Focus by Heidi Grant Halvorson & E. Tory Higgins - Book review

Focus

Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence

By: Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., E. Tory Higgins, Ph.D.

Published: April 18, 2013
Format: Hardcover, 272 pages
ISBN-10: 1594631026
ISBN-13: 978-1594631023
Publisher: Hudson Street Press













"This book is a practical guide to understanding and working with your promotion or prevention focus", write social psychologist, speaker, and associate director for the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School, Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D.; and Stanley Schachter Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and professor of management at the Columbia Business School, E. Tory Higgins, Ph.D., in their fascinating and perceptive book Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence. The authors describe how there are two basic groups of people, namely those who see the world in terms of promotion and those who see the world in terms of prevention, and how to work with and influence those with either type of behavior.



Heidi Grant Halvorson (photo left) and E. Tory Higgins recognize that there are two types of pain and of pleasure that motivate the actions of different people. The authors provide insights into who they consider two very different people with entirely different motivations. One group is what the authors call promotion focused and motivated by rewards. The other group is what the authors name prevention focused and motivated by minimizing losses.

The authors demonstrate how managers and marketers can identify the appropriate focus, change focus, and utilize focus in the correct manner to achieve successful results. The authors offer strategies and techniques for uncovering the two types of focus, and for applying this knowledge appropriately in any marketing campaign.



E. Tory Higgins (photo left) and Heidi Grant Halvorson understand that failure to realize that people may have a different focus can result in communication problems. Those who are promotion focused will have to adjust their management or marketing style to accommodate those whose focus is on prevention. The same challenge must be met and overcome by prevention conscious managers and marketers when they communicate with people who have a promotion orientation.

The authors examine the nature of promotion and prevention focus in both the workplace, and in an individual's personal life. The way the two types of people approach problems and decision making are covered in the following areas:

* Focused on the win, or avoiding the loss
* Why optimism doesn't work for defensive pessimists
* Focus on work
* Focus on kids
* Focus in love
* Focus on making decisions
* Focus on our world
* Identifying and changing focus
* It's the fit that counts
* The triumph of the fittest
* Under the influence
* To market
* A guide to creating motivational fit

For me, the power of the book is how Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins combine a comprehensive analysis and overview of the two types of focus, with practical techniques for identifying and communicating with people of both focus styles. The authors present a very convincing case for their thesis of the two focus type personalities. They back their statements with solid research, and each chapter contains extensive endnotes for further study. While the main purpose of the book is on examination of the workplace, management and motivation of people, and the marketing process, the authors go beyond the world of work to include focus in one's personal life.

Through the addition of focus on children, romance, and the wider world, the authors show how a person can be promotion focused at work, while being very prevention focused at home. This change of focus is important to understand, and offers the important lesson that the same approach to an individual may fail to take this switch of focus into account. The book offers an excellent guide for improving communication with others, as the listener may not share the same focus. The authors demonstrate how to avoid messages from becoming misunderstood, ineffective, or even counterproductive.

I highly recommend the important and communication improving book Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence by Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins, to any business leaders, executives, managers, marketers, entrepreneurs, or anyone wanting to better understand how to communicate more effectively with others. This book will transform your ability to be better understood by people of either type of focus, enhancing your ability to influence outcomes more effectively.