human thinking, behavior, and behavioral change
through the lense of theory and practice
RESOURCES FOR SELF STUDY
Books
Brain View
Hans-Georg Häusel
Brilliant book to understand the basic structure of the human brain and the neuroscience behind our daily decision making - with a twist on how to leverage for marketing to customers. Great read for anyone new to the field.
Articles
Positive Psychology - An introduction
Martin E. P. Seligman
Sheds light on the history of psychology, from its post-traumatic healing focus to positive psychology. Explains questions dealt with in positive psychology and lists the most prominent works and authors.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Stephen R. Covey
The classic book on personal change and how to get what we really want through implementing habits and developing the discipline of sticking with them.
Talent Management for the 21st Century
Peter Cappelli (HBR, 2008)
Cappelli concludes that it is time for a new form of talent management to match the current times of uncertainty. He advocates for a talent on-demand systsem that combines make and buy of employees and focuses on developing own employees, but finding ways to increase the return on investment.
Thinking Fast And Slow
Daniel Kahneman
Truly one of my all time favorites, this book offers a powerful introduction to human decision making contrasting theories of economic rationality with behavioral economics and psychology. It vividly deails the thought traps (biases) we are all prone to.
Increasing the Meaning Quotient at Work
Susie Cranston and Scott Keller (McKinsey Quarterly)
Built on the belief that high-EQ, high-IQ and high-MQ (Meaning Quotient) employees boost workplace performance, Cranston and Keller give strategies for how employees can find meaning at work beyond financial incentives.
Learned Optimism
Martin E. P. Seligman
The father of Positive Psychology, Seligman provides tools and techniques to bring optimism into our daily lives. He demonstrates how to not give up and experience the advantages of positive inner dialogue vs. listening to the saboteurs inside of you.
Adaptability: 1 Idea, 3 Facts, 5 Tips
Center for Creative Leadership
The Idea: Leaders must adapt to succeed
The 3 Facts:
Adapting is more than coping
Inflexible leaders limit the adaptability of others
Adaptable people show three kinds of flexibility
Read the article for the 5 Tips
The Happiness Advantage
Shawn Achor
A student of Seligman's, Achor is also a true entertainer. Combining positive psychology and human biases into an amusing read of why happiness is not a state to strive to but rather the means to an end. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work
How Ciritical Reflection Triggers Transformative Learning
Jack Mezirow
Mezirow claims that to make "meaning" means to make sense of an experience, i.e., we make an interpretation of it. When we subsequently use this interpretation to guide deicsion-making or action, then making meaning becomes learning.
A Primer in Positive Psychology
Christopher Peterson
Still working on reading it
Manage Your Work, Manage Your Life
Boris Groysberg, Robin Abrahams [HBR]
Senior executives feel they can't achieve "balance" through constant juggling, which prevents them from engaging meaningfully either at work or at home. The solution si making deliberate choices about which opportunities to pursue in both realms
Winning from Within
Erica Ariel Fox
Erica takes a new approach to managing the voices in ourselves. Rather than shutting them up, she demonstrates how to use them in your advantage. The captain, the lookout, the warrior, the voyager, the lover, the thinker and the dreamer, they all have a time and a place for when to draw on them to get us where we want to be.
The Impact of Executive Coaching and 360º Feedback on Leadership Effectiveness
Elizabeth C. Thach
Tracking the progress of 281 executives participating in a six-month coaching and 360 feedback process, this research bit answers the question whether executive coaching really works and whether it helps improve leadership effectiveness and productivity.
The EQ Edge
Steven J. Stein, Howard E. Book
A great intro to Emotional Intelligence for those not familiar with the concept. Offers great reflective exercises to make you become more familiar with your own repertoire of emotional intelligence and learn techniques for greater self-awareness
The Johari Window - Using Self-Discovery and Communication to Build Trust
MindTools.com
This article is a great introduction to the concept of the Johari Window. It hones in on the two key ideas that a) You can build trust with others by disclosing information about yourself and b) With the help of feedback from others, you can learn about yourself and come to terms with personal issues.
Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman
A "must read" on the concept of and science behind emotional intelligence (and why it may be so much more important than IQ) and its dominant role in decision making and individual success . See Goleman's definition of the 4 domains of Emotional Intelligence here.
The Broaden and Build Theory of Positive Emotions
Barbara L. Frederickson
Frederickson describes the form and function of positive emotions including joy, interest, contentment and love. The article concludes that we are more resourceful when we are in these emotional states compared to being more narrow-minded when being filled with negative emotions.
The Black Swan
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The book is exciting for about the first three chapters, giving you good critical food for thought on rare events and our biases around estimating their likelihood correctly. However, I find the book becomes repetitive, the author is clearly narcissistic and the narrative is overly complex for the topic.
Shifting Behavioral Habits through Multi-Level Self-Observation
Doug Silsbee
It is not necessary to understand the origin of our habits in order to change them. It is critical to understand their nature. This article describes the nature of habits and the capacity of self-observation to help us, as fundamentally biological organisms, to shift these habits.
Wherever You Go There You Are
Jon Kabat-Zinn
I highly recommend this book if you are interested in starting a meditation practice. Jon makes it easy by demonstrating all the benefits meditation can bring to our lives and exercise by exercise enabling the reader to go deeper into practice.
What Can Coaches Do For You?
Diane Coutu and Carol Kauffmann [HBR]
Coutu and Kauffmann discuss findings of a survey of 140 leading coaches and the conflicting results to questions like: "Do companies and executives get value from their coaches?" The article also highlights differences to other fields, like consulting and therapy, and tries to outline where the coaching industry may be headed to
Mindset
Carol S. Dweck
This a great book on one very simple concept. If you have a fixed mindset, you always worry about failing and how others may judge you. If you have a growth mindset, you take on challenges because you want to learn from them, not because you need to succeed immediately. The book outlines the theory that people with a growth mindset are willing to put in more effort, try out more and eventually succeed through their hard work. The scientific backing to these findings remains questionable to me though. Anecdotal stories, e.g., about success in sports, seem prone to survivor bias and the author fails to describe how fixed vs. growth mindset where clearly measured or induced in participants of experimental studies.
Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology
Daniel J. Siegel
I just started.
Leadership BS
Jeffrey Pfeffer
New Year's resolution 2017: I will read this book.
Handbook of Coaching
Pamela McLean
My personal favorite on the profession of coaching. Comprehensive but succinct, the reader gets a theoretical foundation on the human psychology. Then, using the structured coaching philosophy and approach of the Hudson Institute, Pamela covers what it takes to be a coach and how to do it.
The Skilled Facilitator - Fieldbook
Roger Schwarz et al.
If you want to become a team facilitator and/ or mediator, this book is for you. From naming the self-awareness you require to giving you the techniques to use to make a good team into a high performing one, to mediate conflict or align a board of executives. Includes helpful tips on how to build your business.
The Authentic Career
Maggie Craddock
What is it that makes you excel at one job and feel miserable at another. Why are others envious about what you are doing and you just want to get out? A guided exploration on what it is that you need to find fulfillment at work - be it in your current job or at the next opportunity you might want to pursue