Book Reviews

Switch is like the Heath brothers earlier book, Made to Stick, in that the ideas in it are not new, just better expressed. Chip and Dan are great storytellers and they have made change (i.e. behavioral change) simple and easy by reducing it to 3 steps: Direct the Rider (provide clear direction for the rational mind), Motivate the Elephant (engage people's emotions) and Shape the Path (make the change easier by changing the situation in key ways). Similarly, their first book took the sophisticated and elegant work of Robert Cialdini and made it accessible and simple.

The rest of us writers are envious, of course, because the gift of clarity and simplicity is a profound one rarely bestowed.

Pink has written a trio of smart, fast-paced books that make a strong case for thinking differently about some aspect of the workplace. "Free Agent Nation" argued that we were all in it for ourselves, and trust in benevolent employers was misplaced. "A Whole New Mind" makes the case for the triumph of right-brained creatives over the rest of us in the workplace. And now there's "Drive," which argues that, aside from a few very mundane, menial tasks, the real (creative) work that most of us do is not motivated by desire for gain, but rather by a desire for autonomy, purpose, and mastery. Pink writes like a lawyer, relentlessly marshaling the evidence as if he were preparing a brief. The result is entertaining, fascinating, and just a little insubstantial when all is said and done.

Sally Hogshead's book “Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation” is a legendary adperson's take on how to get people interested in you, your products, or your services. She writes it in a witty, breezy way that keeps the insights coming and the plot moving. Highly enjoyable look at what has grabbed people through the ages.

The books about charisma fall into 2 camps: the ridiculous and the simplistic. The New Secrets of Charisma falls into the latter category, but nonetheless it is a very good book for beginning students of personal star power. The book will help you clear away all the emotional blocks that may be curtailing your charisma at present. Mostly, Lang focuses on releasing the Voice, which means, well, your voice, but also something larger and more metaphysical – your inner core, your being, your full humanity. That precious little human that's hiding behind insecurities because your parents didn't raise you right or something went wrong in school or on the playground. Don't get me wrong; all of that is very important. It's just Step One. I have yet to see the book that gets beyond these initial forays into the good stuff. Apparently, that's too secret to let loose on an unwitting world. I guess I'm going to have write the book.

This is a splendid collection of speeches from all sorts of public figures from Pericles to Liberace. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the public discourse.

A brilliant discussion of the idea of peer conferences, which are meetings arranged and run by the people attending them. Segar has championed these sorts of meetings for many year, and this book is the summation of his learning and experience to date. The approach is the antidote for anyone who has ever sat in a conference and wondered, "Why the hell am I here?"

An outstanding survey of 8 of the most common thinking mistakes we humans regularly make. The author focuses on investments because that's his area of interest, but the advice works for all walks of life and business.

A brilliant handbook for how to talk to people without judging them, alienating them, or really pissing them off. The book is enlivened with a number of transcripts of conversations in which the author and his acquaintances get it right sometimes and fail at other times. The basic idea will be familiar to anyone who has had a little therapy or knows a therapist: you talk about your feelings, not what the other person is doing wrong. Of course, that is difficult to do under the best of circumstances, and well-nigh impossible when everyone present is stressed out or furious or violent. But with lots of practice, you can get better at the art of communication and learn to avoid saying things like, "Why did you do that? That's really stupid."

I've read a lot of books on psychology, pop, academic, and somewhere in between. Most of them offer a few insights that have been useful to me along the way. "Difficult Conversations" comes to mind – check that book out if you have a teenager that you're having a hard time connecting with, for example.

But few of these books have had something even more useful than insight: wisdom. “The Dance of Connection” is that rarity, a book full of wisdom, and indeed holds back from offering easy insights in favor of a more global way of thinking about human connection that I found enormously helpful. Read this book if you want to learn how to be a better spouse, parent, child, colleague or friend. Lerner is especially good at working through very difficult issues and breakdowns in communications.

The style is clunky and the stories too much like fables. Use this book for the good checklists it provides (if you're thinking of becoming a wealthy public speaker) not for the reading experience.