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Great Women Sculptors

The beautifully printed, encyclopedic Great Women Sculptors brings together more than 300 artists who have been excluded from institutions and canons on the basis of gender.
The beautifully printed, encyclopedic Great Women Sculptors brings together more than 300 artists who have been excluded from institutions and canons on the basis of gender.
NonfictionSocial ScienceLGBTQ+

American Teenager

Nico Lang’s powerful American Teenager closely follows seven transgender young adults, rendering complex, searing and sensitive portraits of their lives.
Nico Lang’s powerful American Teenager closely follows seven transgender young adults, rendering complex, searing and sensitive portraits of their lives.
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Business & Finance

Briefly noted

Review by bookpagedev

In The Great American Tax Dodge (Little, Brown, $22.95, ISBN 0316811351), Time Inc. senior writers Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele take on the inequities and iniquities of the American tax system. In the tradition of firebrand financial populism exemplified by William Greider’s Who Will Tell the People?, they expose the loopholes that allow thousands of people with six-figure incomes to pay no income tax at all, as well as the fact that millions don’t even file returns.

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management (Random House, $26.95, ISBN 037550317X), by Roger Lowenstein, narrates the inside-the-boardroom drama of the 1998 collapse of a hedge fund whose failure threatened to plunge the world’s financial system into chaos. Lowenstein not only explains the excruciatingly complex dealings of the fund in clear layman’s prose, he also spins a gripping and minutely detailed tale of the torturous negotiations among Wall Street titans and the Federal Reserve that led to a bailout involving $3.6 billion in private funding.

Howard Kurtz, dean of U.S. press critics, unmasks Wall Street’s hype machine in The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street’s Fame of Money, Media, and Manipulation (Free Press, $26, ISBN 0684868792). The role of financial media outlets like CNBC in whipping up the stock-trading frenzies of recent years was ripe for scrutiny, and Kurtz lays bare the log-rolling dynamics of a new media industry that needs overblown stock stories as badly as stock promoters do.

Journalist and entrepreneur E. Thomas Wood is working with author John Egerton on a book about Nashville.

In The Great American Tax Dodge (Little, Brown, $22.95, ISBN 0316811351), Time Inc. senior writers Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele take on the inequities and iniquities of the American tax system. In the tradition of firebrand financial populism exemplified by William Greider’s Who Will Tell the People?, they expose the loopholes that allow […]
NonfictionMemoir

Florence Williams: Queen of (broken) hearts

Interview by Linda M. Castellitto

Everyone has experienced some form of heartbreak—in love, at home, on the job or in the star-crossed universe. When this happens, many of us kick-start our recovery by eating a solo pint of ice cream, lolling on the couch in tatty pajamas, shout-singing to newly cruel love songs or taking long, tearful walks in the rain.

These familiar remedies do help temper our emotions, as well as add hits of humor to romantic comedies. But what about new bodily pain that lingers? Unusual aches that confound? After all, heartbreak affects us physically, too. We cannot truly separate mind from body, head from heart.

Florence Williams knows this all too well. As she writes in her fascinating, frequently funny and altogether life-affirming new book, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey, when her husband of 25 years informed her that their marriage was over, “I felt like I’d been axed in the heart, like I was missing a limb, set adrift in an ocean, loosed in a terrifying wood.”

Read our starred review of ‘Heartbreak’ by Florence Williams

Post-romance ruination wasn’t something Williams had previously encountered, having met her husband on her first day of college. “I was drawn to him,” she said in a call to her home in Washington, D.C. When their marriage ended, since she’d spent her entire adulthood side by side with him, “I had to learn lessons in my 50s that people normally learn from dating in their 20s and 30s.”

Williams is the author of two previous popular science books, Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History (2012) and The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative (2017), as well as a contributing editor for Outside magazine and a science writer for the New York Times. So when heartbreak engulfed her personal life, she became an assiduous and motivated student of the science of devastation. “It’s my mode of trying to understand what’s going on,” Williams says. “I’m the sort of person who wants to know what my body is doing; I want to know test results. I believe knowledge is power.”

