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Business Stationary Mart - Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
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List Price: $21.95
Our Price: $7.50
Your Save: $ 14.45 ( 66% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Doubleday Business
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.92
EAN: 9780385524384
ISBN: 0385524382
Label: Doubleday Business
Manufacturer: Doubleday Business
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: 2008-06-03
Publisher: Doubleday Business
Release Date: 2008-06-03
Studio: Doubleday Business
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: If you have asked yourself, "Why did I/they do that?" read on...
Comment: All of us have either watched someone or fallen into a death spiral ourselves with circumstances in life. The annecdotal evidence around us clearly shows we/they have made a poor choice and the final outcome is destined to have negative results. Yet, we continue our/their actions desperately committed to our beliefs. Blind to all of the indicators that a different path is needed for the desired outcome. Upon conclusion, in retrospect, we know we should have done something differently.
"Sway" is insightful and interesting. The author reveals how our beliefs and precognitive commitments "sway" our clarity. The examples are easy to identify with and have value if learning why we sometimes just can't slow down doing the wrong things.
"Sway" will cause you to pause and reflect on those times when you just couldn't let go of the wrong choice. Whether it was in your personal or professional life, there are solid examples that most prople can easily relate too.
This is an easy and entertaining read and I would recommend it to anyone who is trying to better their understanding of why we do things that simply do not make sense.
Comments are always welcome.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Shocking, in a way..
Comment: I was happily reading this book when it became apparent that the authors felt free to wander down an anti-war path, and blithely compared LBJ's war in Vietnam to Bush's war in Iraq.
What is going on nowadays? Are all book-buyers so liberal that they take this political propaganda for granted?
After all, if the authors really wanted to look at American politics, they might just have mentioned the Community Reinvestment Act (1977), passed while James Earl Carter was in the White House, and reinforced during the Clinton years.
This act, and all its dozens of amendments, basically ordered banks to extend mortgage loans to ALL, regardless of income.
In the terms of the book under review, the people who did this were suffering from "diagnosis bias" (the poor are undeservedly so) and "commitment bias" (we have always helped the poor, so now we are ordering the banks to do the same).
For decades, steadily rising housing prices disguised the mischief government had done, meddling in free markets once again. But the support for the CRA was largely "bi-partisan," although only one lonely banker turned up to testify in favor of the CRA.
Now we find ourselves in a sea of defaults, and who are the fingers being pointed at? Why, the evil bankers, of course. And, naturally, George Bush. Nobody even dares to mention the CRA, because "everyone" was in favor of it.
Now, indeed, the chickens are coming home to roost.
But these facts are not recorded in this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: why smart people make bad decisions / the case for dissenters
Comment: This is an interesting, quick, thought-provoking read. The authors highlight the forces and situations that lead us to make really bad decisions -- our failure to realize that sunk costs are sunk costs, our tendency to irrationally cling to our bad decisions, once made, in hopes that things will take a 180 degree turn. The authors show how we are disproportionately influenced by anecdotal evidence rather than looking at aggregate, statistical data. One example can be more influential than a thousand data points.
Particularly interesting to me were the discussions of cultural influences on decision-making. In the US version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, for example, the audience poll yields the correct answer 90% of the time. French and Russian audiences aren't so magnaminous. Russian audiences are not likely to give the correct answer -- perhaps out of a skepticism for wealth -- and French audiences enforce a sense of meritocracy -- they will not give the correct answer to an easy/obvious question -- though they may be more willing to help out on a challenging question. French audiences won't reward poor players -- if the player is too stupid to know the anwer to an easy question, he doesn't deserve to be a millionaire.
Another interesting example of cultural influences on decision-making were illustrated by requiring participants to divide a certain amount of money fairly between themselves and another person -- if the other person accepted the division, both the giver and the receiver would keep the money. If not, both went home empty-handed. American paricipants were most inclined to split the money 50/50; the giver frequently refused to accepted a disproportionately smaller split. In other cultures, however, participants would split the booty 90/10, and the recipient gladly accepted the 10%, as it was more than he had before. What is fair and seemingly rational in one culture isn't always fair and seemingly rational in another. What exactly is a rational decision?
