steven kotler and jamie wheal stolen fire: how silicon valley, navy seals, and maverick scientists are revolutionizing the way we live and work (harpercollins, 2017) *a top pick level
friederike fabritius and hans w. hagemann the leading brain: powerful science-based strategies for peak performance (tarcherperigee, 2017)
You are reading: Best management books 2017
tasha eurich insight: why we are not as self-aware as we think and how seeing ourselves clearly helps us succeed at work and in life (crown business, 2017)
Each year, dozens of management books affirm significant new scientific findings in pursuit of an unchanging goal: how to perform better, both individually and as a group. but most of these so-called findings are neither scientific nor new. most management writers simply offer freshly thrown word salad in the hope of coining that year’s business buzzword.
however, a refreshing wave of knowledge has flooded the management space in recent years thanks to neuroscience, the rapidly evolving study of how our brains work and how we can use that knowledge to make better decisions, break bad habits and generally living our best lives.
The highlight in the category in 2017 is Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy Seals, and Maverick Scientists are revolutionizing the way we live and work. Authors Steven Kotler (The Rise of Superman; New Harvest, 2014) and Jamie Wheal have treated us to an exciting journey through worldwide efforts to better harness flow, which is defined as an optimal state of consciousness in which we We feel our best and perform at our best. .
Most of the books that focus on using neuroscience to work better focus on improving our understanding and control of our own brains. but stealing fire shows us how to find peak performance through release rather than effort: we reach the zone of peak performance not by finding ourselves but by allowing our sense of self to fade. the goal is to enter “an elongated present,” which the researchers also describe as “the deep now.” This concept has been popularized in various forms: presence, mindfulness, Eckhart Tolle’s “power of now”. Though they go by different names, most altered states, or flow, share four distinctive characteristics: selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness, and wealth (ster), the authors write. (their Stream Genome Project is an “interdisciplinary global organization committed to mapping the Stream Genome by 2020 and opening it up to all”)
It is clear that the search and the sense of the interconnectedness of all things is not only for the yoga class; it’s also one of the best ways to make those mental connections that most of us miss during the daily grind. Although the authors argue that we collectively spend $4 trillion in the “altered state economy” each year trying to achieve ster, we are still at the dawn of our understanding of it. In fact, the Navy SEALs, who are legendary for their ability to isolate themselves and merge with the team, even admit that they don’t know how to train people to do it. the most they can do is eliminate those who reveal that they cannot enter the correct state. “If we really understood this phenomenon,” says label commander Rich Davis, “we could train for it, not detect it.” but they don’t.
See Also: Who Is the Dragon Reborn on &x27The Wheel of Time&x27? – Thrillist
stealing fire includes a brilliant discussion of the intersection of self-exploration through non-ordinary states and social control, with clearly written and highly persuasive chapters on why so many people are afraid of the kinds of things researchers are talking about. flow. and we learn that at the highest levels of corporate America, flow is taken very seriously. One of the reasons Eric Schmidt found himself at the head of the field of candidates to become Google’s CEO was that he was the only one of hundreds of candidates who attended Burning Man, a festival associated with Google. flow search. That impressed co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin as much as anything else in the hundreds of resumes they reviewed, according to the authors.
There is an extremely wide range of opinion on the benefits (or harms) of drinking red bull (full disclosure: this reviewer is a fan and has profiled founder dietrich mateschitz). But Kotler and Wheal remind us of a few factors that set the energy drink giant apart from the 99.99 percent of its corporate siblings. In 2013, for example, the company co-sponsored the Red Bull Hacking Creative project with the MIT Media Lab, the largest meta-analysis of creativity research ever conducted. one of the conclusions was that the reason why it is so difficult for us to teach creativity is that we confuse it with a skill; actually, it’s more like a state of mind. The same could be said of Red Bull: it’s less an energy drink company than a champion of a carpe diem, Yolo way of life. you know, the approach that’s likely to get you flowing.
the ideas that kotler and wheal focus on and illuminate through their flow genome project are some of the most important ideas in the history of exploring not just the self, but life itself. we could call it by different names, but that place where action and consciousness merge is the place we should all aspire to. this is the rare management book that really makes you think. and the questions it raises are not easy. If we can really put aside our ego and change the “wallpaper” of our minds, ask the authors, what good are the thoughts we’ve been telling ourselves? If we are not our thoughts, who are we?
the DNA of performance
The Leading Brain: Powerful Science-Based Strategies for Achieving Peak Performance is a more traditional entry into the realm of neuroscience and work. Authors Friederike Fabritius (a neuropsychologist) and Hans W. Hagemann (a leadership consultant) have produced a cleverly written review of our current understanding of the neurochemicals they refer to as the “DNA of peak performance”: dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine.
dopamine helps refresh information in your memory and affects your ability to focus on a given task. a so-called transmitter of novelty, it has the strongest effects when the stimulus that generates it is new. Learning is easier, as we all know, when it’s fun. norepinephrine, whose primary goal is survival, regulates attention and alertness. recent findings show, unsurprisingly, that we achieve optimal levels of norepinephrine when slightly overloaded.
and acetylcholine binds it all together. Comparing “DNA” to photography, the authors suggest that norepinephrine prompts you to point your camera in the right direction, dopamine lets you zoom in until the composition is just right, and acetylcholine sharpens focus. if you get just two of those ingredients right, you have one of the millions of snapshots that live on the phones in our pockets. hit all three and you’ll get a work of art or optimal performance.