In pursuit of that knowledge, Williams traveled across America and overseas to numerous laboratories, scrutinizing her very cells, analyzing the changes in her health and spelunking the hallucinatory hollows of her own mind. (Indeed, the supervised use of MDMA was involved.) She even interviewed the U.K.’s Minister of Loneliness and took a moving and illuminating tour of the Museum of Broken Relationships in Croatia.

“There’s something about heartbreak and meeting people from this vulnerable place that makes people want to help.”

As scientists, researchers and other intellectually curious sorts gave Williams access to their work, they shared not only their findings on the risks of chronic loneliness (it increases the risk of early death by 26%) but also the fallout from their own painful romantic experiences. “There’s something about heartbreak and meeting people from this vulnerable place that makes people want to help,” Williams says. “A lot of barriers come down when you’re real with people, and that felt true when I talked to the scientists. I was really moved by how many of them shared their own vulnerabilities.”

In particular, a rather poetic comment from a genomics researcher bore out Williams’ persistent sense of urgency. “When Steve Cole said to me that heartbreak is one of the hidden land mines of human existence, and that it can put us on a path to early death, that was so arresting!” she says. “It made me want to drop everything and focus on getting better.” It also made her want to share what she had discovered with others. “Everyone else needs to know this, too. This is important.”

It was also vitally important for Williams, who says she “grew up spending summers living in a van with my dad, driving out West and canoeing every day,” to recenter herself in nature. Her husband had been a similarly adventurous partner, taking regular wilderness treks with Williams and their two children, who are now 18 and 20. But running rivers and hiking through forests on her own was something she’d never considered doing.

“A sense of curiosity is really helpful for emotional resilience.”

Williams explains, “When you live your life with a certain set of expectations, and all of a sudden the ground falls away . . . it challenges everything you think you know about yourself and the world, but it’s ultimately this wonderful opportunity to figure out who you are.” Williams has now completed a solo whitewater rafting trip.

Time and time again, Williams’ research makes the case “that a sense of curiosity is really helpful for emotional resilience. Learning to be more open, to cultivate beauty even when emotions are difficult, that kind of self-understanding is really helpful.”

When it comes to heartbreak (and Heartbreak), Williams adds, “Grief is a very human emotion, and sometimes we’re not very good at paying attention to our emotional state. . . . We’re so good at glossing over and distracting ourselves—at saying, ‘Everything’s fine here.’ But when life forces us to put down that delusion, it enriches our capacity to connect with other people. Ultimately, that’s what it’s all about, you know?”

Florence Williams author photo credit: Sue Barr

For a sunnier view of love and connection, try one of these four perceptive nonfiction reads.

When the science writer's marriage ended, she looked to lab technicians and researchers to help soothe her heartache.
Technology

On the road again

Review by bookpagedev

Travel just isn’t what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior’s life is one hassle after another. It doesn’t have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business travelers. At last, someone has written a quick, sensible book of lists, reminders and advice for the occasional traveler, seasoned pro or neophyte. Organize Your Business Travel: Simple Routines for Managing Your Work When You’re Out of the Office by Ronni Eisenberg with Kate Kelly is a compact solution to many of the dilemmas, questions and organizational conundrums the confused business traveler encounters every time he steps out of the office.

Travel is a major headache for many professionals these days, but in the global corporate environment, it’s a necessary part of doing business. And for a successful trip, being organized is the best preparation. From who’s watching the kids to what kind of luggage works best for toting that new business casual wardrobe, organizing travel takes mental preparation. Organize Your Business Travel addresses an amazing number of these issues with rapid ease. It even covers car travel and how to organize your business life in an automobile.

Eisenberg has thought of everything. I tucked this book under my arm on a recent trip, and from mail management to childcare, I conquered the major obstacles keeping me from getting to my plane on time. With her encouragement I took a long, hard look at my travel gear and bought a new briefcase. Even my luggage was repacked with some practical advice from Eisenberg. I reassessed my need and understanding of the Palm Pilot and learned how to use one. If I can change my ways, anyone can. Organize Your Business Travel makes a great travel companion for consultants, or anyone else who travels frequently, for business or pleasure.

