The Logic of Balance

Understanding Business: The Logic of Balance by Gary Moreau (CreateSpace, 188 pages, $9.95)

Understanding Business: The Logic of Balance by Gary Moreau is an engaging work.  Moreau focuses on the point that business leaders tend to be guided either by their heard or their hearts (guts).  Most see it as a choice between, say, the colors blue (head) or red (heart).  But leadership may be purple; that is, it must rely on a balance between logical thoughts and instincts.

In Moreau’s words, “this book is all about context.”  The business environment, its context, is rarely solely about reason or logic.  It’s a blend of the two.

Moreau spends equal time illustrating the benefits as well as the weaknesses of relying on data-driven decision making and instinct-driven decisions.  Both will work at some points, but will fail if relied upon to the exclusion of all else.

One of the fascinating points made by Moreau is that many of the visionary individuals that our society holds up as models of business and societal leadership – Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Martin Luther King, Jr. – had significant ideas (the “what”).  However, they had no specific plans (the “how”) for implementing their ideas.  That’s because sky-viewing visionaries must rely upon ground-based planners.

A great leader, as Moreau notes, follows his or her conscience.  This “sits at the crossroads of deduction and reduction.”  Yes, true leadership, in implementation of great ideas, requires balance.

Another key point made by Moreau, a valuable one for business managers, is that the world is a very big and tough place.  We tend to give too much credit to individuals for business successes and too much blame for failures.  The truth is that business leaders – CEOs or managers, cannot control the world.  A business failure may rest upon poor timing, poor global conditions, or many other factors.

There are a couple of issues with this work.  Firstly, Moreau engages in political discussions that are out of place and simply do not belong in the book.  In this, he fails to subscribe to his rule that context is key.  (Since he mentions Trump and Clinton, it’s surprising that he does not use them as examples of contrasting leadership styles.)

Secondly, like Joshua Wolf Shenk, the author of Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs (2014), Moreau tends to go too far in separating matters into one camp or the other.  In Shenk’s book, every artist was separated between being either a John Lennon (an instinctive artist) or a Paul McCartney (a hardworking artist).  But the world is more complicated than that.

In Understanding Business, Moreau is like the proverbial hammer that sees everything as a nail.  Everything is either mind or gut.  I suspect that at some point a writer will produce a book about successful business leaders and artists who fall into the in-between category.  (Joni Mitchell comes to mind as a musician who is equally instinctive and highly rational/logical/detail-oriented.)

Still, Moreau’s book provides valuable points for business executives.  For example, at one point he notes that a business leader should make a deductive decision using logic, but then test this decision using instinct.  That executive should ask, “Does it feel right?”  Excellent.

Finally, Understanding Business drives home one major point in these stressful times.  This is that business leaders must value and respect their staff members.  Executives cannot just talk the talk, they must walk the walk,  It does not take long for workers to realize that they are simply cogs in the machinery of their company.  When this realization hits, the company they work for can and will suffer.

If you own or operate a business, large or small, you may wish to read Understanding Business.  It will serve you well.

Well recommended.

Joseph Arellano

 

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School Days

Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Process Mania by Frank Bruni (Grand Central Publishing, $25.00, 218 pages)

“For too many parents and their children, getting into a highly selective school isn’t just another challenge, just another goal. A yes or no from Amherst or Dartmouth… or Northwestern is seen as the conclusive measure of a young person’s worth, a binding verdict on the life that he or she has led up until that point, an uncontestable harbinger of the successes or disappointments to come. Winner or loser: This is when the judgment is made. This is the great, brutal culling. What madness. And what nonsense.”

Frank Bruni has the good sense to argue that adult life may begin with one’s acceptance into a college, but it does not end there. Students are responsible for what they make out of their education, whether at an elite or less well known university. As he states, “Great educations aren’t passive experiences; they’re active ones.” He builds up his case by noting that several prominent and successful leaders in our society attended smaller, less “prestigious” colleges. Condoleeza Rice, for example, attended the University of Denver as an undergraduate. Steve Jobs, of course, dropped out of college, as did Bill Gates. Did Rice and Jobs and Gates turn out to be losers? Failures? Not exactly.

Bob Morse, who heads the college rankings program at U.S. News & World Report, did not go to Harvard, Yale or Princeton. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati before getting his MBA from Michigan State. As Morse has concluded, “It’s not where you went to school. It’s how hard you work.”

