Bookshelf

CREATIVE CONSPIRACY

AUTHORS: Leigh Thompson
PUBLISHER: Harvard Business Review
Press, 30 USD

Despite the fact that almost all organizations are team endeavors, Thompson of Northwestern University notes that "decades of research evidence clearly reveals that groups are inferior to individuals when it comes to creativity!" Her solution to the paradox is to dispel myths that surround creative collaboration and replace them with evidencebased data that will improve performance. For instance, many people believe that, when groups are brainstorming, "striving for quality is better than striving for quantity," but the reverse is true. When the goal is quality, participants selfcensor, so fewer ideas are proposed; fewer ideas mean fewer chances for a great one to be among them. Another myth is that teams should work together in open floor plans, but it turns out people are more creative when they can retreat to their own spaces. Thompson advocates the hybrid "cave-and-commons" workplace, which offers spaces for both solitary and group work. Her book provides solid guidelines for any organization that relies on teamwork to get things done.

CONVERGE

AUTHOR: Bob Lord and Ray Velez
PUBLISHER: Wiley, 29.95 USD

Tech nological innovatio ns and the rise of the Internet have irrevocably changed business, and Lord and Velez want to explore how. They focus on convergence, or "the coming together of three irresistible forces—media, technology, and creativity—to meet an immovable object: the enterprise." The authors, both principals in the tech and marketing firm Razorfish, are eager to tear down barriers between functional departments, between rival firms, even between industries. In fact, as they say early on, "The villain throughout this book is the silo." Gone are the days when companies controlled their media message, when the chief information officer and the chief technology officer didn't speak the same language, and when creativity "was the exclusive province of marketing and creative departments." Now companies must crowdsource their ideas, turn over brand marketing to consumers, and use social media to stay connected to customers around the clock and around the world. Lord and Velez guide them through the convergence.

THE BANKERS' NEW CLOTHES

AUTHORS: Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig
PUBLISHER: Princeton University Press, 29.95 USD

"Do not believe those who tell you that things are better now than they had been prior to the financial crisis of 2007–2009 and that we have a safer system that is getting even better as reforms are put in place," write Admati of Stanford BizEd May/June 2013 69 and Hellwig of the Max Planck Institute. "Today's banking system, even with proposed reforms, is as dangerous and fragile as the system that brought us the recent crisis." The authors are adamant that banking is not a complex, mysterious occupation that only special minds can comprehend. They're convinced that the common taxpayer can easily grasp the concepts behind borrowing, lending, and risk, and they make good on their promise to explain these elements in readily understandable prose. This is important, they believe, because if more people understand what went wrong in the last crisis, more voices will be raised in the next round of debates—and more voters will pressure their governments to put in place the necessary reforms.

THE GREAT REBALANCING

AUTHOR: Michael Pettis
PUBLISHER: Princeton University Press, 29.95 USD

Peking Uni versit y's Pettis also takes on the economic crisis, placing it in a broad historical context and taking the long holistic view. He doesn't blame sophisticated financial tools for the situation, and he rejects "old-fashioned morality" arguments that claim spendthrift citizens can send their countries spiraling into bankruptcy. Instead, he points at the same culprits that have caused financial disruptions for centuries—trade imbalances between countries—and traces these imbalances to the policies that the nations themselves have put in place. But each nation's policy, or changes in policy, will have domino effects around the world, he warns. "Japanese interest rates, Spanish real estate bubbles, American mortgage derivatives, and copper mining in Chile are all part of a single system in which distortions in any one part must have automatic consequences for the other." Pettis discusses the ways trade balances can occur; explores the links among trade, the savings rate, and international capital flows; and examines the role of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency. It's complex but fascinating reading.