I’m currently reading Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg. It’s about how individuals and teams can become crazy productive.
It’s brilliant because it summarizes all my favorite books, and also because it’s a gripping collection of stories.
Here are the chapters i’ve read so far…
1. Motivation. What makes the Marines so effective? Drive by Dan Pink and Start With Why by Simon Sinek.
2. Teams. The story behind Saturday Night Live. Social Physics by Alex Pentland.
3. Focus. The nurse’s intuition. Superforecasters by Philip Tetlock.
4. Goal Setting. The Yom Kippur War. Work Rules! by Laszlo Bock.
5. Managing Others. How the FBI solves kidnappings. Agile and Lean.
6. Decision Making. The world’s first female poker champion. The Signal And The Noise by Nate Silver. Thinking, Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
7. Innovation. How Pixar turned Frozen from a flop into a smash hit. Creativity, Inc and wisdom from Steve Jobs.
8. Absorbing Data. How Cincinnati turned it’s schools around. Lean Startup by Eric Reis.
It’s even got a dash of Nassim Nicholas Taleb in there somewhere too.
The only big thing it’s missing so far is Made To Stick by the Heath brothers. (The recent People vs OJ Simpson series does a good job of covering that).
What do you think?