The Small Big

By: Steve J. Martin, Noah Goldstein, Robert Cialdini

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's Summary

At some point today you will have to influence or persuade someone - your boss, a co-worker, a customer, your spouse, your kids, or even your friends. What is the smallest change you can make to your request or situation that will lead to the biggest difference in the outcome? In The Small Big, three heavyweights from the world of persuasion science and practice describe how, in today's information overloaded and stimulation saturated world, increasingly it is the small changes that you make that lead to the biggest differences. In the last few years, more research-from fields such as neuroscience, cognitive psychology, social psychology, and behavioral economics-has helped to uncover an even greater understanding of how influence, persuasion, and behavior change happens.

The Small Big presents lots of small changes that can bring about momentous shifts in results. Anyone can significantly increase his or her ability to influence and persuade others, not by informing or educating people into change but by simply making small shifts in approach that link to deeply felt human motivations.

©2014 Steve J. Martin, Noah J. Goldstein, and Robert B. Cialdini (P)2014 Tantor

Very well done!

This book was extremely thorough in explaining the art of persuasion. they used relevant studies and examples that all tied in nicely. This is one of those rare books that everyone can benefit from in learning how to be more effective in influencing others.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Influence is still the best book on the subject

This book is definitely worth it's time, but it's hard to follow up a classic such as Cialdini's Influence. If you should only choose one of them, go with influence. If you've already read it this book gives you an updated version and well supported by examples, studies and research.

4 of 6 people found this review helpful

this is a must listen to multiple times book

you will need to listen to this book and take notes and listen to it again and reread those notes because what they say is so intuitive but also very useful
especially chapters 42 through 44

50 nuggets of interesting behavioral facts

The book is organized into 50 chapters - each one includes a small nugget of surprising human behavior followed by a very long description. The nuggets vary from the boring to the interesting, with mostly limited practical value. After a few chapters I decided to listen to the central idea of the chapter and skip to the next.

Clialdini is the authority on the science of influence but this is not his best book. For behavioral psychology I like Ariely's Predictably Irrational much better

Good ideas with some practical applications

If you could sum up The Small Big in three words, what would they be?

direct, compelling, useful

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Narration matched the pace of the book, however the narrator's voice was not one of my favorites. Personal preference, I suppose. Higher pitched than I'd prefer.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

There were enough ideas here for making changes that could have a big impact if employed, that I found myself as wrapped up in the current one as I was curious about what the next might be. As with any book containing this many specific ideas for change in one's approach to daily personal interactions, I connected more with some than others, and I suspect this will be the case for anyone.

Any additional comments?

Although I would have wanted more support or more studies provided to back up some of the ideas in this book, that likely would have bogged it down more than I would have liked. You'll have to decide that for yourself. I'd be surprised, however, if you didn't find several easy-to-make changes in your communication techniques that didn't bear fruit. Lots of fruit.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Aggregates Psychology Studies

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

The book has aggregated different psychology studies into 50 chapters that summarize each of the studies. Some good insights, but very hard to stay interested with a bunch of research studies that are somewhat disjointed.

Was not a fan of how the content was laid out. Other books on influence do a much better job.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

GREAT INSIGHT

Where does The Small Big rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

High in comparison.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Would not have changes

Which scene was your favorite?

Interesting studies, will use the research.

What’s an idea from the book that you will remember?

Shape of table determines outcome of meeting.

Any additional comments?

Smart information and studies.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

Highly recommended!

I just finished listining and am highly impressed by the information received. Very well written and narrated. I have already recommended this book to 10 people and will continue to recommend to more and more people far into the future. Will listen to and read again.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

Scientifically Awesome

You should easily be able to make an ROI from this book. Slow at times but the case studies were very interesting.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

A Must Read for the Top of Any Year

With this being Jan. 2015, this is the perfect book to RESET your approach to several different areas of life....It's great to listen to BUT because it has sooooo many small changes that yield BIG results in your life......YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY ADD THIS ONE TO YOUR AT-HOME LIBRARY....for easy reference via table of content ( which we don't have via Audible at this time ) #THUMBSUP

0 of 1 people found this review helpful