Back in April, I met some awesome folks at the first STAMP/STPA Workshop.
Since then, I’ve been reading furiously trying to catch up with them!
Here are some of my favorites from my summer reading adventures, mostly c/o Lane Desborough’s reading list, along with short summaries of what I’ve taken away from them so far and related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Robert Cialdini
Summary: Cialdini thinks that most compliance tactics are the application of a six principles of influence, crudely paraphrased as:
| Mnemonic | Principle | Description |
|---|---|---|
| R | reciprocation | We experience strong social and internal |
| pressures to reciprocate gift-giving. The | ||
| gift-giver can often choose the form of | ||
| reciprocation. | ||
| C | commitment & | We usually strive to act in ways that are |
| consistency | consistent with our own self-image. Even small | |
| changes in our self-images resulting from new | ||
| commitments can produce large and lasting | ||
| changes in our behavior. | ||
| P | social proof | When uncertain about how to behave, we tend to |
| mimic visible bystanders who resemble us. | ||
| L | liking | We are more willing to do things for people we |
| like or find attractive. | ||
| A | authority | We respond to authority, both real and imagined. |
| S | scarcity | We covet scarce goods over abundant ones, |
| especially in competitive situations, and we | ||
| fear loss more than we enjoy gain. |
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Charles Duhigg
Summary: Habits can be understood as “cue -> script -> reward” programs. (Think of chemical abstract machine programs.) To change habits, it helps to try to preserve the old cues and rewards while swapping in a new script.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Thomas Nagle, John Hogan, and Joseph Zale
Summary:
Many organizations develop new products by means of coordinate ascent but more simultaneous/global techniques will probably give better results.
To pick a good price for a product, start with the cost of the best replacement, modify for differential value, and then modify based on ten or so common irrationalities.
The aim is find needs that can be met profitably, not to build market share for its own sake.
Pricing decisions have both short-term and long-term consequences. The long-term consequences often matter more: e.g., the creation of perverse incentives, loss of price integrity, and price wars.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Philip Kotler
Summary:
Marketing can be understood as controlling demand. Like pricing, it has strategic, operational, and tactical levels.
Marketing entails lots of work + decisions like creating a value proposition, defining a brand, and choosing a marketing mix: (product, promotion, price, place)
Marketing needs lots of data, information, and knowledge: demographic data, …
Marketing works in lots of ways: advertising, PR, selling, …
Useful sales models: AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) and SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff)
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Jeffrey Liker
Summary: The philosophy underlying the TPS & TDS and the environment that produced them. Various useful tools, like kaizen, jidoka, heijunka, muri, mura, and muda.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal
Summary: Organizations can be viewed from many perspectives; four particularly useful perspectives (frames, projections) include the “structural”, “human resources”, “political”, and “symbolic” frames.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Charles G. Koch
Summary: Koch attributes some of his success in growing Koch Industries, Inc. to his reuse of several societal determinants of prosperity:
both in operating the business and in selecting business partners.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Mark W. Maier, Eberhardt Rechtin
Summary: A book on inventing systems.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Chet Richards
Summary: A capsule summary of Boyd’s philosophy of OODA loops as applied to maneuver conflict in the business world. A nice overview of Schwerpunkt, Einheit, Fingerspitzengefühl, and Auftragstaktik. Claims that the TPS is the second known instance of a maneuver conflict system. Referred me to MCDP-1, which is awesome.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Sun Tzu, B. H. Liddell Hart, Samuel B. Griffith
Summary: tbd.
Related fun:
Link: clausewitz.com
Author: ?
Summary: The USMC’s conception and theory of warfare, the mental and spiritual qualities and tradeoffs required to succeed despite the danger and uncertainty of war, the relation of strategy, operations, and tactics, attrition and maneuver warfare.
Related fun:
Link: SAMS
Author: SAMS Student Text Design Team
Summary: tbd.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Marty Cagan
Summary: Closed-loop control will get you better products than open-loop control.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Guy Kawasaki and Michele Moreno
Summary: tbd.
Link: Amazon
Author: David Herold and Donald Fedor
Summary:
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton
Summary: We have better language for discussing weaknesses than strengths, yet our strengths (and not our weaknesses) enable us succeed. Strengths are defined as tasks that we can perform consistently near-perfectly. Clustering two-millionish survey answers resulted in 34 “themes” of strength. Strengths (or skills that can be developed into strengths) can be identified by the ring of satisfaction that exercising them produces.
Related fun:
Link: Amazon
Author: Daniel H. Pink
Summary: A reasonable basis for motivating employees is
{mastery, autonomy, purpose}
Related fun: