I’ve generally enjoyed Adam Grant’s book, and Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, was no exception. Over the years he seems to have learned from Malcolm Gladwell’s writing style, and made the presentation of his ideas more engaging and less dense, relative to his earlier books. While some of the ideas in this book felt less new and surprising, there was still a lot to learn and enjoy, or at the very least, be reminded of.
At its root, Hidden Potential is a book about learning – how we can intentionally grow, change, and become better. Amongst the many topics Grant explores are the ways in which discomfort is important to increase learning; how passion plays a role in skill development; why Finland’s schools are consistently better than other countries; and how highly functional teams are much more important than brilliant individual actors. In each chapter he surrounds a core, researched-based idea with a good story, a challenge to the common wisdom, and some useful applications. It is a great formula, though sometimes felt a bit overdone. Maybe this is true of the social-science-translated-for-regular-people genre altogether. And yet…it was interesting and I learned a lot, as evidenced by the many page-corners folded over (sorry to those of you who think this disrespectful to books!).
Hidden Potential is useful if you work with teams, if you are working on yourself, and especially if you’re trying to help your kids grow.
Just Because I Liked It:
- I was totally enraptured by this podcast by Eli Lake about the history of the Weather Underground, and the way at the end he was able to tie in its relationship to today’s university protesters.
- While I generally recommend whatever Matti Friedman writes, this article about a 6-7th century Afghan Jewish book (siddur? haggadah?) is fascinating. And this one about the state of today’s journalism, which goes a long way to explain the world around us.
