Decade of Change: Managing in Times of Uncertainty
Edited by Geoffrey Brewer and Barb Sanford
For Immediate Release
Contact: Lauren Kannry, Gallup, +1.202.715.3050
"The momentousness of change during the past 10 years has inspired us, editors at the Gallup Management Journal, to review how we covered and evaluated events during this period; how we tried to make sense of rapid change right as it was unfolding; and most importantly, how our most visionary people, as well as the great minds with whom Gallup regularly associates, helped organizational leaders navigate the most tumultuous years in recent memory."
Geoffrey Brewer, Editorial Director, Gallup Press
Barb Sanford, Managing Editor, Gallup Management Journal
The first decade of the new millennium has been marked by unprecedented change -- from 9/11 to the continued volatility of the global economy to the subprime meltdown to skyrocketing unemployment to healthcare reform. The momentous transformation inspired the editors of the Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) to look back at the past 10 years through the eyes of prominent leaders, including the Internet's co-creator, a Nobel Prize winner, a heroic military general, and many other business leaders and great minds. This compelling collection provides a fascinating look at how leaders have navigated the most tumultuous period in recent memory. Their insights provide a roadmap for moving forward into an uncertain future.
Decade of Change: Managing in Times of Uncertainty offers insight and wisdom into managing and maximizing change. This informative collection allows you to see how leaders anticipated and managed some of the biggest problems of the past decade. Vinton Cerf, co-creator of the Internet, peers into the Web's future. Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman probes the nature of decision making. Lieutenant General Russel Honoré, a Hurricane Katrina hero, offers the leadership lessons he applied in that crisis. Ray Anderson of Interface, Inc. makes a powerful business case for environmental sustainability. Campbell Soup CEO Douglas Conant details what it takes to resurrect a renowned brand. And Gallup Chief Economist Dennis Jacobe predicted the subprime mortgage crisis at least a year before it occurred. A host of other contributors and executives, including Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton, tackle everything from easing the fear of layoffs to promoting wellbeing in the workplace, from deliberately supporting entrepreneurs to building customer engagement amid the post-crash "new normal."
The book brings together the stories of some of the best minds in business, technology, economics, and strategy in history. The contributors to this volume steered companies, cities, and large organizations through the various crises of the past decade and helped find a way forward to what we all hope will be a brighter and more prosperous future.
Decade of Change is more than a look backward -- it is a roadmap for what lies ahead.
Decade of Change: Managing in Times of Uncertainty
Edited by: Geoffrey Brewer and Barb Sanford
Publication date: May 17, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59562-053-8
Hardcover $24.95
http://www.gallup.com/
Observations and Predictions from Decade of Change
Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman on happiness (2005)
"I have a 'fortune cookie maxim' that I'm very proud of: Nothing in life is quite as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it. So, nothing will ever make you as happy as you think it will. Just thinking about things can make them seem very important."
Gallup Chief Economist Dennis Jacobe predicting the subprime mortgage crisis (2007)
"Most of these borrowers got subprime loans at high interest rates; it was the only opportunity they had to get a loan. And though some of these loans were clearly predatory, most of them were just expensive.
"There will be a lot of debate about the difference, but when times are good, it's not easy for a regulator or a lender to say, 'No, this is ill advised, and I'm not going to let you borrow money.' Instead, what the lenders would say is, 'Well, the value of the houses we're lending money on is increasing, so the real risk of making the loan is not high. If the borrower can't make the payments, they could sell or refinance the house and thus, avoid default.' And when times were good, the booming housing market kept the default rate down.
"But, in the last year or so, housing prices in a lot of runaway markets have come down. Overall price levels and values have lowered. As a result, some of the people who have high-rate loans can't make their payments, and because they don't have any equity, they can't get out of their mortgage by selling the house."
Internet co-creator Vinton Cerf on the future of technology (2006)
"We're just barely scratching the surface of what we can do with this kind of communication technology. And I think you can see that almost daily as you look at new product announcements that involve networked devices. So I'm expecting to see many billions of devices using the Net to communicate with each other. This is not just for human communication, which has been tremendously valuable, or human sharing of knowledge, which has also been very valuable, but it can also be used for managing and controlling various devices.
"So my entertainment system should be manageable through the network; third parties should be able to offer to me the ability to manage devices around the house and the office and in the car and maybe even on my person. Once these devices are able to communicate with each other, it means that third parties can build software that services those devices, interact with them, and manage them, or provide services to them."
Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton on what the world really wants (2007)
"Gallup is committed to conducting the World Poll for 100 years, but we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact. If used appropriately, it may change how every leader runs his or her country. But at the very least, it needs to be considered in every policy, every law, and every social initiative. All leaders - policy and law makers, presidents and prime ministers, parents, judges, priests, pastors, imams, teachers, managers, and CEOs - need to consider it every day in everything they do.
"What the whole world wants is a good job."
Economist Angus Deaton on whether money buys happiness (2008)
"There's a lot that we just don't understand [about how income relates to satisfaction or to happiness], but the first thing to realize is that they seem to be strongly positively related to one another.
"Richer people seem to be happier, or at least they say they're more satisfied with their life, which is what you might expect. We all struggle to get richer, and we hope it will make us happier. That doesn't mean it necessarily will. But the belief in much of the literature is that as countries get richer over time, their populations don't actually get any more satisfied with their lives."
