Covey holds a BSc degree in Business Administration from University of Utah in Salt Lake City, an MBA from Harvard University, and a Doctor of Religious Education (DRE) in LDS (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church History and Doctrine from Brigham Young University. He also holds membership of the Pi Kappa Alpha International Fraternity.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Covey’s best-known book, has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide since its first publication in 1989. (The audio version became the first non-fiction audio-book in U.S. publishing history to sell more than one million copies.) Covey argues against what he calls “The Personality Ethic”, something he sees as prevalent in many modern self-help books. He instead promotes what he labels “The Character Ethic”: aligning one’s values with so-called “universal and timeless” principles. Covey adamantly refuses to confound principles and values; he sees principles as external natural laws, while values remain internal and subjective. Covey proclaims that values govern people’s behavior, but principles ultimately determine the consequences. Covey presents his teachings in a series of habits, manifesting as a progression from dependence via independence to interdependence.
In 2004, Covey’s book The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness was published. It functions as the sequel to The Seven Habits. Covey claims that effectiveness does not suffice in what he calls “The Knowledge Worker Age”. He proclaims that “[t]he challenges and complexity we face today are of a different order of magnitude.” The 8th habit essentially urges: “Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs…”
In November 2008, Covey released a new book The Leader in Me—How Schools and Parents Around the World are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. This book tells the story of how extraordinary schools, parents and business leaders are preparing the next generation to meet the great challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century. The Leader in Me shows how one elementary school in Raleigh, North Carolina decided to try incorporating The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and other basic leadership skills into their school’s curriculum in unique and creative ways. Inspired by the amazing success of Principal Muriel Summers and the teachers and staff of A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, other schools and parents around the world have adopted the approach and have seen remarkable results.
Author and international business consultant Kotter (Leading Change, Our Iceberg is Melting) returns with an engaging look at companies that need to overcome a lack of urgency-or a surfeit of complacency-with a proactive agenda. Kotter dissects well his seemingly simple premise, using his professional experiences to examine the inner workings of real companies. Kotter defines his terms with clear language and bullet lists, convincing
ly asserting that urgency “is not driven by a belief that… everything is a mess but, instead, that the world contains great opportunities and great hazards”; it is, in fact, “a compulsive determination to move, and win, now.” Among suggested tactics: bring the outside world into overly insular work teams; make your deeds consistent with your words; view crises as potential opportunities; and disseminate data that “feels interesting, surprising, or dramatic,” as opposed to “information so antiseptic that it flows in and out of short-term memory with great speed.”
A fresh look at vital lessons from “The Father of Modern Management”–exploring Peter Drucker’s teachings on leadership. As we approach what would have been his 100th birthday, the late Peter Drucker’s management principles continue to be studied and applied by managers all over the world. Though many seek his lessons on the central element of management-leadership-he in fact wrote relatively little under this actual subject heading. Now, for the first time, William A. Cohen, a former student of Drucker’s and a leadership expert and author in his own right, brings together Drucker’s reflections on leadership, culled from his 40 books and hundreds of articles. Explaining why there is so little know about Drucker’s ideas on leadership, this book is a must-read for students and fans alike looking to lead better in today’s world.
Written by his former student, associate and personal friend, Robert W. Swaim, it pulls excerpts from Drucker’s numerous works into one single source, summarizing his astute views on strategy and business growth. Dr. Swaim also includes some exclusive views Drucker shared with him over their 30-year friendship on strategy and, in particular, on sales and marketing –views which have never been published. While Drucker was very good at describing what should be done, he often neglected how it should be done – this book therefore uniquely combines Drucker’s theories with practical application by taking his teachings beyond the concepts and providing some application tools and guidelines for ready implementation. The reader will also find that the author has integrated the work of other renowned contributors in the fields of strategy, marketing and innovation to reinforce and build on Drucker’s original work, making his prescribed tactics more relevant for managers and organizations in today’s dynamic environment.
Long considered the world’s greatest thinker and writer on management, Peter Drucker’s teachings continue to inspire leaders everywhere. From 1975 to 1979, author William Cohen studied under the Great Man and became the first graduate of his doctoral program. What Drucker taught him literally changed his life. In a matter of a few years, he was recommissioned in the Air Force and rose to the rank of major general. Eventually, he became a full professor, management consultant, multibook author, and university president as well as maintaining a nearly lifelong friendship with the master. In A Class with Drucker, Cohen shares many of Drucker’s teachings that never made it into his countless books and articles, ideas that were offered to his students in classroom or informal settings. Cohen expands on Drucker’s lessons with personal anecdotes about his teacher’s personality, lack of pretension, and interactions with students and others. He also shows how Drucker’s ideas can be applied to the real-world challenges managers face today.
