Amusing tales and tidbits surprisingly pertinent to business professionals.
A professor offers a novel approach that encourages emulating comedians as a way to make career and business improvements.
McGraw, a marketing/psychology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, knows a thing or two about comedy. He founded the Humor Research Lab and co-authored The Humor Code (2014). In this unusually engaging read, he turns his attention to the behind-the-scenes world of stand-up, improv, and sketch comedy. That would be intriguing enough, but McGraw takes it further, showing how comedians think and act and relating it to business in an effort to “revolutionize your work life—and beyond.” From the outset, the author makes it clear his goal is not to teach readers to be funny but rather to “think funny.” The book’s chapters address what comedians do that could be applied to a business setting. For example, “Step Out of the Stream” demonstrates how comics often take risks and break rules. McGraw illustrates his thesis beautifully with anecdotes about comedians and excerpts from their acts, followed by several examples of businesses that succeeded by taking risks and breaking rules. “Cooperate to Innovate” serves to explode the myth of the solo comedian; here, the author relates the story of Merrill Markoe. She crafted jokes and bits for David Letterman, whose television show won Emmys for outstanding writing. “Pretty good on their own, they became fantastic when they teamed up,” writes McGraw. The author delves deeply into cooperation as part of sketch and improv comedy, citing additional hands-on examples. One of the more intriguing concepts he introduces is “complementation…the magic made when opposites come together, creating a sum that is greater than its parts.” McGraw again illustrates this idea with brief case studies. In addition to excellent examples from both comedy and business, the volume features two unique sidebars: “Shtick From Shane,” interspersed humorous short takes from stand-up comedian Shane Mauss, and “Act Out,” insightful observations from the author that perfectly highlight the comedy-business connection. Throughout the book, McGraw employs an animated yet authoritative writing style enhanced by a rich sense of humor.
Amusing tales and tidbits surprisingly pertinent to business professionals.Pub Date: March 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0807-8
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
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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