—are motivated by the desire to gain competitive advantage in a business environment transformed by rising fuel prices, widespread concern over the impact of climate change, and heightened consumer awareness of health and environmental issues. For more information on the book visit: www.sustainablevaluebook.com

Hollywood v. Technology; Studios v. Consumer

Radiohead’s “pay what you will” release of its newest album, In Rainbow, earlier this month sparked renewed speculation about the outcomes of the entertainment industry’s troubled interactions with a world moving away from purchasing CDs, DVDs, and tickets to a movie theater, and other bands are already following their lead. 

In Coming Attractions?, Phillip Meza gives us an in-depth look at the difficulties Hollywood and the music industry have had in adapting to the rapid rise and evolution of digital technologies. As the entertainment industry has fought to limit access to the content it produces through encoding (DRM) and stronger copyright laws, its customers have increasingly come to view its interests as at odd with their own.  Instead of acknowledging that the consumer is calling for new kinds of access to content, entertainment companies have reinforced the us vs. them perception; after all, “suing your customers is a terrible idea.”

Meza provides the entertainment industry with a roadmap for rescuing itself from entrenchment in dying practices and the disdain of the consumer. A recent review from the Midwest Book Review says that you “will find Coming Attractions an outstanding, specific survey key to understanding long-standing issues, conflicts, and relationships between entertainment, high tech and media industries alike.”

You can listen to Meza discuss these issues here.

Riding Shotgun Review

Nathan Bennett and Stephen A. Miles, co-authors of Riding Shotgun, discuss the enigmatic and misunderstood role of the COO in the May/June Harvard Business Review

	Riding Shotgun The Role of the COO Nathan Bennett and Stephen A. Miles 2006 Buy this book
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