Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets Of Being Productive In Life And Business

"At the core of ""Smarter Faster Better"" are eight key concepts from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, an d b ehavioral economics as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters this painstakingly researched book explains that the most productive people, companies, and o rgan izations don t merely act differently. They view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways. A young woman drops out of a PhD program and starts playing poker. By training herself to envision contradictory futures, she learns to antic ipate her opponents missteps and becomes one of the most successful players in the world. A group of data scientists at Google embark on a four-year study of how the best teams function, and find that ""how"" a group interacts is more important than ""w ho"" is in the group a principle, it turns out, that also helps explain why ""Saturday Night Live"" became a hit. A Marine Corps general, faced with low morale among recruits, reimagines boot camp and discovers that instilling a bias toward action can t urn even the most directionless teenagers into self-motivating achievers. The filmmakers behind Disney´s ""Frozen"" are nearly out of time and on the brink of catastrophe until they shake up their team in just the right way, spurring a creative breakth rough that leads to one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. What do these people have in common? They know that productivity relies on making certain choices. The way we frame our daily decisions the big ambitions we embrace and the easy goa ls we ignore the cultures we establish as leaders to drive innovation the way we interact with data: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive."