The Best Place to Work

Publisher's Summary

For readers of Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink, and Freakonomics, comes a captivating and surprising journey through the science of workplace excellence. Why do successful companies reward failure? What can casinos teach us about building a happy workplace? How do you design an office that enhances both attention to detail and creativity? In The Best Place to Work, award-winning psychologist Ron Friedman, Ph.D. uses the latest research from the fields of motivation, creativity, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and management to reveal what really makes us successful at work. Combining powerful stories with cutting edge findings, Friedman shows leaders at every level how they can use scientifically-proven techniques to promote smarter thinking, greater innovation, and stronger performance. Among the many surprising insights, Friedman explains how learning to think like a hostage negotiator can help you diffuse a workplace argument, why placing a fish bowl near your desk can elevate your thinking, and how incorporating strategic distractions into your schedule can help you reach smarter decisions.

Along the way, the audiobook introduces the inventor who created the cubicle, the president who brought down the world's most dangerous criminal, and the teenager who single-handedly transformed professional tennis - vivid stories that offer unexpected revelations on achieving workplace excellence. Brimming with counterintuitive insights and actionable recommendations, The Best Place to Work offers employees and executives alike game-changing advice for working smarter and turning any organization - regardless of its size, budgets, or ambitions - into an extraordinary workplace.

©2014 Ron Friedman, PhD (P)2014 Gildan Media LLC

Useful ideas and information past first chapters

If you can stick with the book past the Obama propaganda story and the Google and other mega employers create these uber expensive great work environments,you will find some really useful ideas. As a small employer with blue collar work and less than 15 employees, there are a lot of pie in the sky examples that just are not feasible for my business. However there are some really useful research and data on how to create a work experience that does promote employee engagement.

I found several of the chapters so enlightening and useful that I am asking all of my people who fill supervisor roles to listen to this book, as well as several members of my family. I found some of the research very useful in a parenting context as well.

The chapters on recognition and inclusion and the psychology made me think back to times working for others that I felt the most engaged as well as times in my own business when I felt my employees were invested and engaged. Along the way I thiink we grew and got so busy that some of the things we did that promoted engagement got lost. The things I learned in this book can help me improve our work environment and recreate a few things we stopped doing.

I am going to listen to this book again. I also listened to Engagement 2.0 by Kevin Kruse right after this and found this short book to be a great supplement with low budget recognition and engagement ideas that I can actually afford.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Outstanding framing of complex studies

So much awesome info in here! You'll want to read / listen again and again!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Spectacular

Spectacular. Most of these books are a few points with a lot of fluff. This one is the opposite. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

The Best Place To Work

This book was informative, insightful and entertaining. I enjoyed the format and the contents. The flow was good and the important topics were interjected smoothly into the story line.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Everyone can benefit from this book!

If you are in business and management, read this book ASAP! Backed by research and proven!

Excellent book. So much usefull info!!

i couldn't listen to this book fast enough! highly recommend this book. Very awesome ready!

Recommended!

Great advices about different ways of creating a creative and engaging workplace. A lot of the advices are counterintuitive but backed up by research. Recommended to everyone - people responsible for organizing work obviously, but also for people looking for a job - it will make you look at the culture and benefits differently

Fire

This book was fire, it had a ton of relevant information that you could put into use in your work place.

Some good takeaways from the book.

Not a lot of takeaways for small Retail. Seemed more like a book that is directed towards corporate structure.

Good Content, with a boring Narrator

I enjoyed the content of this book, but had a hard time listening for extended periods of time due to the narrator's monotone voice.