This book presents a compelling argument for ensuring that there's at least one devil's advocate, skeptic, naysayer, dissenter in your circle of trusted advisors and it underscores the importance of having dissenters in the workplace. Really bad things can result when decisions are not vetted by dissenters, when organizations are staffed exclusively by yes-men, when we are so intent on staying the course that we don't see the collision directly in front of us.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Like A Lazy Ocean Hugs the Shore....
Comment: We all make mistakes. Some minor, others, life-changing. Obtaining all the knowledge we can about this field will enhance our time on earth. Based on great stories and solid research, this fun book takes a meandering stroll down the beaches of behavioral and social science. Along the way, we find pearls of wisdom.
In light of the lessons I learned in this book, I will now have to go back and re-read Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinkingby Malcolm Gladwell whose lessons I have been applying at work and home. This book - in a way - is the opposite of Blink whereby our intuition does not rush in to save the day.
I applaud the lack of digressions and tangents. Too often, this type of book leaves the subject matter to discuss an area the reader has not interest in. My only negative critique is that this is really more of a subject for a magazine or journal article rather than a full-blown book length treatment. Still, I really enjoyed the book and hope you find this review helpful.
Michael L. Gooch, SPHR - Author of Wingtips with Spurs
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sway Is Okay
Comment: SWAY has been described as a fun, quick read; a book based on the authors' argument that irrational behavior is fueled by loss aversion, diagnosis bias, and the "chameleon effect." Although somewhat entertaining, I wondered about other factors that also influence irrational behavior.
As an example, when the so-called "most experienced and accomplished pilot in the world" irrationally lifts off without takeoff clearance, Neil Weinstein's research regarding "optimistic bias" came to mind (the tendency to view oneself as less likely that others to experience negative life events).
Examples of optimistic bias include professional financial analysts consistently overestimating corporate earnings; smokers believing they are at less risk of developing smoking-related diseases than others who smoke, and let's not forget the research about college students rating themselves as much less likely than their peers to experience negative life events such as developing a drinking problem, having a heart attack, being fired from a job, or divorcing a few years after getting married. Based on the age-old concept of optimistic bias, I'm wondering if the celebrated pilot wasn't also in "full-on optimistic bias mode" ("'I' can make this happen!!"), when he made the decision to go forward?
In terms of "first-date interviewing," readers may rather prefer Marcus Buckingham's approach to interviewing explained in his book entitled "The One Thing You Need to Know." Buckingham shares practical and user-friendly strategies for fleshing out the so-called strengths and weaknesses offered up by potential employees.
The scant material in Sway might have been better condensed into a juicy article, but as a book, I wanted it to be better organized and better validated. People still talk about The Tipping Point and Blink by Gladwell, but will Sway stay the test of time? May I say: no sway?
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Editorial Reviews:
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A fascinating journey into the hidden psychological influences that derail our decision-making, Sway will change the way you think about the way you think.
Why is it so difficult to sell a plummeting stock or end a doomed relationship? Why do we listen to advice just because it came from someone “important”? Why are we more likely to fall in love when there’s danger involved? In Sway, renowned organizational thinker Ori Brafman and his brother, psychologist Rom Brafman, answer all these questions and more.
Drawing on cutting-edge research from the fields of social psychology, behavioral economics, and organizational behavior, Sway reveals dynamic forces that influence every aspect of our personal and business lives, including loss aversion (our tendency to go to great lengths to avoid perceived losses), the diagnosis bias (our inability to reevaluate our initial diagnosis of a person or situation), and the “chameleon effect” (our tendency to take on characteristics that have been arbitrarily assigned to us).
Sway introduces us to the Harvard Business School professor who got his students to pay $204 for a $20 bill, the head of airline safety whose disregard for his years of training led to the transformation of an entire industry, and the football coach who turned conventional strategy on its head to lead his team to victory. We also learn the curse of the NBA draft, discover why interviews are a terrible way to gauge future job performance, and go inside a session with the Supreme Court to see how the world’s most powerful justices avoid the dangers of group dynamics.
Every once in a while, a book comes along that not only challenges our views of the world but changes the way we think. In Sway, Ori and Rom Brafman not only uncover rational explanations for a wide variety of irrational behaviors but also point readers toward ways to avoid succumbing to their pull.
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