An opening query, expressed almost as a throwaway, shows what this book could have been. Consultant Jensen (Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage in a World of More, Better, Faster), reflecting on what managers must do today, writes: "Work 2.0 places before you a simple self-assessment question: 'As a leader, am I changing enough to demonstrate that I respect and trust the people around me?'" Unfortunately, Jensen never comes close to explaining what a manager needs to do to answer that question affirmatively. Instead, in tilling over ground broken long ago by Warren Bennis, he tells readers that today's workers want meaning as well as money. Then, as the McKinsey consulting firm has already maintained, he explains that there is a war for the best talent. Faintly echoing the writings of Thomas Stewart, he underscores what's now considered a basic truth—that intellectual capital is a firm's most important asset—and then repeats what Tom Peters has argued since the mid-1990s: if companies don't provide the best environment for employees to thrive, they won't attract the best employees. Managers today want to know what
they have to do to be effective, and how
they have to do it. Instead, Jensen gives them entire chapters revolving around such statements as "great workplaces respect life's precious assets" and "great workplaces get better results by giving people better control over their own destiny." Agent, Lisa Adams.(Feb.)
