Although each strategy is common-sensical in its own right, taken together, they form a thoughtful, easy-to-digest approach...
Useful advice on how to act on your good intentions.
In his debut, Nease, who served as the chief scientist at Express Scripts, a health care company that helps patients make better decisions regarding prescription drugs, describes strategies for improving human behaviors. People “make lousy decisions and behave badly,” he writes, because our brains are “wired for inattention and inertia, not for attention and choice.” Recent research shows that our brains process 10 million bits of information each second, of which only 50 bits are devoted to conscious thought. Most often, we focus on what is most pressing or pleasurable. To encourage positive behaviors, Nease has developed a series of strategies based on the belief that most people want to do the right thing—whether saving money, eating right, exercising more, or being more charitable—but need help acting on those good intentions. The strategies include requiring choice, locking in good intentions, using opt-outs, getting in the flow of people’s attention, reframing choices, piggybacking (making the desired behavior the side effect of something already deemed enjoyable), and simplifying (to make wrong choices more difficult). The author explains the reasoning behind and how to use each strategy, with examples drawn from his own experience as a high-level decision-maker in the health care industry. He stresses the need to use these strategies in combination, as needed, with an emphasis on making preferred choices as simple as possible. For example, to encourage people to climb stairs rather than take an elevator, a stairway must be “easy to find, well illuminated, and visually appealing.” Focusing on activating good intentions that many people already have can be much more effective than trying to change their intentions through education and increased incentives.
Although each strategy is common-sensical in its own right, taken together, they form a thoughtful, easy-to-digest approach for individuals and organizations seeking to foster better choices.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-240745-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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