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by Michael Watkins (Get the Book)
In this new edition (1st ed., CH, May'04, 41-5391), Watkins (leadership development consultant) expands coverage to better reflect the contemporary challenges facing today's organizational leaders as they transition into new positions. Based on his study of leadership at major global organizations, Watkins finds that successful leaders must address, immediately at the onset of new assignments, ten challenges or tenets. These include preparing to take charge; planning to learn; diagnosing situations for the right strategy; building productive working relationships; winning early on; instilling new team processes; identifying critical support; and institutionalizing a common framework to accelerate the organization's transition. Like the earlier edition, the book's ten brief, well-written, and straightforward chapters provide a step-by-step plan covering all aspects of adjusting to new responsibilities and organizational cultures, and the demands and challenges to be expected during the first 90 days as transitional leaders. Chapters are supplemented and enhanced with useful case studies, tables summarizing organizational and leadership theories, and a series of introspective questions. A useful addition to leadership studies collections. --Choice
by Anat R. Admati (Get the Book)
This excellent volume provides an invaluable lens through which to view modern banking and the ways it has evolved to privatize returns and socialize risks. The latest financial crisis provides another opportunity to recalibrate the governing rules in the direction of the public interest. However, in the US, the finding of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (2010-11) included a clear rejection of forced structural change in systemically important financial firms. The UK's Vickers Commission report (2011) and EU's Liikanen Report (2012) likewise shied away from full-blown structural banking reforms. Admati (Stanford Graduate School of Business) and Hellwig (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods) provide an accessible explanation of the inherent risks in the current banking system and propose sensible rules and reforms to make the system stable without damaging bank lending or economic growth. It is difficult to argue with the authors' logic from the perspective of the public interest, but it is easy to see how the political economy of bank regulation could have left society highly exposed to the financial risk dynamics of the recent past. This timely volume is accessible to a wide readership. --Choice
by Charles J. Wheelan (Get the Book)
Popular economics writing does not get any better than this. In a dozen somewhat independent chapters, journalist Wheelan presents "Economics 101" in a readable, objective, and delightful manner. Employing basic concepts and assumptions, such as choices, incentives, tradeoffs, prices, costs, and the economics of information, Wheelan cuts a large swath though contemporary microeconomic and macroeconomic issues, controversies, and fallacies. (He sneaks in more sophisticated theoretical points and jargon, e.g., externalities and the prisoner's dilemma, but in interesting, informative ways.) Topics include environmental problems, health care and insurance, risk and safety, education and productivity, the Federal Reserve System and monetary policy, financial markets and capital, inflation and unemployment, international trade and globalization, income and wealth inequalities, and economic development. Using anecdotes and applications galore, Wheelan treats both the power of markets and the role of government in a market economy (including special interest groups and the politics of economics). Devoid of graphs and mathematical equations (but not documentation), this book is quite simply a terrific, much-needed addition to the economics literature for intelligent general readers and must-reading for the media, government officials at all levels, and those who cast ballots and attempt to influence public policy. Highly recommended for general readers, lower- and upper-division undergraduates, and professionals. --Choice
by Mary Hunt (Get the Book)
According to a 2012 survey, 92 percent of women of all ages in the United States don't feel they know enough to reach their retirement savings goals. So states columnist Hunt in her different kind of book, which eliminates jargon while presenting facts and motivation for women of all ages to manage their future retirement planning. The best way to prepare for retirement is for a woman to take care of herself and her money every day. (Hunt refers to the reader as you but considers the reference to be plural, depending on marital status.) She presents six important strategies for her retirement savings plan, which include developing a money management system, building an emergency fund, getting out of debt, maximizing retirement accounts, owning your home outright, and building a personal investment portfolio. Hunt concludes there is more to retirement than just money and emphasizes good health, relationships, and meaningful activities. Important information for a wide range of library patrons, including a valuable glossary of financial terms. --Booklist
by Alan Greenspan (Get the Book)
Greenspan, Federal Reserve Bank chairman from 1987 to 2006, investigates the financial crisis of 2008 with a focus on economic forecasting, and he sets out to understand how we got it wrong and what we can learn from our mistakes. The author determines there is something more systematic about the way people behave irrationally, especially during economic crises, and this behavior can be measured and incorporated into economic forecasting and setting economic policy. Greenspan's considerations include behavioral imperatives (fear, optimism, etc.) and their role in rational economic behavior and market outcomes; bubbles and their differences; and the roots of the crisis in securitized U.S. subprime mortgages. He identifies too big to fail as the most problematic trend from the recent financial debacle and strongly supports modern industrial capitalism, although he notes its inherent creative destruction in a system of winners and losers that imposes hardship on workers who lose jobs and homes. This challenging, thought-provoking book sheds an important perspective on events that triggered possibly the greatest financial crisis ever. --Booklist
by Duff McDonald (Get the Book)
McDonald is a contributing editor at Fortune magazine and the New York Observer; he has also written for Vanity Fair, New York, Esquire, Business Week, GQ, WIRED, and other publications. His first book, Last Man Standing (2009), delved into the 2008 financial crisis through a profile of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase. In his new one, he examines one of the world's most influential companies that you probably never heard of, the consulting firm of McKinsey & Company. Ranked among the top-rated consulting organizations for decades, McKinsey & Company has been a top-brass advisor to most of the Fortune 500 corporations at one time or another, though its client list has always been a well-guarded secret. This is a company that has prided itself as having the highest standards in the industry yet has contributed behind the scenes to severe cost cutting and downsizing, acted as enablers to the Enron and General Motors bankruptcies, and seen a former CEO hauled off to jail for insider trading. McDonald's reporting reveals how and why this Teflon firm has continued to thrive through the years. --Booklist
by Sheri J. Saplan (Get the Book)
When Caplan (securities arbitrator, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority [FINRA], former VP, asst. general counsel, Goldman Sachs) couldn't find a book on the history of women in Wall Street and the financial world, she wrote one herself and presents the information here, chronologically from Colonial times to the present, through women's stories presented in a clear, readable format. Using humor and detail, the author offers up a glimpse of life when banks had "stocking rooms" and when Hetty Green (1834-1916) was nicknamed the Witch of Wall Street. While emphasizing the difficulties of women in a male-dominated business, the book is neither strident nor discordant. Caplan illustrates how repeatedly women in the financial world have stepped forward during the nation's time of need only to be marginalized when situations return to normal. The recent death of Muriel Siebert (1928-2013), the first woman to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, reminds us this is not ancient history but rather a contemporary narrative as women continue to search for equity in the world of finance. Verdict A great read for those interested in business, history, women's studies, and/or money. --Library Journal
by Michael Watkins (Get the Book)
