TLDR Book Review: The Culture Code – The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

Have you had shifts or worked on committees where everything went smoothly? Closed loop communication happened, there was mutual respect among all the team members, and each individual felt empowered to give input even if it differed from what had already been said or done? You’ve probably also worked on shifts, in meetings, or participated in projects where it seemed like the team was falling apart, communicating on different wavelengths, and failing to have a shared understanding. You may feel like a great leader one day and a failure the next. The difference, according to The Culture Code, has everything to do with the culture of the team. In this 2018 book, Daniel Coyle explains what makes teams successful and how you can help create the culture necessary for all of your teams, committees, and groups to succeed.

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By Christina Shenvi, MD PhD|2020-01-03T00:12:10-08:00Dec 20, 2019|Book Club, TLDR|

Do you struggle when you try to focus on one task for a prolonged period? When you’re reading or writing a paper, are you frequently tempted by social media, a click-bait HuffPo article, or what the latest Instagram celebrities have been doing? Most of us are not used to spending large periods of time doing deep work. Like any skill, the ability to focus is something that we have to develop and train. This book, Deep Work, by Cal Newport will explain why it is so critical to develop our ability to focus deeply, and how to do it.

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By Christina Shenvi, MD PhD|2020-01-03T00:08:55-08:00Nov 8, 2019|Book Club, TLDR|

Chip and Dan Heath’s book, Switch, explains why change is so difficult and what we can do to make it easier. This little book is a must-read if you’ve ever met inexplicable resistance addressing issues as trivial as buying a new brand of coffee for the break room or as significant as enforcing the mandatory use of hand sanitizer. Is anyone actually in favor of spreading communicable diseases? Do the absence of San Francisco Hazelnut Morning Blend really warrant a call to the department chair? Why would people be so opposed to undeniably positive changes? The answer lies in understanding Riders, Elephants, and Paths. And here’s a spoiler alert: you’ll need a lot of mango.

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By Christina Shenvi, MD PhD|2020-01-03T00:09:06-08:00Feb 25, 2019|Book Club, Professional Development, TLDR|

TLDR Book Review: “Talk Like TED”

Welcome back to TLDR, where our motto is: “We read books so that you have time for Netflix.” Our premise is that most self-help, parenting, education, and life-coaching books are like chicken nuggets: 2% meat and 98% filler! This month’s book is more like cafeteria meatloaf. No matter! We’re still committed to extracting a few nutritious bits from all those ground-up gym mats. We picked through the fluff and pulled out 5 gems that are worth sharing. In his book “Talk Like TED,” Carmine Gallo promises that you too can present like a TED speaker. How do you do it? Read on.

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By Christina Shenvi, MD PhD|2020-01-03T00:11:21-08:00Oct 17, 2018|Medical Education, Professional Development, TLDR|

TLDR Book Review: “make it stick: The Science of Successful Learning”

Bookstore shelves and Amazon lists are filled with self-help titles that promise to make you a better manager, a better parent, or a better fishmonger. But most of them suffer from the same weakness: 2 pages of good practical advice is padded with 298 pages of filler.

Our new column TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) is a solution to what we call the McNugget Problem: trying to find the 5 bullet points of meaty goodness suspended within a mass of stale anecdotes, overcooked platitudes, and bad food analogies. Our TLDR goal is to find the critical take-aways in each book we review, and present them to you in a concise, easy-to-apply format. We read the books so you don’t have to!

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By Christina Shenvi, MD PhD|2020-01-03T00:11:34-08:00Aug 21, 2018|Book Club, TLDR|

TLDR Book Review: The Culture Code – The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups

TLDR Book Review: Deep Work – Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

TLDR Book Review: Switch – How to Change Things When Change is Hard

TLDR Book Review: “Talk Like TED”

TLDR Book Review: “make it stick: The Science of Successful Learning”