The best books of the year have two stories to tell: How we got into this economic crisis (and how we can prevent it from happening again) and how there’s a class of companies wreaking their own brand of havoc on their industries. Both offer fascinating tales of innovation, and you’ll learn everything from the secret underpinning some of the world’s fastest-growing companies to strategies and insights for building a more sustainable society in the wake of the recession. FastCompany
In Cheap We Trust by Lauren Weber
This history of frugality in America–why it’s been stigmatized and whether there’s a sustainable alternative to a purely consumption-based economy–is consistently surprising and clever. A very worthwhile indulgence.
No book better explains the rocket-ship growth of a service like Facebook or Twitter and how their rapid spread through the culture isn’t accidental but carefully baked into the product.
At first glance, our time communicating with friends on Facebook, Googling, organizing photos on Flickr, and other social activity seems like a waste of time. But Cowen, an economist, provocatively argues that they are all forms of economic activity and we need to account for the internal production inside our minds.
Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich
The author of Nickel and Dimed gleefully pops the positive-thinking bubble that, she argues, has propped up everything from banks’ belief in complex derivatives to the pink-ribboned industry surrounding breast cancer. Amazingly, she’ll make you laugh, albeit ruefully, as she presents how society’s relentless focus on being upbeat has eroded our ability to ask–and heed–the kind of uncomfortable questions that could have fended off economic disaster.
Hardly a week goes by without someone describing Google as “the most important company in the history of the world.” Veteran media reporter and New Yorker writer Ken Auletta has the inside scoop on how Google reached such heights in such short order, and he explores its relentless ambitions and the impact that insatiability has across the rest of the media landscape.
The “innovations” that led to the housing crisis and economic meltdown are made concrete–and all the more damning–when told through the personal story of the author, who bought too much house for all the wrong reasons and found himself on the wrong side of the American dream.
The CEO of the uber design-firm Ideo takes us on a journey through the flexibility and power of design thinking that also serves as a primer on Ideo’s evolving larger ambitions. Brown convincingly depicts how design can be used to improve the every day utility of objects we might take for granted, but more important, how it can address larger societal issues such as health care, education, and economic opportunity in the developing world.
State-of-the-industry advertising manifestos are usually written by titans of the business, not former mid-level creatives who bounced around a number of large agencies. Yet this unlikely guide is the perfect one to take us through the apocalypse current roiling “Adland.” Othmer shows us what’s wrong about the old model by telling war stories with a jaundiced eye, and he then uses that same eye to look in on the cutting-edge, next-generation “don’t call us an ad agency” creative shops defining the future.
The West Coast burger chain with an international cult of fans is a paragon of simplicity, from its menu of burgers, fries, and shakes to how it slowly grows its business. Perman constructs the building blocks of In-N-Out’s success and presents them in stark relief to the rest of the fast-food industry, depicting how strong values-based businesses can trump their peers on their own terms. And as In-N-Out’s story also shows, abiding principles can even overcome the most lurid behind-the-scenes drama.
The noted environmentalist lays out his green business ideas, formed by working with the likes of Sierra Club and Wal-Mart, for how corporations can be a force for good on the planet.
Chronicling the rise and fall of the efficient market theory and the century-long making of the modern financial industry, Justin Fox’s The Myth of the Rational Market is as much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk. The book brings to life the people and ideas that forged modern finance and investing, from the formative days of Wall Street through the Great Depression and into the financial calamity of today. It’s a tale that features professors who made and lost fortunes, battled fiercely over ideas, beat the house in blackjack, wrote bestselling books, and played major roles on the world stage. It’s also a tale of Wall Street’s evolution, the power of the market to generate wealth and wreak havoc, and free market capitalism’s war with itself.
From award-winning Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett, who enraged Wall Street leaders with her newsbreaking warnings of a crisis more than a year ahead of the curve, Fool’s Gold tells the astonishing unknown story at the heart of the 2008 meltdown. Drawing on exclusive access to J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and a tightly bonded team of bankers known on Wall Street as the “Morgan Mafia,” as well as in-depth interviews with dozens of other key players, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Tett brings to life in gripping detail how the Morgan team’s bold ideas for a whole new kind of financial alchemy helped to ignite a revolution in banking, and how that revolution escalated wildly out of control.
