Source: Charles Ashbacher
Date: December 24, 2006

Watching the recent news, one can get the impression that the American corporate world is a corrupt one. Almost every night there is a new story about another executive being accused, arrested or tried for some crime. This alternates with other stories about the incredible compensations that many executives are receiving. Interspersed with this are stories of how many jobs are being outsourced from the United States and the soaring trade deficit. The combination of all these things could lead you to believe that the American business community is in a globally relative decline.
That is not necessarily the case because the American business community is still the most innovative in the world. Most of the success companies in other countries are benefiting from are due to their importing the consequences of American innovation and expertise. Therefore, the title of this book aptly describes how to be successful in the modern economy. Do you think you're smart, fast and better than others are? If true, and you may simply be deluding yourself, that condition is transient, so you better come up with ways to be even smarter, faster and better. Sloan is right on in her advice on how to advance your qualities to remain competitive.
The first and always the most important points are to understand that you cannot remain where you are, not now, not ever. Striving for a better level of achievement is not only profitable but also necessary. By following her advice you can become a bigger and faster rat and maybe morph into a greyhound or even a quarter horse.

Source: Midwest Book Review
Date: Sept. 2, 2007

In "Smarter, Faster, Better: Strategies For Effective, Enduring, And Fulfilled Leadership", author Karlin Sloan draws upon her many years of experience and expertise as an executive coach and leadership consultant to reveal what she calls the 'paradoxical truths' of leadership in the 21st Century. These can be summed as: 'To be smarter you, you must ask more questions.'; 'To be faster, you must slow down.'; 'To be better, you must focus less on personal gain and more on cooperating with others.' Karlin offers the reader time-tested strategies, self-assessments, case examples, exercises, and an impressively practical variety of tips and techniques to enable anyone charged with leadership responsibilities to gain perspective and self-knowledge, to seize new opportunities, to resolve difficult issues, to boost their organization's sense of purpose and social responsibility, and to improve the quality and success of their own performance as a leader. Very strongly recommended and thoroughly 'user friendly', "Smarter, Faster, Better" will teach aspiring leaders to ask questions that will make them smarter; gain hours of spare work time by slowing way down; manage their energy and keep healthier both on and off the job; tap into multiple intelligence (their own and their employees); energize their work teams; benefit from dynamic, creative, highly charged people; 'Get better with your competition instead of getting better than your competition'; and adding to the bottom line through establishing business practices that contribute to the world in a positive way.