Kate Lanz co-author of “All the Brains in the Business”

The only valid knock you can hit Paul Brown and Kate Lanz’s book All the Brains in the Business: The Engendered Brain in the 21^st Organisation with is that it, perhaps, is a bit abbreviated. Running less than two hundred pages in length about a topic with numerous side roads and byways, I am as sure as one can be the authors would forgive readers who think there’s a lot more they could have said about biological neural differences between men and women and how those can be made use of in professional life. It’s a subject fraught not with just scientific but social implications, especially true in recent history, and many individuals are wholeheartedly invested in this ongoing dialogue. 

MORE ON MINDBRIDGE:http://mindbridge.co.uk/

Lanz and Brown, however, do a superb job of scaling down a monumental subject for their reading audience without ever giving short shrift to a single aspect of the topic. An important factor in this is the prose style defining the word, unfettered short sentences that never ask readers to bite off more than can chew, but the most crucial thing at work in this regard is how Lanz and Brown present the mountain of research supporting their ideas. They support their concepts with a thorough reading of supporting material and never fail to document the work of others before them who laid the groundwork making this book possible. Brown and Lanz present in a comprehensible manner any experienced reader can readily understand. 

The writers build the book over a dozen chapters and, despite the lack of any clear design for the presentation of the material, the book unfolds for readers in coherent fashion. Lanz and Brown include a handful of illustrations along the way that reinforce their textual points and the collaborators offer in a manner that never distracts or detracts from the text. Many writers miscalculate and load their books up with too many illustrations in lieu of solid writing, but Lanz and Brown avoid that pitfall and it makes for a more satisfying book because of it. 

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/All-Brains-Business-Organisation-Neuroscience/dp/3030221520

One does not need to agree or disagree with their positions to take something fruitful away from All the Brains in the Business. This is a book that, first and foremost, provokes thought and should prompt a vigorous reevaluation of long-held beliefs but, despite the wealth of research rife throughout the text, it never asks or demands that readers agree with its point of view. Brown and Lanz serve up their ideas in such a way that it is left up to the individual reader if they choose to follow their line of thinking or not. It is, likewise, a book you can open at any point in the text and begin reading – nothing about its construction requires you to follow it from page 1 through its conclusion. There are minor flaws some readers will find with the boo\k but, overall, All the Brains in the Business: The Engendered Brain in the 21^st Organisation is one of the more involving non-fiction books I’ve read in some time and merits close study.

Nicole Killian