“Whatever it takes” That was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s vow as the worst financial panic in more than fifty years gripped the world and he struggled to avoid the once unthinkable: a repeat of the Great Depression. Brilliant but temperamentally cautious, Bernanke researched and wrote about the causes of the Depression during his career as an academic. Then when thrust into a role as one of the most important people in the world, he was compelled to boldness by circumstances he never anticipated.
In Trust Agents, two social media veterans show you how to tap into the power of social networks to build your brand’s influence, reputation, and, of course, profits. Today’s online influencers are web natives who trade in trust, reputation, and relationships, using social media to accrue the influence that builds up or brings down businesses online. The book shows how people use online social tools to build networks of influence and how you can use those networks to positively impact your business. Because trust is key to building online reputations,, those who traffic in it are “trust agents,” the key people your business needs on its side.
The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, “animal spirits” are driving financial events worldwide. In this book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess, and put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity.
Based on an extraordinary three-year investigation, interviewing more than 350 key people at major companies around the world, Rosabeth Moss Kanter provides encouraging and astounding evidence that this assumption is completely outdated. The businesses that are agile, keeping ahead of the curve in terms of market changes and customer needs, are the businesses that are also progressive, socially responsible human communities.
When Hugh MacLeod was a struggling young copywriter, living in a YMCA, he started to doodle on the backs of business cards while sitting at a bar. Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog – gapingvoid.com – and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures.
MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person?
Getting a Plan B
One of the most accessible books on strategy to come along in some time, Getting to Plan B shatters the myth that great businesses emerge from their creators’ brains full-formed and explains the sometimes messy, almost always ingenious methods by which entrepreneurs arrive at workable models. The book is full of entertaining anecdotes about company builders who made poor choices or assumptions—but then pulled off a neat save and went on to success. Plus: The authors have included a practical framework to help entrepreneurs avoid such mistakes in the first place. Recommended by Leigh Buchanan.
Trust Agents
We all have heard about social media, and likely have dabbled in it ourselves. Trust Agents reveals and commends the technological importance of these tools, while also interweaving lessons about the importance of human relationships to business, and how best to build them—even when your primary means of communication runs through a computer screen. Recommended by Jack Covert.
Outliers Gladwell examines the formula for success in life and how large a role culture plays in shaping a person’s destiny, and his findings will surprise you. A highly successful person is not innately superior to others, he argues. Instead, people who rise to the top, whether in business or in hockey, benefit from a series of subtle and almost invisible advantages. Also: They practice. A lot. Recommended by Tony Hsieh.
Early Exits Written by a seasoned early-stage investor, Early Exits is a must-read for any entrepreneur who has wrestled with the dilemma of taking outside funding. Peters makes the case that marching toward an exit is a good thing, and not nearly as impossible as it may seem. A surprising number of business owners are cashing out after only two-to-five years and for between $5 million and $30 million, he asserts—making this period, for all its turbulence, a golden era for entrepreneurs. (An e-book format is available on the author’s website, BasilPeters.com.) Recommended by Bo Burlingham.
Poorly Made in China
In the rush to move manufacturing to China to save costs, few U.S. companies have come to terms with just how much they are giving up in the process. Midler, who worked as a middleman between American product companies and the factories in China that produce their goods, lets us follow him as he takes various executives from the West—a soap and shampoo manufacturer, a paper recycler, and even a diamond merchant—to meet Chinese partners. The dirty little secret is not so much the way factories treat their workers, Midler argues, but rather all the subtle ways that manufacturers will cut corners, sacrificing basic expectations of quality in a bid to boost margins. Read this book and you’ll be ready to ask a lot of smart questions on your next trip to Shenzhen. Recommended by Joel Spolsky.
Exploiting Chaos
Good things can happen, even in bad economies. In fact, they often do. Gutsche uses 150 case studies—presented in an appealing, magazine-like format—to demonstrate how smart entrepreneurs have figured out ways to profit from economic uncertainty. “Innovation is not about market timing,” he reminds readers. “It’s about creating something that fulfills an unmet need.” Recommended by Jack Covert.
How the Mighty Fall
Delivered with Collins’ trademark passion and clarity, How the Mighty Fall is a critical reminder to business leaders that decisions aimed at spectacular growth may sow the seeds of an organization’s destruction. The author deconstructs the overarching leadership flaws (hubris, denial of risk, etc.) that doom companies—including some lessons learned the hard way by companies he had previously exalted in Good to Great. Read this book along with last year’s excellent Billion-Dollar Lessons by Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui and you will be an ace at diagnosing the warning signs of corporate decline. Recommended by Leigh Buchanan, Bo Burlingham, and Tony Hsieh.
