I want us to envision the first thing we’ll do if there’s a problem,” he told his copilots as they rode in a van from the Fairmont hotel to Singapore Changi Airport. “Imagine there’s an engine failure. Where’s the first place you’ll look?” The pilots took turns describing where they would turn their eyes. De Crespigny conducted this same conversation prior to every flight. His copilots knew to expect it. He quizzed them on what screens they would stare at during an emergency, where their hands would go if an alarm sounded, whether they would turn their heads to the left or stare straight ahead. “The reality of a modern aircraft is that it’s a quarter million sensors and computers that sometimes can’t tell the difference between garbage and good sense,” de Crespigny later told me. He’s a brusque Australian, a cross between Crocodile Dundee and General Patton. “That’s why we have human pilots. It’s our job to think about what might happen, instead of what is.” Rather, productivity is about making certain choices in certain ways. The way we choose to see ourselves and frame daily decisions; the stories we tell ourselves, and the easy goals we ignore; the sense of community we build among teammates; the creative cultures we establish as leaders: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive.” Setting effective goals is another principle you need to implement if you want to increase your productivity. You need to have a clear idea of what you’re working towards. You also need to make sure that you’re aiming for the right results. Smiles was distressed when readers complained that “self-help” meant selfishness, or the pursuit of self-interest, and, in a later edition, he explained that “the duty of helping one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbors.” This was not wholly coherent, and when the book came out it didn’t matter, because in a laissez-faire economy the pursuit of self-interest is a virtue. There’s nothing wrong with it; on the contrary, it’s supposed to be what makes markets work. (“On the Origin of Species” described the natural world similarly, as a place consisting of, at bottom, nothing but organisms single-mindedly pursuing reproductive success.)

Charles Duhigg: New York Times Best-Selling Author of Smarter

The decentralization of decision-making can make anyone into an expert—but if trust doesn’t exist, organizations lose access to the vast expertise we all carry within our heads. This is because books like “How to Win Friends” and “Smarter Faster Better” are essentially applied management theory. They try to sum up current thinking in the business world about “human resources” and transmute it into a manual for self-improvement. People don’t read these books to find out how to be better human beings. People read them to figure out how to become the kind of human being the workplace is looking for. Productivity, recent studies suggest, isn't always about driving ourselves harder, working faster and pushing ourselves toward greater "efficiency." Rather, real productivity relies on managing how we think, identify goals, construct teams and make decisions. The most productive people, companies and organizations don't merely act differently—they envision the world and their choices in profoundly different ways. However, you can learn how to create the right conditions for creativity and productive innovation to thrive. There are four principles that you can implement to create such conditions:

Even if we have very little data, we can still forecast the future by making assumptions and then skewing them based on what we observe about the world.” As he did in The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg melds cutting-edge science, deep reporting, and wide-ranging stories to give us a fuller, more human way of thinking about how productivity actually happens. He manages to reframe an entire cultural conversation: Being productive isn’t only about the day-to-day and to-do lists. It’s about seeing our lives as a series of choices, and learning that we have power over how we think about the world.” —Susan Cain, author of Quiet But, in the end, the rewards of autonomy and commitment cultures outweigh the costs. The bigger misstep is when there is never an opportunity for an employee to make a mistake. Decision Making

Charles Duhigg - Wikipedia Charles Duhigg - Wikipedia

To become genuinely productive, we must take control of our attention; we must build mental models that put us firmly in charge.The second technique that you should implement is the creation of a “commitment culture.” This is a workplace culture in which employers are truly committed to their employees’ growth, success, and happiness, causing their employees to commit to the company in return. Lean Manufacturing Duhigg, Charles (2016). Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business. ISBN 978-0812993394.

Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg - Sam Thomas Davies Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg - Sam Thomas Davies

These cognitive processes can forcibly drag you away from your most productive path. After all, the most immediate and obvious stimulus may not be the one you need to focus on to get your work done. Likewise, thinking reactively becomes unproductive when the brain selects an inappropriate reaction to your current situation. Triggers and Solutions No one can predict tomorrow with absolute confidence. But the mistake some people make is trying to avoid making any predictions because their thirst for certainty is so strong and their fear of doubt too overwhelming. If” Cognitive closure can also be counterproductive because people can make hasty decisions just because they need closure.

Speaking

That moment is really the turning point,” Barbara Burian, a research psychologist at NASA who has studied Qantas Flight 32, told me. “Most of the time, when information overload occurs, we’re not aware it’s happening—and that’s why it’s so dangerous. So really good pilots push themselves to do a lot of ‘what if’ exercises before an event, running through scenarios in their heads. That way, when an emergency happens, they have models they can use.” If he hit everything just right, the plane would require 3,900 meters of asphalt. The longest runway was 4,000 meters.

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in “Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in

Even before Captain Richard Champion de Crespigny stepped on board Qantas Flight 32, he was drilling his crew in the mental models he expected them to use.

Smarter Faster Better Summary

Numerous academic studies have examined the impact of stretch goals, and have consistently found that forcing people to commit to ambitious, seemingly out-of-reach objectives can spark outsized jumps in innovation and productivity.”