The Best Place to Work

The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace

By: Ron Friedman PhD

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins

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

good information, put together to promote action

my boss recommended the book, and I'm glad he did. the information shared and the method of delivery was easily absorbed and I feel ready to make personal changes and recommend new programs at the office that will enhance our status as a great place to work.

Outstanding framing of complex studies

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

Rich with ideas and insights

A nice compilation of best practices in the workplace. Redundancy made the listening experience laborious at times.

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.

It gets better

Struggled to get going. At first I thought it might be boring, but soon began to appreciate the peppering of dry humor. Anyone who has influence in workplace conditions, environments and perks should listen/read. Unless you're one of those people who are closed off to data yielded from studies, and stuck in your ways because you think others should suffer as you suffered.

Excellent book. So much usefull info!!

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

Add to your leadership toolkit

This book has so much evidence based jewels I'm buying the paperback to make sure I didn't miss anything. Many of the ideas I was able to implement immediately. This has really transformed my personal work habits and I plan to radically change my management as a result. Must read.

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.

Spectacular

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