A useful guide to organizational networks that’s often bogged down by jargon.
Scott’s business guide leads readers through a detailed road map for organizational transformation.
In this methodical book, consultant Scott explores organizational relationship structures and culture. She describes networks as webs of formal and informal relationships that control how information and influence flow through an organization. Using a “three-legged stool” analogy to describe organizational health, Scott recommends balancing the three legs of mission and strategy, leadership, and culture. Additionally, cultivating genuine interest in others and sharing vulnerably in appropriate ways can help create stronger bonds. The book lays out five types of network structures: “centralized” (hub-and-spoke), “departmental cluster” (silos), “distributed” (webs), “bridge structure” (connection via certain people), and “adaptive networks” (flexible, project-based teams). Key network positions include “Network Hubs” (information and influence spreaders), “Network Bridges” (connectors), and “Network Mavens” (trusted sources of information and advice). Scott’s “TRUST Framework” details how patterns of transparent listening, relationship-centered leadership, unlocked silos, shared values, and traction building create network-based change. Scott concludes, “The ripples start with you. What kind of waves will you choose to create?” In this academic guide to improving and leveraging workplace relationships, Scott combines extensive research, case studies, and theory. She aptly compares an organization’s network to a circulatory system, stating that “it’s how information, influence, and resources flow between people.” The author also provides helpful insights on leadership, such as “leadership isn’t about position; it’s about connection.” The book draws on real-world company experiences, like how Zappos and its trademarked “holacracy” model adapted to remote work during Covid. However, the book’s overly complex language (“systematic listening prevents the erosion of informal bonds that traditionally served as conduits for knowledge transfer and cultural transmission”) may prevent some readers from absorbing its wisdom.
A useful guide to organizational networks that’s often bogged down by jargon.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9798891389335
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The app takes advantage of zoom features to take readers through panel by panel, providing a sense of forward motion that...
Traditionally a paper-based series, Middle School Confidential adapts its first graphic novel to the iPad leveraging the device’s functionality to infuse a wide variety of sounds, short songs and character voices.
The app takes advantage of zoom features to take readers through panel by panel, providing a sense of forward motion that synchronizes well with the text’s format. Divided into eight chapters, the story introduces relevant teen topics such as body image, self-esteem, popularity and stress through short, everyday interactions among a group of six male and female friends. To round out each chapter, a teen presents a related short message that’s more public-service announcement than component of the story, which may feel over the top to the audience. Each character is presented through actions and dialogue in the short chapters and with a brief bio that includes his or her strengths and insecurities. Additionally, each bio includes an e-mail address, which links to the iPad’s e-mail function; there is no indication of who will actually receive a reader’s e-mail message and what if any response such an e-mail might trigger. The images in the line-and-watercolor panels mirror and reinforce the characters’ related emotions or actions.Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Free Spirit Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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