Bruni emphasizes that some students will feel more comfortable at a small college offering a “more intimate academic environment,” even if schools like Kenyon, Denison, St. Lawrence or – a school I’m adding to his list – the University of the Pacific (UOP) are “less venerated than Princeton, Brown and Cornell.” For some, smaller colleges are “ideal environments: especially approachable, uniquely nurturing.” (UOP hangs banners reminding its students that it offers “Professors who know your name.”)

In this calm, forthright book, Bruni tries to reduce the “madness” of the college admission process, noting that there are several inherent flaws and biases that applicants have little or no control over. For example, a particular college may need a couple of trombone players for the band. If you are the first or second trombone-playing applicant, you may get a large packet offering you admission and a scholarship. If you’re the third trombonist applicant, you’ll likely receive a thin envelope containing a rejection notice. If life, as John F. Kennedy stated, is not fair, than neither is the process of determining who gets into our colleges and universities.

Students who suffer the consequences of unfair admissions policies will learn that it will not be their last experience with life’s unfairness. What counts is their positive response to adversity and their perseverance in making the best of whatever circumstance they have to settle for.

Bruni’s book would be an excellent purchase for high school students who feel threatened by the highly competitive process of seeking admission to a so-called “elite” university. Reading his book may help such students to calm down, and feel encouraged to investigate various colleges, not just the “status” schools that their classmates may lust after. (Any school can offer a fine, valuable education to students ready to demand a lot from themselves and their environment.) This book is also a near indispensable guide for the parents of current high school students.

Where You Go… reminds the reader, young or old, high school student or adult parent, that “there’s no single juncture, no one crossroads, on which everything (in life) hinges.” Some, in fact, will find that a valuable lesson can be learned via being rejected by one’s top choice universities. One young woman, a graduate of the famed and “charmed” Phillips Exeter Academy, was rejected by all five of the colleges she applied to. She states that, “There’s a beauty to that kind of rejection, because it allows you to find the strength within.” That young woman started up a new federally-supported public elementary school in Phoenix, Arizona. A loser? Hardly.

Highly recommended.

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher. Thank you to Daniel D. Holt for serving as editor on this piece.

This review first appeared on the Blogcritics site:

http://blogcritics.org/book-review-where-you-go-is-not-wholl-youll-be-an-antidote-to-the-college-admissions-mania-by-frank-bruni/

Change the World

Four young men decided to take a bite out of the world. The world bit back.

More Awesome Than Money: Four Boys and Their Heroic Quest to Save Your Privacy from Facebook by Jim Dwyer (Viking, $27.95, 374 pages)

This is a true story about four young men, from prosperous families (upper middle-class to one percenters), who decided to come up with a program that would take on and possibly destroy Facebook. Their creation, Diaspora, at one time seemed so promising that an intrigued Mark Zuckerberg sent them a donation of $1,000. What would set Diaspora apart from Facebook is the user’s ability to protect their personal information, keeping it from the clutches of advertisers. As the Los Angeles Times noted, the users of Facebook “are not the sites’ customers; they’re the merchandize. The real customers are the advertisers and aggregators who suck up the (personal) data on the users and use it to target commercial come-ons more effectively.”

The efforts of the young Diaspora founders – who were in their late teens to early 20s – would fail largely because they had no business experience and made horrible decisions. For example, when they approached the Sand Hill Road venture capital firm, Kliener Perkins (KP), they were advised to not request a certain amount of money (KP was prepared to offer an investment of $750,000). They asked for $10 million and came away with nothing. This was close to, and eventually was, a fatal decision.

The stresses upon their effort were to lead to short and long-term dropouts among the leadership, and result in a suicide. This is, to a great extent, the story of Ilya Zhitomirsky, the brilliant self-taught programmer who suffered from depression. However, the telling incorporates the viewpoints of each of the founders. All of the founders suffered from inexperience and the sweet arrogance (and ignorance) of youth.

Dwyer, co-author of the excellent account of the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings, 102 Minutes, provides the reader with a cinematic story. This might make a fine film in the style of The Social Network, which detailed the founding of Facebook.

While engaging, this book suffers from a couple of flaws. The first is that multiple accounts of the same incidents result in sometimes-annoying repetition. This can lead the reader to feel like he/she is watching The Norman Conquests. Also, although Dwyer takes two stabs at wrapping up the story, in the final chapter and an epilogue, it comes to a sudden end – the book ends not with a bang but with a whimper.

