Smarter, Faster, Better
Charles Duhigg, Random House, 380 pages, $28. The world has quietly been undergoing a performance revolution. In nearly all areas, people are continuously getting better at what they do, from surgery to management. Better training is largely responsible, by breaking down activities into discrete parts, and measuring how people perform best. With "Smarter, Faster, Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business," Charles Duhigg of the New York Times has created a self-help book for white-collar professionals. Readers learn, for example, how Toyota took over one of the worst car-making factories from General Motors and turned it into one of the best.
One of the best vignettes is on the making of the children's film "Frozen." The creators have hit an impasse 18 months before the release. The draft story line is a wreck. No one sympathizes with the main characters. How did Disney turn it around? For one, Disney got the team to tap into their own life experiences, try new combinations and sense what felt right — and a new co-director was added to shake things up and add even more creative tension. A little disturbance to the customary workflow helped turn the grit into a pearl.
Duhigg is an effective storyteller with a knack for combining social science, fastidious reporting and entertaining anecdotes. However, the stories jump around so much that they produce mental whiplash. And by distilling individual performance down to eight main traits — each with its own chapter — the book oversimplifies its subject.
THE ECONOMIST
