Customer Reviews

Did the Pedestrian Die: Insights from the World's Greatest Culture Guru

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What we have here is a further exposition of the insights and wisdom of Fons Trompenaars and some solid examples of cultural dimensions in real situations. The chapters in this book stem from a series of newspaper columns that the author wrote for a newspaper in The Netherlands, thus the style is easy to read and the content is relevant.

While there is much in this book to recommend, one of the big pluses for this reader was the clear delineation of the differences between Geert Hofstede and Fons Trompenaars. One gets a chance to recognize the contributions of Hofstede and at the same time to see his limitations. While there is a certain amount of acrimony in this discussion, one still comes away with an understanding of the evolution and applicability the dimensions of Trompenaars and why they have surfaced to the top.

What is different about this book from the basic Trompenaars/Hampden-Turner readers is that he addresses key issues such as: leadership; matching values; globalization; diversity; people; functions; corporate culture, identity, and change; and the dilemmas to be addressed in globalizing organizations. And in each of these section he iterates the need and provides the basis for the reconciliation of dilemmas.

The chapters are full of practical examples from real situations involving real people. The author has a way of presenting a dilemma, explaining the paths to its reconciliation, and
providing documental anecdotes that illustrate successes.

Early in the text, the author discusses the terrorism that the world and particularly the US is faced with. While not providing solutions, he does make a powerful case for the utilization of reconciliation techniques in order to best understand and perhaps work with these dilemmas. It is a powerful section of the book.

For the ease of its readability, its potent substance, and its direct and insightful learnings, this book is a must for one's professional library.

I have always found culture and textbooks on culture a difficult subject to get in to. But I really like the stories in this book that we can all relate to. The author uses the stories as allegories to explain a number of fascinating ideas.

Forget the anthropologists, if you really want to understand global business and working with people who have different ideas to you, then this is the book!

Excellent.

The author jumps from one subject to another without a clear plan for where he is going. He lacks a structure or overall theme, in my opinion. He provides personal vignettes about cultures in different countries but no original statistics to back up his claims. He provides useless maxims about the need to make companies more international and to understand that cultures differ between countries (duh).

The author seems very impressed with himself, quoting attendees from his workshops and mentioning several times that over 20,000 "international managers" have attended his lectures. He even has the audacity in the book's title to call himself "the world's greatest culture guru." He seems to think that we are pliable disciplines that hang on his every word even if he lacks structure, themes and statistics.

My impression is that other reviewers that liked this book had first read other earlier works by this author. Those earlier books may have established the author's reputation. And this book was a sequel that groupees want to read. Not me. I do not think that this book will establish anyone's reputation. It feels disorganized, subjective and lightweight. That is my personal opinion.

This is an excellent collection of real world critical incidents told as stories and anecdotes and combined together to make a new way of looking at Global Business.

Essential reading for every business manager and leader ! !