If More Awesome Than Money is a true-to-life morality play, then Dwyer appears to be unsure of the lesson to be learned. Perhaps it’s that yesterday’s technological revolutionaries (Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison) became today’s establishment figures. They and their creations are to be attacked at one’s own risk.

Recommended.

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher. The original subtitle of this book, as listed in the inside pages, was Four Boys and Their Quest to Save the World from Facebook. I do not know why it was changed.

Note: While finishing this review, I happened to read that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife provided a donation of $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital. “Make of that what you will.” (A.C. Newman, “There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve…”)

There’s a Kind of Hush

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (Crown, $26.00, 352 pages)

If you’re an introvert, should you devote your energies to activities that come naturally, or should you stretch yourself…?

Quiet grants a marvelous sense of relief to anyone who has been concerned because they are easily tired by energetic crowds, fierce competition or small talk with strangers.   Susan Cain, a former Wall Street attorney specializing in negotiation, has made good use of her natural inclinication to be an introvert.   This book is the culmination of literally a lifetime of being one of the quiet people.

Ms. Cain took a long, thoughtful look at the existing literature and studies focused on extroversion vs. introversion.   Moreover, she travelled around meeting with various well-respected experts in the fields of neuroscience and psychology to assure that her book would contain the latest in findings.   In addition, Ms. Cain is a consultant to businesses and professionals who are seeking the skills to succeed in a culture that has, within the last 100 plus years, shifted from valuing character above any other human characteristic, to one that dotes on fame, aggression, group thinking and power.   Her expertise and ability to see both sides of the issue lend great credibility to her writing.

The book begins by explaining how we have arrived at a new set of values only recently that has been embraced by business, politics and popular culture.   The current cultural ideal is the Mighty Likeable Fellow that replaced the person who exemplified the Culture of Character in the 19th century when the ideal self was serious, disciplined and honorable.   We are told that Dale Carnegie was the first well-known speaker and teacher to gather the hapless masses to his events so that they may “win friends and influence people.”   His books are still in print and his work is carried on in the 21st century through seminars, etc.

Today’s counterpart ot Dale Carnegie is Tony Robbins whose Unleash the Power Within program has been attended by thousands of people seeking to become the ideal person/salesman.   This reviewer had the experience of staying at a Hyatt Regency atrium hotel where Mr. Robbins was conducting one of his seminars.   I will own up to the fact that I am an introvert who is never-the-less able to deliver speeches to hundreds of folks on topics that matter to me.   And, no, I don’t get sweaty palms or stage fright!

After a long day filled with much discussion among licensed professionals who were deliberating very serious public health, safety and welfare matters, I adjourned to my third floor hotel room that was facing the atrium.   To my dismay, at 9:30 p.m. the Robbins acolytes proceeded to perform the famous fire walk, complete with chanting, whooping and hollering.   Needless to say, I fled to the far corner of my room, pushed earplugs into position and wished for it to be over soon.   By 11 p.m. I was exhausted and nearly in tears.   Finally, the last fire-walker completed the dash and the group disbanded.

The above-described event could have been exciting, stimulating and entertaining; however, it had the opposite effect.   When I returned home and described the goings on to my immediate co-workers back at my office, most of them could not understand why I didn’t rush down to enjoy the excitement.   That puzzled and even upset me.   Some 15 years later Ms. Cain’s book recently came into my possession and it has provided the answer to that old puzzle.

As in any engaging survey, Quiet begins with a few historic elements that capture the reader’s attention – Rosa Parks’ refusal to obey the bus driver in 1955 along with background on Carl Yung and other pioneers in the study of psychology, as well as clearly identifiable introverts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.   It proceeds to explain the logic behind today’s culture from a popular perspective and moves on to the physiological reasons behind the brain’s response to stimulus.   From there it explores the geographic clustering of introversion and extroversion in societies around the world.   Lastly, Quiet offers really helpful suggestions for understanding the difference between the two types.   (Actually, the extroversion and introversion tendencies that people have can be plotted graphically and they are more of a band with locations rather than two poles.)

If you’re wondering if you are more introverted or extroverted, or if you have a good idea, this book is well-worth the time and money to broaden your understanding of how we function in today’s atmosphere of fame and larger-than-life personalities.

As Ms. Cain so engagingly states, “If there is only one insight you take away from this book, though, I hope it’s a newfound sense of entitlement to be yourself.”

Highly recommended.

Ruta Arellano

A review copy was received from the publisher.