Shop Class as Soulcraft In an age of smartphones, apps, and ergonomic keyboards, Crawford offers this interesting commentary on work, on getting your hands dirty, and on finding fulfillment in the process. Recommended by Jack Covert.
Clever
Forget the “scientific” approaches to hiring those consultants tried to sell you on. This engaging book advocates for those unclassifiable, ingenious and creative folks whose promise may not be easily quantifiable. But clever people add the most value, and so business leaders should do what it takes to shape the culture around their needs and expectations, the authors argue persuasively. Solve the problem of attracting and managing clever people, and other challenges—productive collaboration and sustained innovation, among them—get a lot easier. Recommended by Leigh Buchanan.
Crush It!
If you’re stuck in a job that you’re not passionate about, this powerful little book will inspire you to pursue your true calling in life. Better yet, it clearly lays out the process of how you can turn your excitement about an idea or a hobby into activity that will drive it forward into a viable business. Recommended by Jack Covert and Tony Hsieh.
Change by Design
Is there a company out there with better anecdotes drawn from its own operations than IDEO? (OK, possibly Disney’s Imagineers, but that’s it.) Brown, the storied design firm’s CEO, makes the case that design is about more than aesthetics: A good designer must also consider how people interact with products, with other people, and with their surroundings. That thesis leads to the coolest kinds of corporate anthropology—and much of it in services, an area that is sorely neglected by most innovation guides. Recommended by Leigh Buchanan.
Borrowing Brilliance If you start a business, you are, on some level, a creative person. But it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying too hard to come up with a new idea. Murray, a former entrepreneur and Intuit executive, lays out some simple steps that you can take to make sure your organization is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to adapt other folks’ ideas in order to create your next breakthrough offering. Recommended by Jack Covert.
The Match King
Add to Bernie Maddoff’s other sins the fact that he’s not that colorful. You can’t say that about Ivar Kreuger, a Swedish financier who in the early part of last century wheeled-and-dealed his way into a virtual monopoly on global match production; and from there into a financial empire that (spoiler alert!) ultimately imploded. In The Match King, author Frank Partnoy deftly untangles the machinations of Kreuger’s hugely audacious scheme while bringing to life one of business’s more provocative villains. (Among other tidbits: Kreuger kept a fake phone in his office on which he pretended to receive calls from Stalin and Mussolini to impress visitors. He also threw parties at which he hired movie actors to impersonate foreign ambassadors.) Recommended by Leigh Buchanan.
I Love You More Than My Dog
Don’t let the goofy title fool you. This is probably the best book on customer service to be published in a long time. And since customer service is the new marketing, I Love You More Than My Dog is an essential read for entrepreneurs—and for anyone in your company who is responsible for keeping clients satisfied. Recommended by Jack Covert and Tony Hsieh.
(Source: Official Website of the Golden Globes Award)
I love watching award shows – though most of the time, being Astro-less, I’ll have to wait till the re-runs are on other channels. Or yes, I could just keep up with the news on the internet. So, it was with excitement that I found out that the nominations for the 67th Golden Globe Awards were announced recently. I’d scroll down the entire list and have my ”ooohs” and “aaaahs” upon seeing my favourites being nominated (again).
With trepidation, I also look out for a selection of books to read – especially those that have been adapted into movies. I prefer adaptations (book to movie) more than novelisations (movie to book). It’s fascinates me to watch see how creatively a movie could be visualised on the big screen based on a thin book or condensed into just two hours of viewing from a thick book that took us days and weeks to devour.
I’ve narrowed down some of the movies that have have related tie-ins:
An electrifying first novel that shocks by its language, its circumstances, and its brutal honesty, Push recounts a young black street-girl’s horrendous and redemptive journey through a Harlem inferno. For Precious Jones, 16 and pregnant with her father’s child, miraculous hope appears and the world begins to open up for her when a courageous, determined teacher bullies, cajoles, and inspires her to learn to read, to define her own feelings and set them down in a diary. The movie stars Best Actress nominee and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe and Best Supporting Actress nominee Mo’nique.