Down time is a major impediment to business travel. Airport delays, layovers and unscheduled time between appointments eat up productive work time. A new audiobook, Extreme Management: What They Teach at Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program by Mark Stevens provides an excellent alternative to wasted minutes. The audio outlines the key components of Harvard Business School’s elite Advanced Management Program (AMP), a nine-week course whose alums include CEOs and CFOs of many Fortune 500 companies. At its heart, Extreme Management is about excellence in leadership, uncovering financial and strategic tactics of the world’s best companies in amusing and informative anecdotal stories and interviews with AMP alums.

Stevens, president of a global marketing firm and author of several books on financial figures of the ’80s and ’90s, identifies the lessons and insights that faculty and students of the AMP found most compelling and sets out to condense what is ordinarily a nine-week, $44,000 regimen into a crash course that can be absorbed in the space of an airplane flight. The two-tape audio provides a simplified but not bare bones outline of the book and an easy way to pass travel time. While AMP raises mid-level managers to elite status, Extreme Management prompts the average business traveler to re-evaluate the office status quo. That’s hitting two birds downtime and leadership with one stone.

Speaking of travel-friendly business reading, The Power of Six Sigma: An Inspiring Tale of How Six Sigma Is Transforming the Way We Work by Subir Chowdhury is a quick book, easily finished on one airplane flight, that explains in a fictional format the principles behind the business initiative, Six Sigma.

For the uninitiated, Six Sigma is the latest fad in management strategy. Embraced by Allied Signal, GE and other major corporations, Six Sigma is a top-down approach used to develop quality in products, empower employees and fatten the corporate bottom line. The focus, experts say, is to eliminate waste, mistakes and inevitable rework by following a scientific structure to achieve results. Following on the heels of ISO 9000 initiatives and Total Quality Management, many are skeptical of Six Sigma’s charms.

The Power of Six Sigma is an antidote to the skepticism. Chowdhury explains in simple, interesting fashion the basic principles behind the initiative. Anyone who wonders why businesses don’t seem to respond to what customers want should read this intriguing little book, and as always, anyone in business should understand the latest management initiatives. Improvement is the name of the game in any business, and Six Sigma is another way to approach the game of business and win at it.

Have time in the airport to sink your teeth into something a little meatier? e-Volve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow by Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is a witty, intelligent look at the business culture created by emerging Internet companies and the resulting changes in the playing field for traditional businesses and other digital wannabes. Smart, clever and right on target, e-Volve is a valuable look at the coming age in the workplace.

When you open this book and see the song Kanter wrote to celebrate the e-volution, you may check the book jacket (as I did) to make sure this is a Harvard Business School title. But Evolve! The Song illustrates one main corollary of this tale.

Why are you so silent, has the cat got your tongue? Tech talk is what the older folks can learn from the young.

But the Net generation must absorb from the past, enduring values of service, how to build things that last. Yes, this is a big book to carry in your briefcase, but an excellent place to visit and revisit the trends of the New Economy and the cultural changes that economy has wrought. Often a flight is the only chance to catch up on reading and thinking about new ideas and business trends. The next time your airline announces Flight 207 has been delayed for an hour while we track down our flight crew, don’t get angry . . . look at it as an opportunity to expand your horizons.

Briefly noted The Thing in the Bushes: Turning Organizational Blind Spots into Competitive Advantage by Kevin Graham Ford and James P. Osterhaus. The thing in the bushes is a metaphor for core personnel problems that undermine the strategic advantage of great companies. Ford and Osterhaus, a consultant and a psychologist respectively, develop relational principles that help firms hunt down and destroy the thing. Even if your business doesn’t have a lurking bogeyman, The Thing is an interesting study in organizational behavior and its consequences for developing strategic plans.

Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty by Paul R. Timm, Ph.D. A lot of companies flirt but never get married to customer service, says Timm. These days one of the main thrusts of Six Sigma initiatives is to provide customer-focused improvements in quality and service. Seven Power Strategies fills in the missing blanks with a seven-step employee empowerment process that helps build customer retention. Timm provides evaluation exercises and short, pointed stories to teach customer strategy step-by-step and gives the impetus for companies to walk down that wedding aisle.

