Book Summaries

Consulting flawlessly requires intense concentration on two processes: being as authentic as you can be at all times with the client; and attending directly, in words and actions, to the business of each stage of the consulting process. This summary describes what authentic consulting behavior looks like. It also describes the business side of each stage of the consulting process.

Through detailed, individual spending portraits of middle class consumers, Silverstein explores the story of how people around the world are reshaping the consumer-goods market by trading down to low-price products and services, trading up to premium ones, and avoiding the boredom and low value that increasingly characterize the middle.

A spider has legs, a central body and a tiny head. Chop off the spider’s head and it dies. That’s what happens in a centralized organization with a clear leader in charge. A decentralized organization is more like a starfish — no head, only a decentralized network of cells. This book addresses the differences between the two organizational styles and why a smart business model contains parts of both.

This book explores what every executive must know to manage today’s environmental challenges. Based on the authors’ years of experience and hundreds of interviews with corporate leaders around the world, the book shows how companies generate lasting value by building environmental thinking into their business strategies.