Connecting the Dots: Lessons for Leadership in a Startup World

Businesspeople worried about the pace of change and disruption in the internet age should conquer their fears and embrace the “staggering” opportunities that await, advises Cisco chairman emeritus Chambers in this half-hearted vanity project. The author has undeniably achieved a great deal of success at Cisco and a variety of other companies, which he shares in excessively painstaking detail. He traces his life from his upbringing in West Virginia and the values his parents instilled in him, to his long career in Silicon Valley, with stops at IBM and Wang Laboratories along the way, culminating at Cisco. His advice tends toward the broad (“act like a teenager” by dreaming big and assuming disruption) and the overly obvious (“setbacks can make you stronger”). The aw-shucks attitude, chat-over-coffee tone, and bemusement at technological advancement may win over some readers, but overall this is a compendium of a little bit of everything that tries to do too much; there’s little new to distinguish this offering from the countless other how-to-succeed-in-business manuals crowding the shelves. (Sept.)