Best Practices in Management – Page 13 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/07/142010/07/14

Review: Building Social Business–The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs

6 Star Top 10%, Associations & Foundations, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Humanitarian Assistance, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Justice (Failure, Reform), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Priorities, Public Administration, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

4 in isolation, beyond 6 in context–a cornerstone book

July 14, 2010

Muhammad Yunus and Karl Weber

While I sympathize with those who feel that the book lacks reference to prior art, that social business has been around for a very long time, and that much of the book is somewhat similar to his first book that I also reviewed, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, I am rating this book a five here and a “6 Star & Beyond” at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, for the simple reason that he is not just doing it, but doing it on a global scale, pushing the envelope across all boundaries, and setting the stage for realizing what Nobel-candidate C. K. Prahalad articulates in The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits.

The Nobel Prize to Yanus was a righteous one–unlike the political idiocy of awards to Al Gore and Barack Obama. I can only hope that the Norwegian public shames its overly political Nobel Committee into getting back on track with awards such as this one.

My friend Howard Bloom has a new book out that complements this one: The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism and of course there are others both recent and past, such as Capitalism at the Crossroads: Next Generation Business Strategies for a Post-Crisis World (3rd Edition).

Three things are changing that make this book a cornerstone book:

Continue reading “Review: Building Social Business–The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs”

2010/07/072010/07/08

Review: When to Speak Up and When to Shut Up

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Consciousness & Social IQ, Democracy, Public Administration

Christian Social IQ Book with Moral Foundation

July 7, 2010

Michael Sedler

This was a very intriguing book and I am going to have to read it more than once. I bought it thinking it was a social IQ book, kind of an intelligent person's conversational etiquette. It is far more than that, very Christian but also very practical for anyone. If I were to give away two small books as traveling companions for anyone, this would be one, Leadership Lessons of Jesus: A Timeless Model for Today's Leaders, which was sold in the Special Operations bookstores when LtGen Jerry Boykin was deputy for intelligence in the Pentagon, see his biography, Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom.

Where this book impacted on me to the extent any book can influence the habits of a 57-year old, was in really making crystal clear the value of questions instead of statements as a conversational contribution. I kept thinking Socratic, and also thinking of my colleagues in the war colleges who must learn to teach future generals who do not want to be told anything, but can be challenged to think more broadly.

The author distinguishes between questioning (bad) and asking questions (good), and this I noted down:

QUESTIONING
1. Persisting
2. Complaining
3. Challenging
4. Debating and disputing
5. Making accusations
6. Taking up an offensive

ASKING QUESTIONS
1. Prepare
2. Timing
3. Get to the point
4. Recognize authority
5. Ask for more information if not clear
6. Avoid becoming defensive
7. Avoid trying to justify self
8. Thank for time

Two quotes I especially liked:

“The enticement to be secretive, and to withhold information is a battle for many of us.”

“Dishonesty,trickery, deceit, lying–each may be justified in our own minds. We rationalize and develop our own sense of morality in order to protect ourselves. Unfortunately a web of deceit usually ends up creating more problems than originally existed.”

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2010/07/062010/07/08

Review: IDENTITY ECONOMICS–How our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Best Practices in Management, Civil Society, Consciousness & Social IQ, Economics

Concise, Relevant, Documents New Knowledge, Respects Work of Others

July 6, 2010

George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton

This book is a solid five, and one of those instances when brevity adds value. While I was concerned to see no discussion of “true cost” economics and the book is overly fawning on Goldman Sachs (written before Goldman Sachs was exposed for its multiple fiscal crimes against both investors and governments), the superior References, Notes, and Acknowledgements balanced this out. This work began in 1995.

This is an engrossing book and it immediately overcame my general disdain for economists, most of whom have only recently discovered information asymmetries and most of whom refuse to recognize that corruption in the US government and cheating across the US economy is fully the equivalent of transnational organized crime in cost to society.

Overall I consider this book very useful as both an overview (with most impressive “by name” citation of prior art on every page) and as a critique of conventional economics. This book is an excellent complement to the book I just reviewed, The Hidden Wealth of Nations and will be complemented by the book I will review next week, Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity's Most Pressing Needs. See also my review of Nobel-worthy The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Revised and Updated 5th Anniversary Edition: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits.

Core concept: IDENTITY is actualized psychological norms within a social context.

QUOTE (page 8): Identity economics restores human passions and social institutions into economics.”

Continue reading “Review: IDENTITY ECONOMICS–How our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being”

2010/06/302011/10/22

Review: The Hidden Wealth of Nations

6 Star Top 10%, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Democracy, Education (General), Education (Universities), Games, Models, & Simulations, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Beyond 5 Stars, a Cornerstone Book, Most Extraordinary Strategic Depth

June 30, 2010

David Halpern

Amazon has recently been allowing longer reviews by inserting a “Read More” line and I hope this entire review is allowed to stand. It will also be posted to Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, with links back to Amazon.

This is a Beyond Five Stars book. Although there is a fine literature emerging on collective intelligence and wealth of networks–and there is an increasingly robust Open Money movement that also includes local communities currencies that keep the wealth local–this book does something no other book has done–it connects economics to humanity and reality and the intangibles in all their forms.

This is not a book about underground economies, barter systems, alternative currencies, etcetera. It is one of the most profoundly relevant, erudite yet easy to read books I have ever read, with a direct bearing on every aspect of human life, and in particular the role of government as it should be.