Ryan Bingham’s job as a Career Transition Counselor (he fires people) has kept him airborne for years. Although he despises his line of work, he has come to love the culture of what he calls “Airworld”. With a letter of resignation sitting on his boss’s desk, and the hope of a job with a mysterious firm, Bingham is agonizingly close to his ultimate goal: 1 Million Frequent-Flyer Miles. The movie stars Best Actor nominee George Clooney and Best Actress nominees Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga.
In the futuristic world of James Cameron’sAvatar, a young man named Jake becomes part of an exploration team on the planet Pandora, inhabited by the exotic Na’vi. Scientists have created an avatar—a body that looks like a Na’vi but is operated by a human’s consciousness. When in his avatar body, Jake finds himself drawn to the planet’s way of life. But before the Na’vi will accept him as one of their own, he has to pass a series of fantastic and dangerous tests. Can Jake survive long enough to become a full-fledged Na’vi? And will he ever want to live as a human again?
2. Best Performances by an Actress in a Movie
Emily Blunt for A Young Victoria
Born in 1819, Victoria was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent. Left fatherless at the age of 8 months, her early years were difficult, brought up by her overbearing German mother and ambitious advisor, Conroy. Succeeding to the throne at 18, however, she began a triumphant reign where her first decree was to banish her mother and Conroy to a remote palace apartment. Yet, history and this movie, will reveal that her journey at the monarch towards her happy ending, was not all smooth sailing. The rest of the cast includes Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany and Miranda Richardson.
Carey Mullingan for An Education
When the journalist Lynn Barber was 16, she was picked up at a bus-stop by an attractive older man who drew up in his sports car – and her life was almost wrecked. A bright confident girl, on course to go to Oxford, she began a relationship which, incredibly, was encouraged by her conventional, suburban parents and which took her into the louche, semi-criminal world of west London just as the 1960s began. Ruin beckoned, until one day she made an important discovery.
This true-life sports drama tells of a man, born to a crack-addicted mother; who takes up American football and school, after a rich Republican family plucks him from the mean streets and adopts him. Their love is the first great force that alters the world’s perception of the boy and the second force is the evolution of professional American football into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. The boy, who took on the name Michael Oher turns out to be the priceless combination of size, speed and agility necessary to guard the quarterback’s greatest vulnerability: his blind side. Directed by John Lee Hancock, the movie also stars Tim McGraw, Kathy Bates and Quinton Aaron.
3. Best Performances by an Actor in a Movie
Colin Firth for A Single Man
This movie is based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood. Set in Los Angeles in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, it is the story of a British college professor (Colin Firth) who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his long time partner. The story is a romantic tale of love interrupted, the isolation that is an inherent part of the human condition, and ultimately the importance of the seemingly smaller moments in life.
Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart
Bad Blake has been a big star, but he has not recorded in five years. He is 57 and now has a chance for a last show and a last chance at love. But can he stop living the blues, give up the booze, put three bad marriages behind him and form a new relationship? The movie also stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall.
Based on 2 memoirs, this movie is adapted (written for the screen and directed) by Nora Ephron. The brilliant Julia Child (Meryl Streep) woke America with the pleasures of good cooking wtih her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking and tv show. In 1948, when she newly landed in France, Julia soaked herself in the local culture – buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu – that eventually led her to her success as a cook, teacher and writer. Meanwhile, in New York, Julie Powell regularly finds herself weeping on the way home from her boring job. Then one night, she notices that the few items she grabbed from a Korean grocery store are the same ingredients, as described by Julia Child, to make Potage Parmentier. And so, “The Project” is born. Julie cooked all 524 recipes in the book, within one year and realises that this deranged Project is changing her life. The richness of the thousands of sauces she slaves over is beginning to spread into her life, and she begins to find the joy of life that has been missing for many years.
5. Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture
Based on a gripping true account written by Kurt Eichenwald, The Informant is Mark Whitacre, a senior executive with America’s most powerful food giant, who put his career and his family’s safety at risk to become a confidential government witness. Using Whitacre’s secret recordings and a team of agents, the FBI uncovered the corporation’s scheme to steal millions of dollars from its own customers. But as the FBI closed in on their target, they suddenly realised that Whitacre wasn’t quite playing the game they’d thought. He double-crossed both the authorities and his employers in one of the most extraordinary cases of global corporate corruption in the last 30 years.
Michael Stuhlbarg for A Serious Man
The book is written by Christopher Isherwood and is set in 1967. Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet Midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him, his unemployable brother Arthury is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is shirking school, and his daughter is filching money from his wallet. Also, a graduate student is trying to bribe him for a passing grade while threatening to sue him for defamation. His search for some kind of equilibrium is conveyed with humor, imagination and verbal wit by the Coen brothers. Julianne Moore is the nominated best actress for this comedy.
