The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Book Reviews

My book reviews. Fiction, non-fiction and mainly business literature. These are all excellent books, ’cause I never review the books I don’t like.

  • Book review: The Paradox of Choice

    When I was a kid, danish bakers had maybe 4 different kinds of bread. Today? Forget about it. There’s french bread, italian bread, danish bread, white or whole grain, with or without spices, etc…

    We are arguably living in the age of choice. There is no aspect of life that does not offer people of the western world more choice today than we had 100 years ago. Or 50. Or 10. Or just last year. And here’s the kicker: Among all these choices, we’re becoming LESS happy. Some common trends in western societies are:
    * Lower satisfaction with lives
    * Much(!) higher incidences of depression
    * Higher suicide rates

    And that’s why The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz is a tremendously important book. The choices we have are not going away – we wouldn’t want them to. This makes it crucial that we understand why more choices lead to less happiness and figure out what to do about it.

    At the core of it, the reason is simple: Each new choice offers more options of choosing badly. More risk of missing an even better choice. Here’s one experiment demonstrating this: Volunteers in a psychological experiment were asked to sample and rate a number of different chocolates. One group sampled more chocolates than the other. The group that sampled the most chocolates gave the chocolates an overall lower rating, and when given a choice between money or chocolate as a reward for participating, were more likely to choose money.

    One of the book’s main distinctions is between Maximizers and Satisficers. When faced with a decision, Satisficers strive to make a good decision. Maximizers, on the other hand, need to know they’ve made the best decision. They will agonize over decisions before making them, and typically regret them afterwards. Interestingly, maximizers are much more prone to ruminating on their own failings and even to bouts of depression.

    Another book that deals with a similar phenomenon is Happiness by Richard Layard. This book argues that the increasing wealth of western countries does not lead to a corresponding increase in happiness – and that nations should be governed on the basis of what will make people happy, instead of what will make them rich.

    Taking these two books together strengthens each argument: There is probably no more happiness to be gained from an increase in the number of choices offered us or from an increase in our wealth. Neither the choices nor the wealth is going away, so what we need to do is to learn to be happy in this situation. Sounds non-sensical, doesn’t it? Do we really need to learn to cope with wealth and choices? Well, experience tends to confirm that many people do – and that’s why Barry Shwartz’s book is so important.

  • Book review: Verbal Judo

    George Thompson was on patrol with a fellow cop at two A.M., when they were called out to break up a nasty domestic dispute in a bad part of town. Upon arrival they found the couple arguing wildly, and this is where Thompson’s partner adopted an outrageous tactic: He walked straight in without knockin, sat down on their couch and started reading the classifieds.

    Bruce kept reading and the couple kept arguing, occasionally looking at the cop on their couch. Bruce rattled the newspaper. “Folks, folks, excuse me, over here”. The stunned husband flashed a double take. “What are you doing here?”

    Bruce said, “You got a phone? Look here, a 1950 Dodge! Cherry condition! Can I borrow your phone? I need to call right now.” The husband pointed to the phone, incredulous. Bruce dialed, mumbled into the phone, then hung up. “Can you believe they wouldn’t talk to me just because it’s two in the morning?”

    By now the fight had evaporated, the couple standing there as dumbfounded as I was. “By the way,” Bruce said, “is anything the matter here? Anything my partner and I can do for you?”

    Verbal Judo, the gentle art of persuasion by George Thompson is a book about non-violent, respectful communication by the one person who may be the most qualified to write it; Thompson is a cop and a self-admitted hot-head (making it necessary for him to develop good verbal skills) and has black belts in ju-jitsu and judo – not to mention a Ph.D. in english.

    The book contains many excellent insights into communicating efficiently in difficult situations. The book’s lessons can be applied equalle well on the job or at home. It is also refreshingly different from most of todays management fare, which can seem glib and superficial. This book by contrast has heart, and Thompson obviously cares deeply about his message. In his line of work there’s a lot more at stake, than whether a business meeting goes sour – and his stories of using the techniques to calm down irate would-be attackers are fascinating and often touching.

  • Book review: Managing to have fun

    True or false: Having fun at work contributes heavily to an organization’s success!

    If you have any doubts about this statement, Managing to have fun by Matt Weinstein may have some arguments to turn your thinking around.

    If you already agree, the book is packed with inspiration, stories and tips to help you have more fun and play more at work.

    In my thinking, fun is just one aspect of making people happy at work, but the good thing about fun is that it is:
    * Cheap
    * Instantaneous
    * Available to everyone

    One of my favourite stories from the book is about Ben&Jerry’s the notoriously anarchistic ice-cream manufacturer started by two Hippies. They (obviously) have no formal, corporate dress-code, so rather than “casual fridays” they sponsor “clash dressing day” where employees put on their worst matching outfits. And one time they sponsored “corporate day”, where everybody came to work in suits, ties, dresses, etc… and loved it :o)

  • Book review: Happiness: Lessons From a New Science

    Money will not make you happy, unless you’re very poor, in which case a little money goes a long way. And yet individuals and societies seem to regard increased spending as the only reliable measure of success, and the main goal of most governments is to achieve an economic growth rate that beats out that of comparable countries. In Happiness: Lessons From a New Science economist Richar Layard argues that this is a totally wrong approach, which will not improve people’s lives. As an example consider indonesia where the average annual income is less than 1/10 of that of the US – but where people are just as happy.

