Flex: The New Playbook for Managing Across Differences

Executive coaches Hyun (Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling) and Lee offer a solid, common-sense guide to creating a successful and diverse workplace in terms of culture, age, and gender. Both authors were raised with strong Confucian values—hard work, humility, and an aversion to boasting about accomplishments. That kind of reticence won’t take one very far in a Western workplace, the authors argue. How to make sure differences in communications styles are acknowledged so that employees’ careers don’t get unfairly damaged? The answer lies in “flexing”: adapting work behavior and communication in a way that respects status and cultural differences. The authors cover differing management styles, “flexing” across different communication styles, finding common ground in workplaces that employee workers from different generations, becoming a difference-fluent leader, building trust, and serving as a mentor, sponsor, or coach, among other topics. Their guide is clear and illustrative, though the topic could have been addressed more succinctly. Agent: Stephanie Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (Mar.)