Big potential - BookWyrm

No cover — Shawn Achor: Big potential (2018)

237 pages

English language

Published July 4, 2018

ISBN:: 978-1-5247-6153-0
OCLC Number:: 991370109

(2 reviews)

"The bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage reveals why our potential is not limited by what we on our own can achieve; rather, our success is amplified by the successes of those around us. He offers five strategies for exponentially raising our achievement and performance by helping others--colleagues, teams, and employees--be better. For decades, we have thought about potential as being a constellation of individual traits: your creativity, your abilities, your intelligence. But new research shows that this version of potential--what Achor calls Small Potential--is deeply flawed, and places a ceiling on the level of success we can achieve. Because we now know that all these traits are in fact interconnected, and that by pursuing success individually, we have been leaving much of our potential untapped. Big Potential works not in isolation, but rather as part of an ecosystem. So when we help those around us succeed, we not only …

"The bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage reveals why our potential is not limited by what we on our own can achieve; rather, our success is amplified by the successes of those around us. He offers five strategies for exponentially raising our achievement and performance by helping others--colleagues, teams, and employees--be better. For decades, we have thought about potential as being a constellation of individual traits: your creativity, your abilities, your intelligence. But new research shows that this version of potential--what Achor calls Small Potential--is deeply flawed, and places a ceiling on the level of success we can achieve. Because we now know that all these traits are in fact interconnected, and that by pursuing success individually, we have been leaving much of our potential untapped. Big Potential works not in isolation, but rather as part of an ecosystem. So when we help those around us succeed, we not only raise the performance of the group, but we also create a virtuous cycle by which we in turn become more successful ourselves. Drawing on cutting-edge original research as well as his work with executives, educators, and leaders around the globe, Achor shows how we can all lift the ceiling on our potential by helping others realize theirs"--

4 editions

Stacey Mason reviewed Big potential by Shawn Achor

Review of 'Big potential' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Continuing his explorations into what makes us happy and successful that he began in The Happiness Advantage, Achor argues that although we learn from a very young age that success is the result of our individual efforts, this is actually only our “small potential,” and real achievement or “big potential” is the result not of a star that shines especially brightly, but of star systems, productive communities that influence each other for the better. Achor discusses how to foster such communities—both for individuals and for companies. He argues that every person we’ve considered a lone genius was actually surrounded by a community of achievers that fostered them, and he presents compelling evidence that even a team of modest talent can outshine the most brilliant individual contributors. At just over 200 pages, this book is a pretty breezy read. Still, for as impressed as I was with the lack of …

Continuing his explorations into what makes us happy and successful that he began in The Happiness Advantage, Achor argues that although we learn from a very young age that success is the result of our individual efforts, this is actually only our “small potential,” and real achievement or “big potential” is the result not of a star that shines especially brightly, but of star systems, productive communities that influence each other for the better. Achor discusses how to foster such communities—both for individuals and for companies. He argues that every person we’ve considered a lone genius was actually surrounded by a community of achievers that fostered them, and he presents compelling evidence that even a team of modest talent can outshine the most brilliant individual contributors. At just over 200 pages, this book is a pretty breezy read. Still, for as impressed as I was with the lack of fluff in The Happiness Advantage, this one felt bloated in places, and there's some repetition from The Happiness Advantage. The core ideas are interesting, but they probably could have been distilled into a long journal article.

PlayAllTheThings

rated it

May 18, 2021

Subjects

Creative ability
Leadership
Motivation (Psychology)
Success