The authors also remind us of the important point that we are not all wired in the same way, and one person’s optimal state of emotional arousal could be another’s recipe for a nervous breakdown. the key, the authors say, is knowing yourself (through serious self-study) well enough to figure out how to better regulate your emotions and focus your attention on the kinds of tasks you’re well-suited for. the way to do this is to train your brain by teaching its weaker but more sophisticated conscious regions how to reliably outsmart its stronger but more unconscious parts.
Who among us hasn’t been treated poorly by an uncontrolled fight or flight response at an unexpectedly awkward moment with our boss? and how can we better deal with that in the future? eating well, sleeping well, remembering to breathe, and exercising regularly. While that’s not exactly news, neither is the fact that failing on one or more of those four fronts is how most of us enter the realm of self-defeating behavior. correct them, and then start using some of the authors’ tricks, like “cognitive reappraisal,” to expand the space between stimulus and response and do a better job of operating within it.
See Also: Audible Gift Cards and Vouchers | Audible.com.au
That’s the elongated present again, the deep now. maybe one day we can hold meetings there too. and why wouldn’t we? According to a decade-long McKinsey study, productivity increases fivefold when top executives are on the go. Although such an accurate statistic misses the point: Mbas and their measuring sticks can help us analyze ourselves to death, but Mbas are not the first people you should call if you want to take advantage of altered states: the fact that being studied at all is a good thing.
Of course, it will be difficult to truly find ourselves in the flow unless we give up mass delusions like the effectiveness of multitasking, and start making concerted efforts to reduce, not increase, digital distractions.
looking for information
tasha eurich’s insight: why we’re not as self-aware as we think and how seeing ourselves clearly helps us succeed at work and in life is a serious, if simplified, study of the burgeoning topic of self-awareness. Eurich, an organizational psychologist, researcher, and entrepreneur, is less inclined to hard science than the authors of Theft Fire and Leading Brain, but insight does indeed offer insight into the difficulties of exercising mind over matter. such as: self-awareness can be hard to come by, even for those who write about it professionally. Eurich recalls the time she gave a “closing speech” at a conference and didn’t feel too good, but it turned out the audience loved her.
eurich posits a softer understanding of the impact of mindfulness. she tells us that employees who lack self-awareness reduce “decision quality” by an average of 36 percent and increase conflict by 30 percent. (these are difficult metrics to quantify). But Eurich’s tendency to use her own experience as proof of the quality of her own ideas shows the dangers of circular self-examination. Although she was initially skeptical about the benefits of meditation, she tells us that a week-long retreat at the center of Shambala Mountain allowed her to “finally get it”. but she then stopped practicing after a few days because, as she says, “non-meditative techniques work better for me.”
The benefits of mindfulness and meditation are already well documented, but the fact is, as eurich herself demonstrates, a true increase in self-knowledge is one of those things you can’t force or buy at the gift shop. during a spiritual retreat. do not misunderstand. i am sure shambala is a beautiful place, and i am aware of the benefits of mindfulness and meditation. But you don’t have to travel to remote Colorado to enjoy them. If you haven’t tried Headspace or the Oprah Winfrey/Deepak Chopra meditation apps, get them. both are great.
Like anything worthwhile, meditation, mindfulness, and insight require commitment and practice. And the best thing you can do is prepare yourself, and your brain, to be ready when you really need it, and hopefully your neurotransmitters will do their thing when you need them. To that end, he doesn’t hurt to remind himself of the things he really wants from his brain, and Eurich is certainly correct in his suggestion that greater self-awareness should figure prominently among them. but his contribution to his canon reads less like scholarship than a rant from someone who read the first two books and tells you how his own life is a reflection of all the learning that lies within.
This is an annual survey of the best business books of works on management science, with the goal of helping you prioritize your reading. and being aware of your time, I would like to propose a small twist. read insight if the concepts of neuroscience and their relationship to management are relatively new to you. Read Stealing Fire and the Leading Brain for more on the subject. If you’re intrigued and looking for even more insight, you should also put your brain to work, s+b contributor David Rock’s groundbreaking 2009 contribution to the canon.
reprint no. 17415
See Also: 8 Free Bilingual Spanish-English Books Online