book reviews
OFF THE SHELF
DANGER AND
OPPORTUNITY:
BRIDGING CULTURAL
DIVERSITY FOR
COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE
Lionel Laroche and Caroline Yang
Taylor & Francis, 2014
Laroche and Yang bring inci-sive
analysis to cross-cultural
challenges experienced by pro-fessionals
and organizations,
and offer equally clear and
practical solutions. Drawing on
real-life situations they or their
workshop participants have ex-perienced,
Laroche and Yang
identify root causes of cross-cultural
misunderstandings and
suggest constructive strategies
for multicultural workforces,
working with offshore resourc-es,
collaborating with joint
venture partnerships and com-peting
in the global market.
Talking point
The authors pose an interesting
question: Are we converging?
The answer, they tell us, is that
we are not. In fact, our work-places
are becoming just the
opposite, making it a business
imperative to not only integrate
culturally diverse employees but
also to successfully serve cultur-ally
diverse customers.
By Alyson Nyiri, CHRP
BEYOND IQ: SCIENTIFIC
TOOLS FOR TRAINING
PROBLEM SOLVING,
INTUITION, EMOTIONAL
INTELLIGENCE,
CREATIVITY, AND MORE
Garth Sundem
Three Rivers Press, 2014
Sundem writes that IQ or raw
brainpower is not enough. We
need to train our minds to
boost not only our IQ, but also
our wisdom, insight, willpow-er,
problem solving, emotional
intelligence and multitasking.
By training our minds along
these lines, we can increase our
success in life and in work to a
much greater degree than our
IQ can. Filled with exercises
based on the science of neuro-plasticity,
the book challenges
our minds to think creative-ly,
divergently, intuitively and
boost our working memory.
Talking point
People often praise creativity
but treat creative people with
suspicion. What is it about
creativity that we really value?
LEADING THE LIFE YOU
WANT: SKILLS FOR
INTEGRATING WORK
AND LIFE
Stewart Friedman
Harvard Business Review Press, 2014
We can integrate our work
and our lives. Friedman of-fers
strategies to achieve what
he calls “four-way wins” in
four domains: work or school;
home or family; communi-ty
or society; and mind, body
and spirit. Indeed, he writes,
meaningful investments in
our lives result in sustainable
professional success. A self-assessment
identifies which
areas need attention and the
book offers practices for each.
Stories from individuals such
as Sheryl Sandberg and Bruce
Springsteen illustrate how
these leaders have used the
specific skills to create harmo-ny
between life and work.
Talking point
What role does gender play
in the discussion of work/life
integration?
HOW THE WORLD
SEES YOU: DISCOVER
YOUR HIGHEST
VALUE THROUGH
THE SCIENCE OF
FASCINATION
Sally Hogshead
Harper Business, 2014
Are you fascinating? Do peo-ple
listen when you speak?
Hogshead has developed a
system based on fascination,
a neurological state of intense
focus leading to feelings of
intense engagement. Her sys-tem
gives insight into how the
world sees you and builds on
your key strengths. There are
49 personality archetypes, and
algorithms are used to mea-sure
and select your top three
advantages that combine to
form your archetype – these
are your distinct ways of
standing out from others.
Talking point
Maximizing your value by fo-cusing
on your strengths is a
shift many psychologists and
trainers are making. There is
much to celebrate about this
shift. Is it even necessary to
look at the downside? ■
54 ❚ OCTOBER 2014 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL