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Posted Jan. 8, 2009 10:54 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
Free Market Madness: Why Human Nature Is at Odds with Economics and Why It Matters by Peter A. Ubel, Harvard Business School Press, 272 pages, $26.95, Hardcover, January 2009, ISBN 9781422126097
Peter A. Ubel is a physician, so how is it that he ended up writing a book about the intersection of psychology and the free market for one of the most prestigious business publishers in the country? The quick answer is that he knows what he's talking about. The long answer is that he has "spent the better part of fifteen years researching the forces that influence the way people make decisions" and directs the Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan.
There has been a rash of behavioral economics books published recently that challenge the traditional view that human economic behavior is essentially rational. While most of the other books in the genre are subtler in their critique of that view, with titles like Nudge, Sway and Predictably Irrational, Ubel openly challenges the ways he believes traditional economics have failed us. Despite the book's title, though, Ubel is in no way anti-free market. He recognizes the tremendous wealth "of both opportunity and of consumer goods," that free markets have created, but also recognizes their fallibility.
With the meltdown of the economic system, there has been a lot a clamoring for more regulation of markets recently, but Ubel's critique is not a response to that crisis. His book is in response to "free market evangelists" who believe the market is the solution to every human ailment, even if it's an ailment the market itself seems to have created--such as the alarming increase in obesity in this country. As a physician on the front lines of the obesity battle, Ubel concentrates much of his focus on that problem, which he sees as a clear market failure. The problem, as Ubel sees it, is that those marketing products have spent so much time and money studying our behavior that they know more about how we make decisions than we do.
As you would expect from any book published by HBSP, Free Market Madness is well researched and intellectually engaging. Ubel weans us into the heavier issues with a brief history of both traditional and behavioral economics, while introducing us to the major players in each fields' development. Ubel definitely has a point of view and an agenda in this book, and as a self-described "flaming moderate" uses his platform to clamor for a middle way between free market evangelism and what critics of market regulation call a "nanny state." Regardless of whether or not you agree with the author, you will find the history and examples he provides a good addition to this ongoing conversation.
Fast Company's Best of 2008
Posted Dec. 2008 3:32 a.m. by dylan
In Uncategorized - 800 CEO Read Blog
Fast Company chose its business books of the year last week. David Lidsky wrote the copy, stating:
The titles that follow run the gamut of what Fast Company covers: Innovation, creativity, design, sustainability, technology, advertising and marketing, global business, and entertainment. The theme running through them is that new ideas are the lifeblood of business, and the process of finding and sharing new ideas is essential to success.
And the books chosen were:
The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas With Pictures by Dan Roam, Portfolio (Jack Covert Selects) The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr, W.W. Norton Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker, Random House (Jack Covert Selects) Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming by Fred Krupp & Miriam Horn, W.W. Norton Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently by Gregory Berns, Random House IDEO Eyes Open Series: New York & London by Fred Dust and IDEO, Chronicle Books The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company by David A. Price, Knopf (Jack Covert Selects) Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman & Rom Brafman, Doubleday (Jack Covert Selects) The White Tiger: A Novel by Aravind Adiga, Simon & Schuster X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking by Jeff Gordinier, Penguin Group
With a novel and a set of travel books, it looks like kind of a quirky list, but I find it intriguing. For example,writing of their pick of The White Tiger, they explain:
You could read 200 non-fiction books on India, its hypergrowth, and its impact on society and the world, and none will sear images and voices into your brain the way Adiga's Booker Prize-winning debut novel does. Its narrator, Balram Halwai, tells the story of his own bootstrapping rise from a poverty-stricken youth to entrepreneurial success in the country's high-tech sector.
Their explanation of the IDEO travel guides making a business book list is a bit more tenuous, but they are great books.
Jack Covert Selects - Sway
Posted Aug. 15, 2008 4:45 a.m. by 800-ceo-read
Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman, Doubleday Business, 206 Pages, $21.95, Hardcover, June 2008, ISBN 9780385524384
Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. It's the 1984 NBA draft and the Portland Trail Blazers choose a promising 7-footer over the future face of basketball. It's one of the great "what were they thinking?" coulda/woulda moments in sports history. But, as Sway informs us, the thought process that led to that decision may very well point to many of our own boneheaded shortcomings in business and everyday life.
The Brafman Brothers--Ori, the coauthor of The Starfish and the Spider, and Rom, with a Ph.D. in Psychology--team together their professional insights of behavior to outline the ways in which (and why) "we're much more prone to irrational behavior than we realize" (4).
In the preface, the authors joke that, along with their lawyer uncle, they form the Jewish mother's equivalent of the holy trinity--lawyer, doctor, businessman. This anecdote is indicative of the casual, pickup-and-skim nature of the work, but the conclusions they come to are striking, pertinent, and universal to our very nature as human beings. There are certain mistakes we simply seem prone to: we tend to go to great lengths to avoid possible loss, we give people and things qualities based on initial perception, and we are largely blind to all evidence that contradicts our initial assessments. For instance, researchers have found that "the variable most responsible for an NBA player's time on the court ... was his draft selection order"(69).
This book is far from a copy-and-paste work of case studies, though. Instead, the Brafmans guide the reader through a chilling tale of a doomed KLM flight, an era of college football dominance, and a deaf ear turned to one of the greatest violinists alive. And their conclusion? We are basically out of tune with the inherent subconscious nuances that really shape so much of our decisions and world. The authors expose many of those nuances, providing insights and lessons that should help the reader avoid similar lapses in judgment.
Sway is more than a worthy addition to the emerging canon of "way we think"
literature. It is part history lesson, part psychological query, and part catalog of some of the greatest foibles of recent human history--and why they were made (Vietnam, unveiled!). You'll also find within these pages that personal applications abound, including ways to prevent a repeat of the Trail Blazer's historic misjudgment of talent. As the Brafmans point out, the entire way your company hires may be obsolete, and you wouldn't want to let insignificant factors prevent the hiring of the future Michael Jordan of your sales team.
Sway: The Irresistable Pull of Irrational Behavior
Posted Aug. 5, 2008 9:43 a.m. by kate
In Big Ideas - 800 CEO Read Blog
The other day I had an interesting conversation with the two Brafman brothers -- Ori and Rom -- who wrote Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. Turns out we shouldn't always trust our gut instinct. I just posted the podcast if you'd like to learn why that's true.
A few weeks back, the NYTimes interviewed the Ori and Rom. Their talk is geared around job interviews, first impressions, and "overcoming sway" professionally.
To give you a bit of biographical information, Ori's background is in business; you might recognize his name from a previous book and manifesto he co-authored. Rom's background is in psychology. For more on their book, check out their blog.
If you're interested in the subject of human rationality (or rather, irrationality), there have been a few titles out in the same vein -- Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational and Thaler and Sunstein's Nudge.