    Layard draws much inspiration from the philosopher Jeremy Bentham who had it right as far back as the 1800’s when he said that “The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation”. The goal of the individual is to be happy, this has been known since Aristotle who said that whatever else we desire, we want it because we expect it to make us happier. Therefore happiness is the underlying “why” of all human activity – including constructing and governing societies.

    So what can a society do to make its people happier? Layard mentions the 7 factors that have been shown to have the greatest influence on people’s happiness:
    * family relationships
    * financial situation
    * work
    * community and friends
    * health
    * personal freedom
    * personal values

    It’s interesting to note, that an economic policy that seeks to encourage people to work more, eg. lowering taxes or increasing the mobility of the work force, will in fact decrease people’s situation in several of these areas and thus make people less happy.

    One country has in fact acted on this: In Bhutan, a tiny nation in the Himalayas, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck decreed that “Gross national happiness is more important than gross national product [because] happiness takes precedence over economic prosperity in our national development process.” I feel quite sure that more countries will come to make similar decisions. Western materialist culture has made us happy over the last few decades, but constantly increasing consumerism has probably taken us as far as it possibly can happiness-wise. We will not be happier because we can buy more or bigger cars, TV’s and houses. More time and an increased ability to enjoy time with our friends, families and communities is a whole different matter, and this is where society needs to focus.

    Layard’s is the most cogent and readable book on happiness on a national and global scale, and seeing as Layard is an economist rather than a psychologist, most of it is based on hard-core numbers and statistics. Layard’s main point is that happiness can be objectively quantified in individuals and in socities and can thus be used as a measure of success. I wish every political leader would read it – I think I’ll send our prime minister a copy :o)

  • Book review: Join me

    Danny Wallace started a cult by accident. He placed an add in the newspaper saying simply “Join me. Send a passport sized photograph to…”. And people did. Now he only had one problem: People were kinda curious to see what they’d joined, and he still had no idea himself.

    In Join Me, The true story of a man who started a cult by accident, Danny Wallace tells that story and it makes for a great read as the movement starts humbly and then goes on to make many people happy and Danny a minor celebrity in Belgium.

    This book left me feeling glad that a weird guy like Danny is out there, expanding the realm of what is possible, making the world a better place and telling his story in such an entertaining way.

  • Book review: Getting to peace

    In the midst of a firefight in the rice paddies between American soldiers and the Viet Cong early in the Vietnam War, six monks walked towards the line of fire. “They didn’t look right, they didn’t look left. They walked straight through,” remembers David Busch, one of the American soldiers. “It was really strange, because nobody shot at’em. And after they walked over the berm, suddenly all the fight was out of me. I just didn’t feel like I wanted to do this anymore, at least no that day. It must have been that way for everybody, because everybody quit. We just stopped fighting.”

    War is in our nature. And so is peace.

    In Getting to Peace, Transforming Conflict At Home, At Work, And in the World, William Ury (who also co-wrote Getting To Yes, the most widely read book on negotiating) examines what we can do to bring about peace.

    First he lays to rest the notion that human nature is warlike. If you look back at the entire period in which humans have existed, you will find that for the first 2.5 million years, there is very little evidence that humans fought wars. War seems to have come into fashion only in the last 10.000 years or so. And what caused war to become a part of how humans deal with conflict? In a word: Agriculture. Before that humans were nomadic hunter/gatherers and fighting wars made very little sense. There was food enough for everybody and no fixed land ownership to fight over. Only with the advent of fixed settlements and agriculture did we get something to fight over. Interestingly, with the advent of the information society, agriculture is losing it’s importance and we’re now back to a situation where it makes little sense to fight over land, because true valuse is created elsewhere – namely in the heads of people.

    Ury also reframes conflict as having three sides. There’re two opposing parts, but there’s also always the third side. The third side can be family, colleagues, friends in smaller conflicts. Or it can be nations, political parties, the media or the U.N. in large scale conflict. The third side has the opportunity and even the responsibility to prevent conflict where possible and to contain or stop it otherwise.

    Finally he outlines 10 different roles that the third side can assume, including bridge-builder, mediator, witness and peacekeeper. In the story above from the Vietnam War, the monks functioned simply as witnesses. They took no overt action, but there presence alone sufficed to stop the fighting.

    The main message of this book is one of hope. Conflict on all scales can be prevented or stopped using the tools Ury presents, and this is amply illustrated with many stories. There are things that each of us can do to get to peace, and reading this book is a great place to start.

  • Book review: Freakonomics

    In the 80’s crime rose sharply in the US. Instances of murder, robberies, muggings all went up in the big cities. Experts were crying doom, predicting that it could only get worse. Then it got better. Not just a little, but a lot. The question is Why?