Robert Downey Jr. for Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based “consulting detective”, Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, astute observation, deductive reasoning and forensic skills to solve difficult cases. In this movie, Holmes and his assistant, Dr. Watson must hunt Lord Blackwood resumes his killing spree. Contending with Dr. Watson’s new fiancée and a dimwitted head of Scotland Yard, Holmes must unravel the clues to the mystery through a twisted web of murder, deceit, black magic and the deadly embrace of temptress, Irene Adler.
6. Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture
Matt Damon for Invictus
Based on a true story, Matt Damon plays the captain of South Africa’s rugby team (Springboks), Francois Pienaar, who joined forces with Nelson Mandela to help unite their country. Then, newly-elected Mandela believed that he can bring his people together, through the universal language of sports. He rallied Pienaar’s rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championships match. The men shared one goal with the motto, “One team, One Country”.
Lovely Bones paints a painful picture of a girl, who was raped and murdered, and now watches over her family – and her killer – from heaven. Stanley Tucci plays the George Harvey, the man, who killed Susie Salmon.
The winners of the Golden Globes will be announced on 17th January 2010, and the awards are usually used as a marker – the run-up to the prestigious Oscars (Academy Awards). 2009 saw the success of Vikas Swarup’s Slumdog Millionaire become an overnight sensation when it won the Oscar for Best Movie. Perhaps another author is crossing his/her fingers that he/she made the right choice to have his/her book turn into an award-winning movie.
Who are China’s Leaders? How do they think? What does it mean for the future? These are the questions of the moment as New China celebrates its 60th anniversary, because China impacts everyone—an economic superpower competing in every arena of human endeavor. But China’s astonishing transformation comes with challenges and contradictions. Is there a looming “China Threat?” Or an emerging “China Model?”
Published by John Wiley & Sons, How China’s Leaders Think– The Inside Story of China’s Reform and What This Means for the Future draws on personal, candid conversations with over 100 Chinese leaders across all sectors to delve into the way Chinese leaders think. Author Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn presents an insider’s view of how those who lead China feel about their country’s growing global strength—in trade, business and finance; in diplomacy, defense and security; in science, technology and innovation; in culture, media and sports—and how this impacts the world.
Having spent much of his time in China with China’s leaders, Dr. Kuhn uses his inner access to high-level Communist Party officials to speak—exclusively—with China’s leaders in private companies, state-owned enterprises, banking, foreign affairs, military, healthcare, religion, media, Internet, film, literature, ideology, morals and values, and more. Dr. Kuhn asks China’s leaders what they make of economic imbalances, pollution, unsustainable development, corruption, migrant workers, unemployment and crime. He also confronts China’s leaders on the issues of human rights, censorship, religious freedom, ethnic clashes, international conflicts and superpower rivalries—and provides insightful analysis of how these challenges might be dealt with.
Writing with an insider’s perspective and voice, Dr. Kuhn focuses on President Hu Jintao’s philosophies and policies—including the road to political reform and prospects for democracy. Significantly, Dr. Kuhn looks to the next (“fifth”) generation of China’s senior political leaders. Who are China’s future leaders? And how would they deal with China’s rising and dramatic prominence?
“To understand China, especially in the light of China’s resurgence and power—and in the face of media distortions—the international community needs to appreciate how China’s leaders think,” said Dr. Kuhn. “This book focuses on the country’s most senior leaders, current and future, and on officials and intellectuals in diverse sectors, who collectively form the foundation of thought and drive the commitment to further reform in China today. My task is to portray their personas, to give voice to their thoughts and life to their feelings, as well as to describe their works and deeds.”
Nick Wallwork, publisher from John Wiley & Sons, added, “Dr. Kuhn’s unique access in China enables him to obtain insights into the Chinese policy-making process. He has done an outstanding job in his quest to shed light on the thought processes and motivations of the current, and possibly future, generations of leaders.”
“Wiley is very proud to be publishing such an important book and trust that its valuable insights will lead to a greater understanding of modern China.”
“The best way to know China—the best way to do business with China—is to know what motivates China’s leaders and what drives their policies”, added Dr. Kuhn.
This unprecedented book reflects the personal visions and collective commitment of China’s senior leaders – particularly the next generation who will come to full power in 2012. Readers will not get closer to China’s leaders than this.
Strategic Drucker
A Class with Drucker
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