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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
Read this for PMP credits (4.5 hous) Some interesting insights that are best found in the appendix where he summarizes and applies them to how he wrote the book.
Interesting read on how the brain processes information and how you can improve how your own mind flows.
there were a lot of interesting concepts that funny enough I was mostly aware of because my advisor was a cognitive scientist before he became a computer scientist. Still, interesting read, although not at all closet to Duhigg’s masterpiece “The Power of Habit”.
This book was completely different from what I expected. I assumed it would be very heavy on suggested methods and ideals. Instead, it was a book filled with stories. The stories all were all told to demonstrate specific methods and ideals, but the conclusions seemed to be a minor part of the book. The storytelling is what carried this book. It was very interesting to read, and the fact that the stories were fascinating and memorable means that I may remember some of the conclusions.
Notes of what I want to remember:
To Generate Motivation
-Make a choice that puts you in control.
-Figure out how this task is connected to something you care about. Explain to yourself why this chore will help you get closer to a meaningful goal. Explain why this matters- and then, you'll find it easier to start.
To Set Goals
-Choose a stretch goal: an ambition that reflects your biggest aspirations.
-Then, break that into subgoals and develop SMART objectives.
To Stay Focused
-Envision what will happen. What will occur first? What are potential obstacles? How will you preempt them? Telling yourself a story about what you expect to occur makes it easier to decide where your focus should go when your plan encounters real life.
To Make Teams More Effective
-Manage the how, not the who of teams. Psychological safety emerges when everyone feels like they can speak in roughly equal measure and when teammates show they are sensitive to how each other feels.
-If you are leading a team, think about the message your choices reveal. Are you encouraging equality in speaking, or rewarding the loudest people? Are you showing you are listening by repeating what people say and replying to questions and thoughts? Are you demonstrating sensitivity by reaction when someone seems upset or flustered? Are you showcasing that sensitivity, so other people will follow your lead?
To Manage Others Productively
-Lean and agile management techniques tell us employees work smarter and better when they believe they have more decision-making authority and whem they believe their colleagues are committed to their success.
-By pushing decision making to whoever is closest to a problem, managers take advantage of everyone's expertise and unlock innovation.
-A sense of control can fuel motivation, but for that drive to produce insights and solutions, people need to know their suggestions won't be ignored and that their mistakes won't be held against them.
To Encourage Innovation
-Creativity often emerges by combining old ideas in new ways- and "innovation brokers" are key. To become a broker yourself and encourage brokerage within your organization:
*Be sensitive to your own experiences. Paying attention to how things make you think and feel is how we distinguish cliches from real insights. Study your own emotional reactions.
*Recognize that the stress that emerges amid the creative process isn't a sign everything is falling apart. Rather, creative desperation is often critical: Anxiety can be what often pushes us to see old ideas in new ways.
*Finally, remember that the relief accompanying a creative breakthrough, while sweet, can also blind us to alternatives. By forcing ourselves to critique what we've already done, by making ourselves look at it from different perspectives, by giving new authority to someone who didn't have it before, we retain clear eyes.
To Absorb Data Better
-When we encounter new information, we should force ourselves to do something with it. Write yourself a note explaining what you just learned, or figure out a small way to test an idea, or graph a series of data points onto a piece of paper, or force yourself to explain an idea to a friend. Every choice we make in life is an experiment- the trick is getting ourselves to see the data embedded in those decisions, and then to use it somehow so we learn from it.
Notes of what I want to remember:
To Generate Motivation
-Make a choice that puts you in control.
-Figure out how this task is connected to something you care about. Explain to yourself why this chore will help you get closer to a meaningful goal. Explain why this matters- and then, you'll find it easier to start.
To Set Goals
-Choose a stretch goal: an ambition that reflects your biggest aspirations.
-Then, break that into subgoals and develop SMART objectives.
To Stay Focused
-Envision what will happen. What will occur first? What are potential obstacles? How will you preempt them? Telling yourself a story about what you expect to occur makes it easier to decide where your focus should go when your plan encounters real life.
To Make Teams More Effective
-Manage the how, not the who of teams. Psychological safety emerges when everyone feels like they can speak in roughly equal measure and when teammates show they are sensitive to how each other feels.