Sharon Secor is a Nashville-based business writer.

 

Travel just isn’t what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior’s life is one hassle after another. It doesn’t have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business travelers. At last, someone has written a quick, sensible book of […]

The Impossible City

In Karen Cheung’s luminous debut memoir, Hong Kong’s problems, charms and complexities are illuminated with grace and intelligence.
Technology

Review

Review by bookpagedev

n the road again Travel just isn’t what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior’s life is one hassle after another. It doesn’t have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business travelers. At last, someone has written a quick, sensible book of lists, reminders and advice for the occasional traveler, seasoned pro or neophyte. Organize Your Business Travel: Simple Routines for Managing Your Work When You’re Out of the Office by Ronni Eisenberg with Kate Kelly is a compact solution to many of the dilemmas, questions and organizational conundrums the confused business traveler encounters every time he steps out of the office.

Travel is a major headache for many professionals these days, but in the global corporate environment, it’s a necessary part of doing business. And for a successful trip, being organized is the best preparation. From who’s watching the kids to what kind of luggage works best for toting that new business casual wardrobe, organizing travel takes mental preparation. Organize Your Business Travel addresses an amazing number of these issues with rapid ease. It even covers car travel and how to organize your business life in an automobile.

Eisenberg has thought of everything. I tucked this book under my arm on a recent trip, and from mail management to childcare, I conquered the major obstacles keeping me from getting to my plane on time. With her encouragement I took a long, hard look at my travel gear and bought a new briefcase. Even my luggage was repacked with some practical advice from Eisenberg. I reassessed my need and understanding of the Palm Pilot and learned how to use one. If I can change my ways, anyone can. Organize Your Business Travel makes a great travel companion for consultants, or anyone else who travels frequently, for business or pleasure.

Down time is a major impediment to business travel. Airport delays, layovers and unscheduled time between appointments eat up productive work time. A new audiobook, Extreme Management: What They Teach at Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program by Mark Stevens provides an excellent alternative to wasted minutes. The audio outlines the key components of Harvard Business School’s elite Advanced Management Program (AMP), a nine-week course whose alums include CEOs and CFOs of many Fortune 500 companies. At its heart, Extreme Management is about excellence in leadership, uncovering financial and strategic tactics of the world’s best companies in amusing and informative anecdotal stories and interviews with AMP alums.

Stevens, president of a global marketing firm and author of several books on financial figures of the ’80s and ’90s, identifies the lessons and insights that faculty and students of the AMP found most compelling and sets out to condense what is ordinarily a nine-week, $44,000 regimen into a crash course that can be absorbed in the space of an airplane flight. The two-tape audio provides a simplified but not bare bones outline of the book and an easy way to pass travel time. While AMP raises mid-level managers to elite status, Extreme Management prompts the average business traveler to re-evaluate the office status quo. That’s hitting two birds downtime and leadership with one stone.

Speaking of travel-friendly business reading, The Power of Six Sigma: An Inspiring Tale of How Six Sigma Is Transforming the Way We Work by Subir Chowdhury is a quick book, easily finished on one airplane flight, that explains in a fictional format the principles behind the business initiative, Six Sigma.

For the uninitiated, Six Sigma is the latest fad in management strategy. Embraced by Allied Signal, GE and other major corporations, Six Sigma is a top-down approach used to develop quality in products, empower employees and fatten the corporate bottom line. The focus, experts say, is to eliminate waste, mistakes and inevitable rework by following a scientific structure to achieve results. Following on the heels of ISO 9000 initiatives and Total Quality Management, many are skeptical of Six Sigma’s charms.

The Power of Six Sigma is an antidote to the skepticism. Chowdhury explains in simple, interesting fashion the basic principles behind the initiative. Anyone who wonders why businesses don’t seem to respond to what customers want should read this intriguing little book, and as always, anyone in business should understand the latest management initiatives. Improvement is the name of the game in any business, and Six Sigma is another way to approach the game of business and win at it.

