One of the great things about NYC is the subway. It's not that it gets you around quickly, which it generally does, it's that it is a great place to read. You get a few focused minutes somehow heightened by all the activity around you. Sometimes that focus spills out on the platform, up the stairs and on to the street. Reading on the platform and up the stairs is okay, but walking down the street with your head in a book is not such a good idea. Someone -- who is not sharing that zone with you -- or something -- like a car, taxi or bus -- can pop you out of the zone right quick.
Sway, The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori and Rom Brafman is a book that spills you on to the street. In a very gentle, accessible way it describes experiences you can identify with and connects them to research and underlying theory.
For example, there is a chapter dealing with fairness. The perception of fairness, it turns out, is heavily influenced by both the process of arriving at an outcome, as well as the outcome itself. The book provides a number of examples of where people act irrationally because they don't feel a process is fair.
Examples include: a contestant in Who Wants to be a Millionaire who doesn't get help from the audience because they don't feel that he deserves it; a felon who perceives how well his case was handled based on how much attention he got from his lawyer and not from the verdict; and a venture capitalist who feels good about a CEO based on how often the CEO keeps in touch and not on how well his company actually performs.
This chapter closes with some good-natured business advice: to increase the feeling of fairness in the outcome, keep your team (co-workers, colleagues, customers, etc.) up to date during the process because the final product doesn't necessarily speak for itself.
