NEW BOOK
– “Got Game–How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever,” by John Beck and Mitchell Wade, Harvard Business School Press, $27.50
What you’ll learn: Business isn’t fun and games. Or is it? While most business people (and parents) question the value of kids playing Zelda, Halo, Myst and other games, Beck and Wade believe that gamers have many qualities that business needs.
Among those qualities is a desire to win. Gamers don’t play just to play. Losing is not an option. A must-win attitude trumps mediocrity and inspires great performance. Gamers are also wired to find answers. There are solutions to every puzzle/situation in the game. Experienced gamers use “everything’s possible” thinking to solve them. The more games they’ve played, the more intuitive their problem-solving skills.
We’d better hope we can learn to manage gamers, because frequent or moderate gamers comprise 81 percent of the business population 34 and younger. In the under-17 category, 92 percent are gamers.
–Jim Pawlak, BizBooks
NEW BOOK
– “Guts! Companies that Blow the Doors Off Business-As-Usual,” by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg, Doubleday Books, $26
What’ll you’ll learn: This is a book about retaining talent. Why is retention an issue? Retain or retrain–guess which one is cheaper? A recent survey showed that over 50 percent of the U.S. workforce wants to change jobs, and 75 percent plan to make a job change in the next 12 months.
Keeping the best involves leadership, culture and flexibility. The Freibergs take readers into a number of small and large companies that know how to motivate and retain their personnel.
–Jim Pawlak, BizBooks