Have time in the airport to sink your teeth into something a little meatier? e-Volve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow by Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is a witty, intelligent look at the business culture created by emerging Internet companies and the resulting changes in the playing field for traditional businesses and other digital wannabes. Smart, clever and right on target, e-Volve is a valuable look at the coming age in the workplace.

When you open this book and see the song Kanter wrote to celebrate the e-volution, you may check the book jacket (as I did) to make sure this is a Harvard Business School title. But Evolve! The Song illustrates one main corollary of this tale.

Why are you so silent, has the cat got your tongue? Tech talk is what the older folks can learn from the young.

But the Net generation must absorb from the past, enduring values of service, how to build things that last. Yes, this is a big book to carry in your briefcase, but an excellent place to visit and revisit the trends of the New Economy and the cultural changes that economy has wrought. Often a flight is the only chance to catch up on reading and thinking about new ideas and business trends. The next time your airline announces Flight 207 has been delayed for an hour while we track down our flight crew, don’t get angry . . . look at it as an opportunity to expand your horizons.

Briefly noted The Thing in the Bushes: Turning Organizational Blind Spots into Competitive Advantage by Kevin Graham Ford and James P. Osterhaus. The thing in the bushes is a metaphor for core personnel problems that undermine the strategic advantage of great companies. Ford and Osterhaus, a consultant and a psychologist respectively, develop relational principles that help firms hunt down and destroy the thing. Even if your business doesn’t have a lurking bogeyman, The Thing is an interesting study in organizational behavior and its consequences for developing strategic plans.

Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty by Paul R. Timm, Ph.

D. A lot of companies flirt but never get married to customer service, says Timm. These days one of the main thrusts of Six Sigma initiatives is to provide customer-focused improvements in quality and service. Seven Power Strategies fills in the missing blanks with a seven-step employee empowerment process that helps build customer retention. Timm provides evaluation exercises and short, pointed stories to teach customer strategy step-by-step and gives the impetus for companies to walk down that wedding aisle.

Sharon Secor is a Nashville-based business writer.

n the road again Travel just isn’t what it used to be. Between airport delays, traffic snarls and the hotel that forgot your wake-up call, the Road Warrior’s life is one hassle after another. It doesn’t have to be that way. This month, some on-the-road advice for business travelers. At last, someone has written a […]
NonfictionHumor

Greg Brennecka: Humor meets hard science

Interview by Deborah Hopkinson

Greg Brennecka is a cosmochemist with a sense of humor and a flair for making complex topics both understandable and entertaining. We asked him to share a little scientific advice for all those who feel inspired to study the stars after reading Impact.

No doubt you get this a lot, but what exactly is a cosmochemist?
Ha, well, most people don’t even ask—probably because they just figure it’s something completely made up. I guess I would properly define cosmochemistry as the study of extraterrestrial materials with the goal of understanding the origin and evolution of our solar system and our cosmic neighborhood. But basically, it’s just looking at stuff not from Earth to learn cool things.

The subtitle of your book is quite memorable: How Rocks From Space Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong. What was your history with Donkey Kong before writing Impact?
To be honest, I am more of a Ms. Pac-Man fan, but I also enjoyed the original Donkey Kong arcade game quite a bit growing up. I also usually choose a Donkey Kong character when racing in Mario Kart because I love throwing bananas all around the course. Please don’t hate me for that.

Your book brims with wit and humor. Have you ever considered stand-up cosmochemist comedy?
If there is a job more made up than “cosmochemist,” it is “stand-up cosmochemist comedian”!

Read our starred review of ‘Impact’ by Greg Brennecka

Many of the concepts in Impact are highly technical and complex, yet you’ve found a way to make them accessible to readers. What’s your secret?
My secret is that I am not that great at discussing things in a technical way! I think it helps that a lot of the questions we ask in geology and meteoritics are straightforward questions, such as “When did this happen?” or “What happened that could make it look like this?” There may be some technical aspects to how we get at the answers, but the questions and goals themselves are usually very relatable to readers of all backgrounds, and I think that makes my job as a writer a lot easier.