The Book of Jobs

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Simon and Schuster, $35.00, 656 pages)

“When Steve Jobs speaks, it is with the enthusiasm of seeing the future and making sure it works.”   Fortune magazine in the late 1970s

“I had a very lucky career, a very lucky life.   I’ve done all that I can do.”   Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the biography by Walter Isaacson (originally entitled, iSteve: The Book of Jobs) is an engaging biography that’s unique in that it allows us to get to know the man even more than the ultra-legend.   This is the amazingly true story of the person who was given up for adoption at birth, and went on to run the most valuable company on the face of the earth.   Although his contemporary and life-long rival Bill Gates outgained him in personal wealth, Jobs succeeded in earning the respect of both computer technology experts and the average consumer as the developer and producer of increasingly better, always innovative products.

Jobs and Gates were two of the individuals – along with Steve Wozniak – who were more or less present at the creation of the personal computer (PC) age.   Jobs and “Woz” were original members of The Homebrew Computer Club, an informal association in Menlo Park that had a hundred or so members; a club that heard a presentation by a young Gates from the Seattle region.   The Whole Earth Catalog was then popular (some of you will need to ask your parents about it), and Jobs was to adopt its motto as one of his guideposts in life, “Stay hungry.   Stay foolish.”

As Isaacson finely illustrates in this account, Jobs was never afraid to make mistakes with his early and later Apple Computer products – he was to learn and absorb valuable lessons from each of his mistakes right up to the time of “Antennagate” with the iPhone (“Has Apple’s Self-Destruction Begun?” was one of the headlines critiquing Jobs’ decision-making early this year).   If Jobs had been a college football coach, he would likely have been one that rarely called for a punt on fourth down; he would have often elected to go for post-TD two-point conversions.   When it came to beating his competitors, Jobs wanted to “leave no doubt.”

“The journey is the reward.”   Steve Jobs

While this book is not intended to be a comprehensive account of the PC and Silicon Valley, it gives us just enough information to understand where Apple fit in among its hardware, software and search technology alternatives such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Compaq, Google, Oracle, Adobe and others.   If you’ve read numerous histories of the era, you will likely be surprised to see how both Larry Ellison and Bill Gates come off as nothing less than gentlemen in this telling.   Ellison was especially close to Jobs, even offering to buy-out Apple Computer after Jobs’ ouster.   But Isaacson is not afraid to show us that Jobs was a human with flaws.   In addition to possessing a temper which he claimed to be unable to control, Jobs “tended to be generally dismissive of philanthropic endeavors.”   This was the case even though his wife founded College Track, an organization making efforts to help economically disadvantaged kids get into college.   Jobs never visited College Track’s after-school centers in the poor high schools where the program was (and is) located.

Like a hammer that sees everything in sight as a nail, Jobs also tended to view technology as the solution to every one of society’s difficult problems…  A very ill Jobs was to personally lecture President Obama on his view that all education should be digital and interactive (physical classrooms, teachers and whiteboards arguably being obsolete); though, in fairness, Bill Gates has made similar comments – some of which are quoted in Steve Jobs.

Isaacson clearly and comprehensively makes his case that  Jobs belongs up there with Edison and Ford as one of the greatest business leaders in American history.   He was a visionary, a big picture guy who could also master the smallest details.   He was a technological artist who was to identify with both fuzzy inventor-creators and detail-oriented engineers.   And he always understood that a sharp focus is the basic key to leadership, “Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time.”

“…he was a brilliant guy with great design taste and great engineering taste.”   Bill Gates

One of Jobs’ ultimate victories was the knowledge that his adopted father had become enormously proud of his successes and achievements.   This fine and detailed account, an initial draft of history, well makes the case that Jobs (creator of the most successful ever consumer product launches) was a man of whom the entire world was proud.   What he sought as his own less than humble legacy was to come true; he sought “…a legacy that would awe people.   A dual legacy, actually: building innovative products and building a lasting company.”

Steve Jobs – the man who saw the future and built it for us.  

Highly recommended.

Joseph Arellano

This book was purchased by the reviewer as a Nook Book download.   It is also available in hardcover form, as a Kindle Edition download, and in abridged and unabridged audiobook versions.

Note: According to this biography, Steve Jobs once met in the late 70s with a class of Stanford University students and showed them a prototype of a laptop computer.   He informed them that this was the type of PC that Apple would be building and selling in the 1980s.   And Apple did so.   Years later, he told a different class at Stanford that they would one day be using PCs “the size of a book.”   And now we have 7″, 8.9″, 9.4″, 9.7″ and 10.1″ tablet PCs.