BOOK REVIEW

 

    For females in business this book is a classical antiquity written in the 13th century. Its about the ancient women who succeeded in different domains.

In this book its the City which is being built slowly when Lady Reason says: "...I prophesy to you that this city which you're going to build with our help will never fall or be taken. Rather, it will prosper always, in spite of its enemies who are racked by envy. Though it may be attacked on many sides, it will never be lost or defeated [and] don't you know that Nature herself used astrological signs to predict that it should be placed here in this work? Step back a little now and let me put it into position for you..."

Also the book deals with the resourcefulness and steadfastness from those business women from the past including female warriors such as the Amazons, Queens and other women in ancient times.  One such woman was Lady Lilia, mother of the Knight Theodoric who deserved the praise even if she didn't go into battle herself.

Although her son was handsome and skilled in military arts and received a fine upbringing from his mother.  However when her son turned tail to flee from a battle scene she implored him not to dishonour himself in this way but instead rally his troops once more and return to the battlefield. 

However as her words appeared to be having no effect on him, she fell into a great rage and lifted up her skirts saying: "My dear son, there is no place left for you to hide except my womb, so you should climb back up inside immediately!"

Could also be said of the women who behave like Claudia the Roman Noble woman, who only delights in wearing lovely clothes and obsessed with making herself beautiful and those who are loved merely for their virtue and others for their attractiveness.  Rather than those women who show outstanding aptitiude in other areas of the business world.

City of LadiesThe Book of The City of Ladies
by Christine de Pizan
Translated by: Rosalind Brown-Grant
Published by: Penguin Classics, London

 

 

  This book deals with corporate reputation and dealing with crisis management with summary points that assist the reader with advice to follow such as being realistic in the assessments and the priorities that are required to be dealt with.

An excerpt reads: "...Its like the goalkeeper in a Cup Final who, with lightning reactions, tips the ball round the post to prevent an apparently certain equaliser in the dying seconds of the game. Good goalkeepers make great saves quite often. Great goalkeepers organise the defence, read the game, see potential trouble early and act as goalkeepers rather than goal stoppers - of course they also make great saves when they have to...."

And there's always the British football fans chants that although you're supposed to sing it out aloud and fast, with a few beers inside ya, with'd your football scarf colours and your friends surrounding you's for your team to thrash the living daylights out of the other side...right into the ground...leaving their groins hanging from the goal posts from either side of town and calling for their mamma's as the winning side chants. As the crowds send up an almighty roar, and the tackle is made from the left, then the right...shoots and scores...and their team is lead away on a stretcher, curled up in a foetal position and placed into the awaiting van.

As the book says "...Good crisis management is something like good goalkeeping.  It may be the great saves which get talked about in the pub (saloon bars) after the game but it is the ability to read the game early which counts overall...."  This is why crisis management should be viewed as a strategical part of management that has to be maintained and that all employees are aware of the company's reputation is just as vital to all its other endeavours.

Reputation Risk Management
by Peter Sheldon Green
Published by: Financial Times, Pitman Publishing, London

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