The mere exposure effect has been replicated many times—the more familiar a face, letter, number, sound, flavor, brand, or Chinese character becomes, the more we like it. It’s
The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle writes that From a scientific perspective, it was as if the researchers had traced the lineage of the world’s most beautiful swans back to a scruffy flock of barnyard chi...
Sunk costs do have a small effect—decision makers are biased in favor of their previous investments—but three other factors are more powerful. One is anticipated regret: will I be sorry that I didn’t...
Research by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson shows that in the type of psychologically safe environment that Meyer helped create, people learn and innovate more.* And it’s givers who of...
Peter Drucker, these knowledge workers, unlike manual workers in manufacturing, own the means of production: they carry that knowledge in their heads and can therefore take it with them.
People who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it. To explain this peculiar phenomenon, Jost’s team developed a t...
Of course it was Hamlet— The uncle kills the father, and the son has to avenge his father’s death. So then we decided it was going to be Hamlet with lions. In that pivotal moment, the film got the gre...
Meyer summarizes his code of honor as (1) Show up. (2) Work hard. (3) Be kind. (4) Take the high road. As he contributed in ways that revealed his skills without spawning jealousy, colleagues began to...
Many entrepreneurs take plenty of risks—but those are generally the failed entrepreneurs, not the success stories.
Even in seemingly independent jobs that rely on raw brainpower, our success depends more on others than we realize.
But there’s something distinctive that happens when givers succeed: it spreads and cascades.
What motivates people to practice at such length in the first place? This is where givers often enter the picture.
Takers and matchers make hard-and-fast assumptions about just who will be able to provide the most benefit in exchange. At its core, the giver approach extends a broader reach, and in doing so enlarge...
Psychological safety—the belief that you can take a risk without being penalized or punished.
Grit: having passion and perseverance toward long-term goals.
A young Goldman Sachs banker named Joseph Park was sitting in his apartment, frustrated at the effort required to get access to entertainment. Why should he trek all the way to Blockbuster to rent a m...
To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself, Einstein lamented.
To generate a handful of masterworks, Mozart composed more than 600 pieces before his death at thirty-five, Beethoven produced 650 in his lifetime, and Bach wrote over a thousand.
This chapter is about when to speak up and how to do it effectively without jeopardizing our careers and relationships. What
Thinking about oneself invokes the logic of consequence: Will I get sick? Doctors and nurses can answer swiftly with a no: I spend a lot of time in a hospital, I don’t always wash, and I rarely get si...