-If you are leading a team, think about the message your choices reveal. Are you encouraging equality in speaking, or rewarding the loudest people? Are you showing you are listening by repeating what people say and replying to questions and thoughts? Are you demonstrating sensitivity by reaction when someone seems upset or flustered? Are you showcasing that sensitivity, so other people will follow your lead?
To Manage Others Productively
-Lean and agile management techniques tell us employees work smarter and better when they believe they have more decision-making authority and whem they believe their colleagues are committed to their success.
-By pushing decision making to whoever is closest to a problem, managers take advantage of everyone's expertise and unlock innovation.
-A sense of control can fuel motivation, but for that drive to produce insights and solutions, people need to know their suggestions won't be ignored and that their mistakes won't be held against them.
To Encourage Innovation
-Creativity often emerges by combining old ideas in new ways- and "innovation brokers" are key. To become a broker yourself and encourage brokerage within your organization:
*Be sensitive to your own experiences. Paying attention to how things make you think and feel is how we distinguish cliches from real insights. Study your own emotional reactions.
*Recognize that the stress that emerges amid the creative process isn't a sign everything is falling apart. Rather, creative desperation is often critical: Anxiety can be what often pushes us to see old ideas in new ways.
*Finally, remember that the relief accompanying a creative breakthrough, while sweet, can also blind us to alternatives. By forcing ourselves to critique what we've already done, by making ourselves look at it from different perspectives, by giving new authority to someone who didn't have it before, we retain clear eyes.
To Absorb Data Better
-When we encounter new information, we should force ourselves to do something with it. Write yourself a note explaining what you just learned, or figure out a small way to test an idea, or graph a series of data points onto a piece of paper, or force yourself to explain an idea to a friend. Every choice we make in life is an experiment- the trick is getting ourselves to see the data embedded in those decisions, and then to use it somehow so we learn from it.
Entertaining read, more of a collection of anecdotes than a guide to being productive.
Some good nuggets of insight, the most important one is the secret to the culture of top performing teams - psychological safety.
The book follows very old school tried and true genre structure with insights followed by stories. However, the stories which were a littler harder to follow because of the nested/interlacing structure.
Overall, it's a fast read, and worth skimming through.
Other ideas discussed:
- feeling in control leads to motivation. Self-efficacy.
- teams with norms that promote psychological safety, encourage all members to speak up is the only sure-fire way to create top performing teams. The leader needs to model this behavior.
- have frameworks to reference, make constant theories about the world around you in order to avoid cognitive tunneling. Attention is either wide and diffused or bright and focused. The brain may turn to wrong thing when transitioning to bright & focused.
- Set SMART goals (GE) and also stretch goals
- Agile thinking (letting those closest to the problem have leeway with how they solve it/decision making)
- Using bayesian probability when making decisions (decision trees with probability). Be comfortable with uncertainty, especially known uncertainty (with known probabilities)
- Information can be absorbed more deeply if engaged with in more cumbersome ways (handwriting notes instead of typing, writing index cards instead of entering into the system).
The book follows very old school tried and true genre structure with insights followed by stories. However, the stories which were a littler harder to follow because of the nested/interlacing structure.
Overall, it's a fast read, and worth skimming through.
Other ideas discussed:
- feeling in control leads to motivation. Self-efficacy.
- teams with norms that promote psychological safety, encourage all members to speak up is the only sure-fire way to create top performing teams. The leader needs to model this behavior.
- have frameworks to reference, make constant theories about the world around you in order to avoid cognitive tunneling. Attention is either wide and diffused or bright and focused. The brain may turn to wrong thing when transitioning to bright & focused.
- Set SMART goals (GE) and also stretch goals
- Agile thinking (letting those closest to the problem have leeway with how they solve it/decision making)
- Using bayesian probability when making decisions (decision trees with probability). Be comfortable with uncertainty, especially known uncertainty (with known probabilities)
- Information can be absorbed more deeply if engaged with in more cumbersome ways (handwriting notes instead of typing, writing index cards instead of entering into the system).
Very anecdotal, very Malcolm Gladwell-esque. Entertaining stories, but limited in concrete take aways to help me actually get smarter, faster, and better.
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
I thought some parts were really interesting, all these books (Malcolm Gladwell-y) feel like they are picking such specific things i wonder if they lose the forests for the trees. Especially the last example, about one girl succeeding among a flood of the education system failing kids, it's heartbreaking