“Productivity, put simply, is the name we give our attempts to figure out the best uses of our energy, intellect, and time as we try to seize the most meaningful rewards with the least wasted effort.” – Smarter Faster Better

Google, being Google, spent considerable time trying to crunch the data on what makes teams work. Their results were surprisingly useful; that it is not who, but how, that matters. In the best teams members speak roughly in proportion, and members feel safe in contributing ideas and making mistakes without worrying about status or being criticized. Though it sounds trivial, it led to an extensive retraining for managers, who are now expected to model these behaviours, calling on quieter members and acknowledging mistakes of their own.

Smarter Faster Better’s broad point is that there are general strategies we can adopt to make ourselves and our teams more productive, whether it’s generating motivation by finding a decision we can control to start with, using clear mental models of how the work will be done, setting SMART and stretch goals, or learning to forecast the future better (that last one we learn by studying world class poker players, who, I must admit, do spend a lot of time thinking about how to predict the future).

The most compelling chapter for me was the one on agile management; Duhigg tracks the evolution of the management style, which involves decentralizing solving problems to those closest to the problem, through Toyota to Silicon Valley and even, in 2012, to the FBI’s design of their Sentinel IT system. Though it’s not a complicated concept, I think it has some principles my own life and work could benefit from. In an appendix, he also shares his application of the strategy to his writing of the book, and that was probably the most interesting part of the entire book.

Duhigg wrote the excellent Power of Habit, and this book takes much the same approach. It attempts to illustrate through anecdote conclusions he has drawn more generally. This book is not as strong as his first; it lacks the same clear organizing principle, and some of his productivity advice applies to firms, some to teams, and some to individuals. That isn’t bad, but it makes it feel a little more disorganized. That said, his first book was also particularly strong, and this one, though a little more light on content and perhaps more of a holiday read than the last, is still entertaining.

Disclosure: I read it as an advance reader copy. You can preorder Smarter Faster Better here. It comes out March 3rd.