I received this book for free from Blogging For Books in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Insight: Why We're Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life by Tasha Eurich Published by Crown Business on May 2nd 2017
Pages: 272
Source: Blogging For Books
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The first definitive book exploring the science of self-awareness, the meta-skill of the 21st century, Insight is a fascinating journey into everyone's favorite topic: themselves. Do you know who you really are? Do you ever wonder how other people really see you? Though we are usually confident that we do, we are wrong more often than we think. And if we could see ourselves through others eyes, we might be really surprised. Yet regardless of our line of work or stage of life, success depends on understanding who we are and how we come across. Research shows that self-awareness means better work performance, smarter life choices, deeper, more meaningful relationships, and a more fulfilling career. There s just one problem: people can be remarkably poor judges of their behavior, performance, and impact on others. And despite the lip service given today to feedback, in the business world and beyond, it s rare to get candid, objective data on what we re doing well, and where we could stand to improve. Of course, at work and in life, we ve all come across people with a stunning lack of self-awareness but how often do we consider whether we might have the same problem? And if we did, how would we even know it? Drawing on her three-year, first-of-its-kind study of people who have dramatically improved their self-awareness, organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich reveals why we don t know ourselves as well as we think and what to do about it. Alongside her research, she integrates hundreds of academic studies and her 15 years of work with Fortune 500 clients, challenging conventional wisdom to reveal many surprising truths like why introspection is the enemy of insight, how experience isn t a bullet train to self-knowledge, and just how far others will go to avoid telling us the truth about ourselves. Readers will learn battle-tested techniques and tools to improve self-awareness and thus their work performance, leadership skills, interpersonal relationships, and more. Insight is a guide surviving and thriving in an unaware world."
Insight, written by Tasha Eurich, is a personal and professional development book designed to teach about self-awareness and the importance behind it.
I believe any book that teaches such skills should be a part of everyone’s personal library. Having said that, however, I believed this book missed its target. Dr. Tasha Eurich based this book on a lot of strong, unbiased research, but the way she presents the material is lacking.
There is a lot of unnecessary “filler” text which makes this book a lot longer than it needed to be. Instead of using a bunch of little notations and observations throughout the book, a few large ones would have sufficed. I also believed there was too much philosophical text throughout the book, rather than hard facts.
Touching back on my statement that Dr. Eurich based the book on strong research, I believe the book in it’s entirety was short on scientific evidence. This made the book seem more of a professional argument on the importance of self-awareness, not a science-based guide on the subject. This was disappointing, because that’s what I was lead to believe this book was about.
Almost all of the information in the appendix was annoyingly placed. All the information, guides, and workshop-styled questions should have been at the end of each chapter. It would have changed the feel of the book and made it more appealing and easier to read.
Overall, this book wasn’t bad. It just didn’t meet my expectations. It still had a lot of good information that brought me to a somewhat better understanding on the subject. I would still recommend this book for those looking to learn more about self-awareness. Had the author done a better job strategically placing the information in the appending, I most likely would have rated it one star higher.
About Tasha Eurich
Dr. Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Timesbest-selling author. She’s built a reputation as a fresh, modern voice in the business world by pairing her scientific grounding in human behavior with a pragmatic approach to solving problems. Over her 15-plus-year career, she’s helped thousands of professionals—from Fortune 500 executives to early stage entrepreneurs—improve their self-awareness and success.
With a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Colorado State University and BAs in Theater and Psychology from Middlebury College, Tasha is the principal of The Eurich Group, a boutique executive development firm that helps companies—from start-ups to the Fortune 100—succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders and teams.
She has contributed to The Huffington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, and CNBC, and her work has been featured in Forbes, Fox Business, and Fast Company, as well as peer-reviewed journals. She has been named a “Top 100 Thought Leader” by Trust Across America, a “Leader to Watch” by the American Management Association, and one of Denver Business Journal‘s “40 Under 40.” Her 2014 TEDxMileHigh talk has been viewed more than one million times.
Tasha’s first book, Bankable Leadership, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in 2013, and has since become a popular resource for managers and executives who don’t want to choose between making their employees happy and producing bottom-line results for their business. Her second book, INSIGHT, delves into the connection between our self-awareness—what she calls the meta-skill of the twenty-first century—and our performance and success, both in and out of the workplace. Fortune calls it a “sprawling exploration of the psychic frailty that leads to self-delusion and self-aggrandizement, and—importantly—a compassionate, helpful guide for avoiding that path (or reversing it).”
In her spare time, she enjoys travelling, cycling and is an unapologetic theater nerd. She lives in her hometown of Denver, Colorado, with her husband and their rambunctious dogs.
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