Minha wishlist da Amazon continua crescendo a uma velocidade maior do que minha capacidade de leitura, enquanto não consigo colocar em dia minha “fila” com mais de 200 livros vamos a um pequeno resumo daqueles que eu li até agora em 2012.
Why smart executives fail / Finkelstein
A proposta do livro é bacana: analisar os principais erros cometidos por executivos e buscar alternativas para solucioná-los. O “problema” é que o conteúdo já foi tratado muito bem em outros livros. Se você ainda não leu nenhum nesse estilo fica a recomendação; se já leu algum do Sutton/Pfeffer ou similares pode deixar de ler sem problemas.
Trechos mais bacanas/importantes do livro
– O que hoje é obviamente errado já foi um dia obviamente correto. Questione sempre.
“In all these examples where mistaken perceptions of reality were used to guide large companies, there is one big, recurring paradox: What seems obviously false with the benefit of hindsight seemed obviously true at the time. In fact, in most cases, the false reality seemed so obviously true that no one thought to question it. This is perhaps the biggest lesson of all. If you want to catch your company before a mistaken picture of reality has done too much damage, you have to stop and question the things that seem obvious.”
– O grande perigo é copiar “o que” os outros estão fazendo sem saber o “porquê”
“Often companies will copy a move by a successful rival even when they have no reason to believe that the particular move was a good one. After America West bought the rights to splash its logo on the home of the Phoenix Suns in 1989, seven other North American airlines bought the naming rights to various ballparks and arenas. But how many of these expenditures were an optimal use of promotional money for a company trying to fill airplane seats? “
– Organizações que possuem uma imagem distorcida de si estão correndo um grande risco
“This regularly happens to companies that have had a great degree of success, but misunderstand the reason why. A company will set out to make shoes, for example, or manage advertising campaigns. Somewhere along the way it will carry out an activity connected with this task so well that it’s catapulted to a new level of success. But the company’s self-image will usually be based on what it set out to do, not on the particular thing it did that made it successful.”
The way we’re working isn’t working / Schwartz
O livro analisa várias questões que influenciam diretamente o dia-a-dia dos profissionais mas que raramente recebem a atenção merecida (questões relativas ao emocional, saúde física, etc). É uma leitura bacana, mas que depois da metade do livro torna-se cansativa. O autor fez uma palestra na séria Authors@Google que cobre todos os pontos do livro, vale como alternativa.
Trechos mais bacanas/importantes do livro
– O fator que mais determina o grau de comprometimento dos profissionais é o quanto eles se sentem considerados
“In its 2007 study of 90,000 employees in eighteen countries, Towers Perrin found that the single highest driver of engagement was whether or not senior management was perceived to be sincerely interested in employees’ well-being. An organization’s reputation as a great place to work was the highest driver of retention; second was the satisfaction of employees with the organization’s people decisions. The third was having a positive relationship with one’s direct supervisor. The conclusion is inescapable: truly valuing people pays huge dividends.”
– Sabotamos as mudanças pois temos medo de não saber o que fazer caso elas realmente aconteçam
“Because we mostly fail to recognize the fears that are inevitably associated with change, we often end up unconsciously sabotaging our own efforts to change. Bringing our competing commitments to light gives us a chance to assess whether the fears we have around a specific change are truly realistic. Often, they’re not. For that reason, we next encourage our clients to ask themselves a simple question: “How can I design this ritual so I enjoy its intended benefits but also minimize the costs I fear it will prompt?”
– Ser específico com relação aos objetivos é uma das melhores maneiras para garantir comprometimento
“The second and perhaps most important key to building rituals is precision and specificity. Automaticity researchers have discovered the power of something they call “implementation intentions.” In one study, a group of students was asked to write a report over the holidays describing what they had done on Christmas Eve. Half the group was asked to specify exactly when and where they’d do their writing; the other half weren’t given any specific instructions. Only one-third of the latter group completed the assigned task. More than three-quarters of those who defined exactly when and where…”
Emotional equations / Chip Conely
Saber lidar com emoções, seja no ambiente de trabalho ou fora dele, parece ser uma habilidade de poucos. O livro demonstra como compreender através de fórmulas como as emoções podem ser expressas e compreendidas de uma forma mais fácil. Altamente recomendado!
Trechos mais bacanas/importantes do livro
– O papel das emoções na tomada das decisões
“Other academics have shown that we temporarily lose ten to fifteen points of IQ when we make decisions in an emotionally reactive state of mind. On the other hand, when we label an emotion consciously (as when working with an Emotional Equation), this thought reduces the intensity of the emotion and allows the more reasoning part of our brain—the prefrontal cortex—to take over from the reactive part of the brain”
“The author Dan Millman suggests that pain is relatively objective and physical, but “suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is.”
The social scientist Alex Michalos has studied people’s perceived quality of experience—in other words, their sense of reality about what has happened. He’s argued that people establish a perceived level of satisfaction based upon comparing three gaps: what you have versus what you want (“I want a beautiful green lawn”), what you have versus what you think other people have (“The neighbor’s grass is greener”), and what you have and the best experience of what you’ve had in the past (“I don’t like AstroTurf. I miss my old grass”). I would add a fourth: the gap between what you have and what you feel you deserve (“I’ve been working my tail off for this grass”)”