The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean

Talk about a slippery slope. The difference between success and failure seems to be very thin sometimes, just as Enron was heralded as one of the greatest companies of the modern age, it was actually falling apart internally. Everyone on Wall Street, more or less, believed that Enron was nothing if not a juggernaut of the energy market with only success stories under its belt. At the same time on the inside, a sort of religious fervour drove employees to think that the rumours of failure in different business units weren't true.

The Smartest Guys in the Room is a well researched timeline of everything and everyone that happened to Enron. Unfortunately, it is little else. If you are looking for the definitive account of what happened, look no further. However, if you would like to hear more about what was going on inside the heads of the now-convicted chief executives, you will find no answers. It is a fascinating story and an enticing read, but it also left me thinking about how management gurus like Jeffrey Skilling got so carried away. There is so much more at work here.

Of course, The Smartest Guys was written in the aftermath of the bankruptcy and therefore might lack some of the contemporary insight. Especially since the 2008 financial crisis, I bet that there would be some very interesting connections to be made. They say that power corrupts, and time and time again it has also been shown that absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is true of both Enron executives and bank executives alike (like the ones in Too Big To Fail).

As I well know, business studies tend to focus one-sidedly on the success stories of the current era. The Smartest Guys in the Room is the complete opposite: a wonderful story of everything that can go wrong in business.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

I'm not big on self-help books, but it seems that my recent purchase of a Kindle has had an effect on my attitudes. That said, Quiet is not your average self-help opus, at least from what I can tell. Despite its name, it is a fairly straightforward and determined tale of how extroverts have come to rule corporate, academic and relationship life in the western world. There are a few tick-the-box quizzes and some praising of inane personal attributes but Quiet is mostly able to present a good scientific and social case for rethinking the way we deal with the extrovert-introvert divide.

It starts out with an interesting discussion on the rise of the American Dream and the ideal of an outward-oriented salesmanlike citizen. Charming people with manners and showmanship were able to thrive in an economy that newly needed talent in sales. Companies started looking for these traits in potential employees and the national psyche rewarded extroverts. Those with more inward traits like shyness or reservedness were considered inferior.

Today, however, the world is no longer a place, where all you need is presentation skills (if it ever was in the first place). Innovation seems to stem from quiet, thoughtful people that for now have been considered second rate by the economy. A round of applause for Cain for identifying an important issue in today's world.

The rest of the book focuses on more personal issues and I found a lot that I can identify with. Quiet is a book from an introvert to introverts, so I'm not expecting the extroverts of this world to read it with as much interest, if at all. Does this matter? At times Cain is truly preaching to the choir. As an introvert, I don't need to be told that I should be able to get more say in discussions at the office! That said, it's a good read for anyone who feels threatened by the extrovert ideal and a world of shouters and self-marketing.