This book, Let’s Get Results, Not Excuses! bugged me. It kept saying excuses was the overarching problem, and if you eliminated excuses, you also rendered inert a whole host of other problems you’d find in a corporation. I recall various analogies to illustrate this point, but an analogy is not an explanation. Why the hell are excuses to key? Whatever. I ended up skimming most of the book because it was kind of repetitive.

There was one cool anecdote/story I found useful. It was about how a CEO was worried about his company’s flagging sales, and so he went to a workshop, which taught him about the wonders of proactivity for salespersons. He printed out posters that said, “Be proactive,” and wanted to make being proactive part of the company culture. One salesperson, Larry, is very inspired, and works somewhat harder for a while. But overall, nothing is changed. “Since the whole concept was never clearly explained in detailed, practical terms, nor built into his accountabilities in a way that could be measured, Larry was not able to meet the ‘proactive’ expectations of his superiors. ‘Proactivity’ became a precept to belive in, but it had no meaningful behavioral significance.” Because there’s nothing to measure, proactivity becomes a mere abstraction. It has nothing concrete behind it. Larry’s behavior can’t change in any appreciable way; so inertia causes him to work as he did before.

It reminds me of myself and my often abstact New Years’ Resolutions. You can’t actually change how you think or what you do, unless you create concrete, measurable actions to follow. Everything else is just wishful thinking.

You can’t say to yourself, “I should be positive.” You have to make a commitment everyday to be positive. You have to say, “Whenever I find myself in a position to catastrophize, I will focus on solutions rather than the problem.” And, “When I write about myself, I will praise myself for the positive things I’m doing, and not focus on the negative.” I’ve become a more positive person because of specific actions and vocabulary choices, not because of an abstract desire.

I didn’t find The Science of Influence, by Kevin Hogan, all that helpful. It’s targeted towards salespeople and while I am interested in learning more about sales, I am not a salesperson by trade. Furthermore, the book doesn’t have enough science to warrant its title. On one level, I appreciate Hogan’s intent to “translate” the content for a non-technical audience. On another level, it feels too dumbed down. After taking my class on cognitive science and religion, I learned that a lot of the scientific articles I read had gaps and the conclusions weren’t completely uncontroversial. I’d like to see more of the caveats, but that would make this a different book. It was just way too simplified for my tastes. At least the book pointed me towards The Paradox of Choice, which I’ll pick up sometime this summer.

Here’s the one part I marked up:

If you are going to use fear in communication in order to foster change or alter behavior — or encourage someone to buy your product, idea, or service — you must also include a step-by-step set of instructions in your message in order for it to be successful.

This reminded me a bit of The Adversity Quotient, where it talked about helping people and you want them to come up with actual actions they can do to start taking control of a situation. Get them to stop catastrophizing and then lead them towards solutions.

It fits with my current obsession with specificity. Goals need to be actions, not abstractions. The more specific my goals are, the more likely I finish them.