    Giuliani took credit for cleaning up New York City. The police took credit for having more people and better methods. Politicians took credit for passing tougher laws. But the real credit, according to Steven D. Levitt lies with Roe vs. Wade, the supreme court decision from 1973 that made abortion legal all over the US. Because abortion was now legal, many young, poor, single, uneducated mothers chose that option rather than having children – children with the exact background most likely to lead to a criminal future.

    This is just one of the claims put forward in the book Freakonomics, A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. The book’s motto might be “It’s all in the numbers – if you can get them”. There is no one common theme to the book, in which Levitt uses economic and statistical tools to look at areas such as The Ku Klux Klan, cheating in Sumo wrestling and why your real estate agent isn’t really interested in getting you the highest possible price on the house you’re selling.

    Rather the book’s central message is how far you can go by looking at the numbers – and that you must keep an open mind to some of the startling and counter-intuitive realizations that might bring you. Reading this book is an unbroken string of Aha-experiences, where common sense thinking is shown to be just plain wrong.

    Levitt is by all acounts a brilliant young economist, who hasn’t yet been tied into one field. A more senior economist is quoted in the book as saying “He’s twenty-six years old. Why does he need to have a unifying theme? Maybe he’s going to be one of those people who’s so talented he doesn’t need one. He’ll take a question and he’ll just answer it, and it’ll be fine”. And anyone with the creativity and open-mindedness to look into the correlation between crime and abortion as explained above (not to mention the guts to take the controversy it has generated) certatinly seems to fit that bill.

    This has got to be the most entertaining and eye-opening book on economics I’ve ever read. Can you apply anything from the book directly to your endeavours? Probably not. But it gave me a sense that the world is more complex than common sense would dictate. And that by looking at what is actually going on, rather that just running on the usual assumption, you can actually get a better, more accurate understanding og the world – one that is simple in its complexity. As illustrated in this quote.

  • Book review: Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

    Queued for half an hour friday night to get a copy. It was worth it. Best Potter ever. ’nuff said.

  • Book review: Blue Streak

    There are currently only two major airlines in the US that actually turn a profit: Southwest which has been around since 1973 and newcomer jetBlue which has been flying since 1999. They are both low-cost carriers, but that is probably not the root cause of their success – after all plenty of low-cost carriers have failed miserably. The likely cause of their ability to make money is the fact that they treat their people (employees and customers alike) well.

    Southwest’s approach is famosuly described in the book Nuts! by Jackie and Kevin Freiberg, and now journalist Barbara Peterson has written an account of jetBlue called Blue Streak, Inside jetBlue, the Upstart That Rocked an Industry. The book focuses partly on David Neeleman, who may not sound like your typical CEO figure, being mormon, a father of 9 children and suffering from attention deficit disorder. But while he may be unable to sit still for very long, he has a deep understanding of the airline business and a faith in and commitment to treating employees and customers with dignity and respect.

    The book’s other main focus is the decisions and people that have shaped jetBlue as it exists today. Neeleman assembled a dream-team of people from industry pace-setters like Virgin and Soutwhwest and sat down to design an airline that would “bring humanity back to air travel”. The book conveys a feeling of being present behind the scenes at the best and the worst of times. From opening routes to new cities to handling crises.

    jetBlues main tool: Treating people well. Yes, they have nice planes. Yes, they have efficient online booking and low prices. Yes, they have TV’s at every seat with live TV. But any airline can do that. What they also have, is courteous, friendly service on board the planes. It sounds simple but few airlines manage to deliver that experience. And those who do triumph.

    Neeleman often flies on his own planes serving snacks and talking to customers. In this way he stays in touch with his customers AND his employees. He even has his own apron with his name and “snack-boy”. Brilliant!

    The book is well written and very interesting. It gives you a real feel for the people involved, and there is no doubt that the author knows both jetBlue and the airline business inside out.

    BTW: Inc.com has a nice mini-portrait of Neeleman here.

  • Book review: The golden ratio

    1.61803398874989484820458683436563811772030917980576286213544862270526046281890
    244970720720418939113748475408807538689175212663386222…

    Doesn’t look like much does it? What if I told you, that this number is significant in such varied circumstances as:
    * The construction of pentagons
    * The number of spirals in sunflowers
    * The construction of sea-shells
    * Fractals

    Spooky, huh?

    The number is called variously the golden mean, the golden section number, the golden ratio or simply phi (pronounced fee), and in the book The Golden Ratio – The story of phi, the world’s most astonishing number, Mario Livio explains the history and relevance of this number. He looks at many phenomena that are definitely linked to this number (such as the ones mentioned above) and dismisses some which are waaaay more speculative – such as phi appearing in the proportions of the cheops pyramids and in Mona Lisa.

    Basically, phi is the ratio you get, if you divide a line in two different lengths so that the ratio between the shorter and the longer piece is identical to the ratio between the longer piece and the whole line. This ratio is 1.618033… It is not only an irrational number (ie. one that can’t be written as a fraction of two integers), but it is in a sense the most irrational of all irrational numbers. Here’s a more in-depth description.

    It takes a rare writer to write an interesting book about math, but Livio pulls it of magnificently, pulling together the history, the math, the beauty and the weeeeeird properties of phi.

    And here’s phi to 20.000 decimal places.