Asteroids have been in the news of late, with NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. What excites you most about it?
One thing to keep in mind with DART: It’s conceivable that we will need to adjust the path of an asteroid to keep it from hitting Earth someday, so making sure we know how to do that is a pretty sound preparation. And I know that “sound preparation” isn’t usually associated with excitement, but I am always very excited by humanity striving to do cool and difficult things, advancing our capabilities.

What’s the most common question about asteroids that you get?
For asteroids specifically, probably whether Earth is going to be hit by one—which probably isn’t a surprise given the popular Hollywood movies on the subject. When it comes to meteorites—the small chunks of asteroids that land on Earth—I sometimes get asked about being hit by one, but also often about what they are worth if you find one. I guess that tells us pretty clearly what motivates people: fear and money.

“Basically, it’s just looking at stuff not from Earth to learn cool things.”

If you could be magically transported to another planet so you could get a better look, which would you choose?
Oooh, that is tough. I would probably be most interested in a planet’s potential ability to harbor life, so it would be hard to argue with Mars. Do moons count? Because if so, probably one of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn, like Europa or Enceladus. There are some potentially habitable exoplanets that are being discovered almost daily now, as well, so some of those would be incredible to check out up close.

If you could go back in time on Earth, what would you want to see most?
Wow. I would probably want to figure out how life got its start on Earth, so I would travel to sometime around 4 billion years ago. If I had a second choice, perhaps Cretaceous age or so when the dinosaurs were cruising around. I wouldn’t last long, but it would be an exciting few minutes!

What has been your most breathtaking experience looking through a telescope?
For me, it probably didn’t even take place while using a telescope. Just lying down and looking at the stars in places without light pollution, I get a real feeling for how vast, diverse and dynamic the cosmos are. It blows me away every time I get the chance.

“I am always very excited by humanity striving to do cool and difficult things.”

Your book combines a love of history with a love of science. Who are some of the writers who have influenced you?
This is an easy one: Bill Bryson. His A Short History of Nearly Everything was an incredibly influential book for me and really got me into learning about the history of science and culture. I reread it in 2017, and the lack of information about meteorites is what inspired me to write Impact. I also really enjoy stuff by Mark Kurlansky (Salt) and Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind).

Your book ends with a discussion of some of the most fascinating unanswered questions in space science. What research are you working on now?
My colleagues and I are working on a few different topics mentioned in the book. One is searching for the source of water on Earth. Currently we are doing this using lunar rocks, of all things, but I think we are onto something, so keep an eye on the scientific literature. Secondly, we are working on what I like to call “cosmolocation,” which is studying meteorites to find out where they originally formed in the solar system. Basically, this involves re-creating the solar system’s structure from when it first started—before all the planets formed and moved everything around to where it is now.

There’s a long tradition of amateur astronomers. What advice do you have for someone who wants to start studying the night sky?
This might be a weird answer, but I would let them know that they don’t need to buy that big backyard telescope as a first step. There is so much open-access data available from NASA and other agencies that people can just poke through and make discoveries on their own using data about the surface of Mars or deep space images from space telescopes like Hubble. There is a lot yet to be discovered in those data troves, should one feel like getting involved.

A bona fide meteor master shares the secret behind his accessible, fascinating and funny debut, Impact.
Business & Finance

Parables reveal possibilities

Review by bookpagedev

Everyone knows the fable of the slow but steady tortoise and the excitable, ambitious hare. One animal won the famous race, and the other didn’t. Implicitly we know why. Once upon a time lessons were conveyed through stories, passing collected common wisdom from one age to the next without overt preaching.

Stories give us possibilities. In them we travel down the same path traveled by the person telling the story. We see what he saw and heard and felt. We don’t need scientific explanations of the event or statistics to tell us what happened. A story is short-hand to an experience. It is also a lesson.

Three recent business books rely on the short-hand of parables to help business executives consider approaches to leadership challenges. Some things can’t be communicated with statistics; their nature is most clearly revealed with stories. Leadership is one of those illusory qualities.

