A proactive take on relating more effectively at work.
Latting and Ramsey offer a step-by-step guide to improving work relationships.
In this nonfiction book, readers are encouraged to learn to manage their emotions, resolve conflict, and promote positive changes in their professional environments. The authors (Latting is a University of Houston professor emerita and president of a leadership consulting group; Ramsey is a writer and former professor of management at Texas Southern University) use behavioral science theories and empirical research to inform their practical recommendations. They state, “Changing the outcome of problematic situations requires making conscious decisions to try something different. Using these skills seldom comes naturally.” Their Conscious Change model is built on six principles, each with its own skill set. According to the first principle, one must test negative assumptions: The authors state that readers should “consider the possibility that you may be making up stories about what happened during an interaction or exchange.” With the second principle, the authors counsel readers to clear their emotions and aspire toward a neutral or positive emotional state. The third principle directs readers to build effective relationships through listening, inquiry, and feedback exchange. Using the fourth principle, readers will be prepared to foster equitable and inclusive work environments by learning to bridge differences. The fifth principle, the conscious use of the self, emphasizes accepting responsibility and maintaining integrity. Finally, to initiate change, the authors urge readers to use the sixth principle by committing to their own transformations and addressing systemic issues. Throughout the book, 19 contributors share their experiences using the skills described here. The advice is clear and simple, such as this guidance for effective apologies: “An effective apology has three ingredients: authentic expression of regret, genuine reflection of the harm or inconvenience caused, and an offer to make restitution.” The emphasis on fostering diversity and examining the systems in which people work is highly relevant to the modern workplace. The skill names could have used some polish, however—examples such as “Move From the Answer Into the Question” read awkwardly and fail to stick in the mind. In a graphic at the beginning of the book, the authors list all 36 skills, which may be information overload for some. Still, professionals will find many tips worth trying in this book.
A proactive take on relating more effectively at work.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781647427085
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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