The Small Big

Small Changes That Spark Big Influence

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

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

Important Information

I just finished the book. It provides over 50 examples of how people can use levers is influence to be more persuasive. I am a federal worker currently concerned with getting project managers to apply best practices, and I found this an excellent companion book to Dr. Cialdini's "Influence". The hardest part of applying Dr. Cialdini's principles of influence is converting his examples to my situation. Reading through these additional examples in this book really helped me process and apply the material.

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.

Succinct summary of various studies & books

The book provides a succinct summary of various books and studies. It also provides new material and presents them with good application examples.

Great book

Very interesting book. Must read if you are in sales and looking to improve. Check it out!

Wealth of wisdom for professional and personal life

I just finished reading this book and I could not be happier that I got it. It has a wealth of wisdom that will help me in my business and life!

Theory & Research Made Approachable

Just finished listening to this audiobook took me a few months, and I Re listened to a few chapters like the one about left most numbers.. major take away, context matters greatly.

Scientifically Awesome

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

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.

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