The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life is an energetic new book that beautifully illustrates this idea. Written by Boston Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander and his wife, Rosamund Stone Zander, a family therapist, The Art of Possibility whisks together a collection of stories, psychology, and references to classical music for an unusual illustration of the Zanders’ unique personal approach to developing leadership potential. One of the unusual steps they recommend is "Giving an A" individually telling every employee he or she is the most important member of a firm to promote risk-taking and allow team-building. Rule Number 6 don’t take yourself too seriously encourages team members to have fun with work and erase calculating personal competitiveness that destroys goal reaching. As anyone who has been on a team (or even a PTA committee) knows, almost everyone who attends a meeting brings along personal issues. Good leaders, say the Zanders, help people find the possibilities to be the best at whatever they do.

The Zanders’ steps to leadership possibility rely on common sense. We all know the things they say are true, but it’s the stories that best illustrate how to implement positive leadership changes in our own workplace. Like any good parable, it’s that little kernel of the unsaid in Zanders’ stories that allows this book to impart real wisdom. The Zanders tell this story: when he retired from the Supreme Court, Justice Thurgood Marshall was asked to name his proudest accomplishment. He replied, "That I did the best I could with what I had." Zander says Marshall gave himself an A. He gave himself infinite possibilities for success. Through this story the Zanders convey the short-hand message that everyone has the possibility of success.

Learning Journeys: Top Management Experts Share Hard-Earned Lessons on Becoming Great Mentors and Leaders, edited by Marshall Goldsmith, Beverly L. Kaye, and Ken Shelton, shares the Zanders’ enthusiasm for story-telling. More than 35 American business executives relate the hard knocks, mistakes, and plain old-fashioned good luck that made them successful executives.

Written in narrative style, Learning Journeys accomplishes in 37 short chapters what a whole volume of MBA texts cannot tell you: leadership is a life-long process. In Learning Journeys, recognizable names in leadership literature share intimate tales of growth and learning. These journeys may be short stories but all share lessons of found personal truths. Executive trainers recognize stories are the foundation for creating an "aha!" moment for employees.

Collective voices, the authors say, will allow almost everyone to find a resonant personal voice.

Elizabeth Pinchot, author and executive coach, says sometimes it takes an elbow in the ribs to make leadership potential appear. Attending a conference, she relates, noted anthropologist Margaret Mead entered the conference hall, sat down in the chair next to her, and fell asleep. Pinchot says the conference turned toward debunking the ecological agricultural issues Pinchot had studied, but Pinchot was too nervous to raise her voice above the crowd. She started to talk to herself in hushed tones, arguing her point. From Mead’s chair a quick elbow was dispatched to Pinchot’s ribs. "Stand up and make yourself heard," Mead hissed. Yes, it’s true; sometimes we all need a mental elbow in the ribs.

The Leadership Investment: How the World’s Best Organizations Gain Strategic Advantage Through Leadership Development, by Robert M. Fuller and Marshall Goldsmith, follows a more traditional business case-study model. The theme of this new book is that companies which develop outstanding leadership within their ranks can weather any business storm. Companies as different and diverse as computer-maker Hewlett-Packard or the World Bank identify key leadership problems and solve those problems to ensure long-term success. The Leadership Investment puts the parables of possibility to the test.

One of six organizations profiled, the World Bank recently restructured its leadership training program to include a Grass Roots Immersion Program. GRIP requires bank employees to live for a week in a poor area potentially served by World Bank programs. Hewlett-Packard developed ethnic and gender diversity programs to attract and retain the best and brightest people to run the company’s many units. Both companies play out the parables of possibility on the real-life playing field.

The Leadership Investment identifies leadership potential at a company-wide level, and the stories of change are macro-level parables. What can happen to an organization when fresh bold thinking emerges? The Leadership Investment tells you. Sharon Secor is a business writer based in Nashville.

 

Everyone knows the fable of the slow but steady tortoise and the excitable, ambitious hare. One animal won the famous race, and the other didn’t. Implicitly we know why. Once upon a time lessons were conveyed through stories, passing collected common wisdom from one age to the next without overt preaching. Stories give us possibilities. […]

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