TORC

Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman, pitching his recent bestseller on Thinking

When one is in the business of designing/running leadership development programmes/workshops, one has a constant need for fresh ideas.

Of necessity, this means spending quite a bit of time poring through the latest business books – for nuggets of wisdom, emerging trends, best practices, etc.

The 2012 crop has been as bountiful as ever in this regard – with the following 3 examples proving particularly fruitful:

1. Thinking, Fast & Slow (Daniel Kahneman)
The father of behavioural economics, Princeton professor, Daniel Kahneman, dedicates this 512 page tome to his fellow 2002 nobel laureate, Amos Tversky.

It is a comprehensive account of a life’s work into how we think & make decisions – backed up with a multitude of revealing experiments into the human pysche.

Between the covers, you’ll find all salient elements of decision-making discussed, including: prospect theory, heuristics, biases, anchoring & framing effects, etc.

It is very much a serious academic work. Picture my surprise then, on a recent trip to London – to find it prominently headlining billboards all along the Piccadilly line.

This reflects the very strong appeal it has garnered, among the wider general public, well beyond academic circles – selling over 1 million copies to-date.

The Guardian describes it as “an an outstanding book, distinguished by beauty and clarity of detail, precision of presentation and gentleness of manner”.

And Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of ‘The Black Swan’ goes as far as positioning it: “in the same league as the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud”.

One can’t help thinking that Kahneman may well have to plan a second edition – just to explain what is the psychology driving his current popularity here.

2. Power Listening (Bernard T. Ferrari)
The front cover of this 208-page primer on listening skills carries a quote from the introduction by General Electric’s CEO, Jeff Immelt:

“Listening may be the single most undervalued and underdeveloped business skill.”

It’s a sentiment reminiscient of the late Stephen Covey, who listed listening as one of his original Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, under the caption: “seek first to understand, then to be understood”.

What’s noteworthy about the present book is (1) the link it makes to the world of Kahneman above, in respect to its criticality to effective decision-making and (2) the structured approach it lays out for the active listener to follow.

The latter process is modeled on having a filing cabinet in one’s head that one sets about adequately filling with information – by listening for answers and clues in the surrounding discussions/behaviours.

The author’s guideline of spending 80% of one’s time in a conversation listening and only 20% talking is not new.

But his insistence in reformating one’s talking periods into questions certainly is.

This demands developing a new, and somewhat counterintuitive, syntax for voicing positions, objections, other opinions, etc.

He acknowledges that this takes effort and practice; something that he makes a little more palatable by including a final chapter to get the reader started, titled: “What to Do on Monday Morning”.

3. Do Nothing! (J. Keith Murnighan)
This provocatively titled book from the award-winning professor at Kellogg School of Management emphasizes that the art of management is all about getting the work done through others.

It is replete with practical strategies and case studies where the manager operates from a position of leader, facilitator, orchestrator – to grow the committed followers who onwards take care of the day-to-day activities on their own.

Again, this is hardly a new concept; however, the breadth of examples presented makes the case better than most.

Murnighan’s cast of role models includes some well-known examples: Phil Jackson (basketball coach), Soichiro Honda (Chairman Honda Motor Company), Michael Abrashoff (Navy Captain), and Oprey Winfrey.

The major thrust of the book is to focus much of one’s energy on developing one’s team – with the view to maximising empowerment at every turn.

In doing this, a useful technique described is to reverse engineer one’s approach – ie. to think of the reaction you want first, then determine the actions you can take to target those reactions.

In this regard, there is an obvious overlap with the Power Listening book above – as much of Murnighan’s approach is firmly based on active listening too.

In Summary ….
While all three books here carve out distinct topics to focus on – listening, decision-making, and leadership – there are many common lessons presented; not least, the very obvious continuum emerging, when all three strands are combined into what becomes a truly powerful triumvirate ….. listen-decide-lead.

PS. For related book recommendations, please click on the following links:
1. Off The Shelf: 6 Of The Best
2. What’s New In Career Books

PPS. For related training programmes, please click on the pertinent link here:
1. Listening & Empathy
2. Reading Body Language
2. Thinking, Judging & Decision-Making
3. Leading With Emotional Intelligence