Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. Certainly after reading his previous book The Power of Habit I was really looking forward to this book exploring the science of productivity.
Above all the ideas outline managing ‘how’ you think rather than ‘what’ you think may actually transform your life. Charles provides insights to well told stories. Certainly while a story may be well known to others, your interpretation will provide insights for you toact upon.
Firstly, within Chapter 1 – Motivation: Reimagining Boot Camp, Nursing Home Rebellions, and the Locus of Control. These stories reveal how to adopt a growth mindset. At the same time, his story of Viola and Robert Philippe reveal a view of medical diagnosis. You may be able to leverage the Philippe’s story to reflect upon family or friends similarly impacted. This lesson can assist you in supporting a loved one’s long road to recovery.
Secondly, Chapter 2 – Teams: Psychological Safety at Google and Saturday Night Live. While too many books have been written about Google, looking at how Lorne Michaels at just 36 years of age would begin shaping an American cultural institution is widely appealing. Between Morgan Freeman and Larry David auditioning for SNL’s first season, many will easily understand how bringing teams together can benefit challenges at work, supporting your children’s extra school activities, or leading a volunteer group. Above all, Work Rules by Lazlo Bock would serve you best to understand how Google manages teams.
Chapter 3 – Focus: Cognitive Tunneling, Air France Flight 447, and the Power of Mental Models. Charles is clearly an excellent writer. Certainly his detailed description of Flight 447 which literally fell into the Atlantic ocean in 2009 teaches us to no blindly trust technology.
Chapter 4 – Goal Setting: Smart Goals, Stretch Goals, and the Yom Kippur War. Charles outlines the well established Jack Welch era at GE via S.M.A.R.T. goals. As we all may recall the focus is business goals defined by “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timeline based” and of course SMART has been widely adopted.
However, for all the praise of Google’s approach to management, certainly OKRs seem to be a more focused, agile approach in 2020. SMART seems so 1990 today in a Covid driven world.
Chapter 5 – Managing Others: Solving a Kidnapping with Lean and Agile Thinking and a Culture of Trust. Charles defines a very well understood success story of NUMMI and the Toyota Way. While certainly not new, the power to change against overwhelming odds should not be discarded. However, today this plant is a Tesla Gigafactory. Toyota shifted production from NUMMI to southern states in 2010.
Chapter 7 – Innovation: How Idea Brokers and Creative Desperation Saved Disney’s Frozen. Disney’s multiple rewrites of Frozen serves as inspiration to never give up applying new ideas to a product already underway but not finished. Certainly this story of a run away box office success may have failed spectacularly until their internal teams looked at re-writing the script multiple times before hitting a home run.
In conclusion, while appearing as a chapter by chapter review, I want to hilight new ideas for your consideration. Moreover, you can begin to address your challenges with this release. In addition, Charles includes a very rich Appendix where he places lessons learned into practice. Sequels as a rule are always a hard act to follow. Charles delivers admirable lessons here.
New York Times Events | Smarter Faster Better
OPTIMIZE | Smarter Faster Better with Charles Duhigg
BestBookBits | Charles Duhigg: Smarter Faster Better Book Summary