The author specifically quantifies the financial and intangible value of “getting along” and being part of deep interconnections that define, drive, and develop (or not) the hidden wealth of nations.

The author has provided an extraordinarily well-organized book with a well-presented series of chapters that left me with so many flyleaf notes I fear I will not do the author and the intellectual tour de force he has provided, quite enough justice. Buy and read the book. Tell elected and appointed leaders about it–or send them a copy of this review. [I am stunned that there are no other reviews as this book was published in 2009.]

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2010/06/202010/06/20

Review: The Politics of Happiness–What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Best Practices in Management, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Disease & Health, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Electoral Reform USA, Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

cover politics of happiness — Amazon Page

Absolutely Righteous, Mis-Leading Title

June 20, 2010

Derek Bok

First off, I'm back. After three months integrating into a field position with a prominent international organization, with three days off the whole time, I am finally able to get back to reading, and have about fifteen books on water I was going to read for UNESCO but will now read and review for myself. Look for two reviews a week from this point on, absent another tri-fecta (volcano, storm, minor coup).

This book is the first of three books that I am reviewing this week, the other two are The Hidden Wealth of Nations, which will be a five, and Identity Economics: How Our Identities Shape Our Work, Wages, and Well-Being, probably a five as well, but I continue to be stunned as how people limit their references to the last 10 years when so much has been done that is relevant in the last 50.

This book is not about the politics of happiness. It is more about the possibilities of public administration of happiness.

This will be a long review–apart from the author being one of a handful to truly top-notch minds with a historical memory, the topic is important–much more important than I realized until I starting following unconventional economics (ecological economics, true cost, bio-mimicry, sustainable design, human development and non-financial wealth).

The author opens with Bhutan and its Gross National Happiness (GNH) concept, with four pillars (good governance, stable-equitable social development, environmental protection, preservation of culture). Elsewhere (on the web) I learn that the 72 indicators are divided into nine domains (time use, living standards, good governance, psychological wellbeing, community vitality, culture, health, education, and ecology).

From there the author moves to the 1800's and Jeremy Bentham, and of course our own Founding Fathers who included “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. As I have commented before in reviewing other books such as 1776; What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States, and The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country, happiness in those days was interpreted as fulfillment, “be all you can be,” not frivolous joy of “excessive laughter.”

The author identifies and discusses six factors pertinent to happiness in the US context as he defines it: Marriage; Social Relationships; Employment (wherein trust in management is VASTLY more important than the paycheck); Perceived Health; Religion (in sense of community not dogma) and Quality of Government (as which point I am reminded of George Will's superb Statecraft as Soulcraft; Quality of government is further divided into Rule of Law, Efficient Government, Low Violence and Corruption; High Degree of Trust in Public Officials and Especially Police; and Responsive Encounters by Citizens with Government.

Note: 30 million in US population are “not too happy.”

Continue reading “Review: The Politics of Happiness–What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being”

2010/04/03

Review: Of Centuars and Doves–Guatemala’s Peace Process

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Country/Regional, Insurgency & Revolution, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, United Nations & NGOs

Absolutely a Core Work for the Region and the UN Role in Enabling Peace–Future Oriented as Well

April 3, 2010

Susanne Jonas

I am stunned not to find numerous reviews of this excellent work, a fleshing out of the author's highly-regarded (within the United Nations and global peace-process circles) “The Mined Road to Peace in Guatemala,” (North-South Agenda Paper #38, September 1999. As of today, 3 April 2010, her paper and her book are still the core references for those who seek to extend the model elsewhere in Central and Latin America.

Review: Wiki Government–How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful

4 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Culture, Research, Democracy, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Society, Information Technology, Intelligence (Public), Public Administration, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Almost a Five–Making Wrong Things Righter

February 21, 2010

Beth Simone Noveck

I sat down intending to make this a five, but the two fluff reviews have to be off-set. Robert Ackoff would say this is a spectacular book about making the wrong things righter instead of the right things righter–too many lawyers and focused on improving a patent approval system that probably needs to be eradicated and the buildings and files plowed under with salt. It also lost one star because I was one of the 4,000 that actually participated in the Open Government experiment, where the legalization of marijuana triumphed and every time someone voted for my governance reform idea, a “monitor” from the partisan correctness office came in and voted against it moving it back down to zero. The author is naive to think this initiative is going anywhere without electoral reform that displaces the two-party tyranny and restores the Constitution, the Article 1 independence of an honest Congress, and integrity of the Executive at the political level. [See especially Chapter 21 in my new book that just went to the printer, INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainaabilty and is free online at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, and my earlier wire-bound book, also free online, Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography).

Having said that, I found this book to be spectacularly informative, thoughtful, useful, with extraordinary insights and suggestions that were over-shadowed by the focus on the patent system–suggestions about the-redesign of government, for example. I recommend reading my reviews of SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa and of The Myth of Digital Democracy along with this review, the three books were read together as a set. Below are some quotes and my fly-leaf notes. This book is a foundation stone for righteous change into the future, but only that first stone.

QUOTE (xvi): Done right, it is possible now to achieve greater competence by making good information available for better governance, improve effectiveness by leveraging the available tools to engender new forms of collective action, and strengthen and deepen democracy by creating government by the people, of the people, and *with* the people.

Continue reading “Review: Wiki Government–How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful”