A modest proposal for a fundamental change to help us not hurt one another.
A safety expert offers a concise, common-sense guide to not being killed by stupidity.
In his debut, Casner—a research scientist in NASA’s Human Systems Integration Division, which helps maintain strict safety standards for astronauts and others involved in the aerospace field—offers a sharp, concise review of the things that can kill or harm us, how we contribute to the problem, and what we can do together to make us all safer. With specific categories like transportation, watching children, interacting with doctors, and taking and giving advice, the author addresses universal, daily situations in which people are exposed to potential harm. One might think it’s another Silicon Valley cheer for technology, but not only does Casner think we’re less safe today, he believes the helpfulness of our available tools has reached its peak ability to save us from ourselves. “In this book I will argue that we have come to the end of a really good run,” he writes. “That we have wrung all of the big gains we’re going to get from putting rubber corners on stuff and saying, ‘Hey, don’t do that.’ Companies aren’t going to rescue us from this quandary with new safety features.” Instead, the author argues for a fundamental change in the perception of risk and our related behaviors. The risks he identifies in our injury-prone minds are delightfully simple, and he stresses the importance of paying attention, gauging risks, planning ahead, and looking out for each other. To illustrate his points, he uses real-life examples, from red light–running to the 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed 100 people. Although Casner employs a gentle sense of humor, the book’s greatest strength is the author’s encouragement of compassion for others in everyday life: “We sometimes miss the point that we’re all in this together and we really are one another’s greatest resource.”
A modest proposal for a fundamental change to help us not hurt one another.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-57409-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
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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IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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