Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence

Left brained, right brained. Extroverts, introverts. We have been taught all our lives to divide people by this criterions. If you have ever felt like there's something odd with such categorizations, and wondered what's the drive behind our actions, this will be like finding holy grail. In the beginning, you will read in disbelief that something as simple as prevention/promotion focus can be the driving force behind so many things, but as you continue, you will notice real life examples in the world around you. You will even notice how reactions form in your body, start remembering events from the past when you were "suddenly" highly motivated to "X", then it will start making so much sense that your jaw will drop in realization of the power this knowledge will give you.<br /><br />If you are into self-help, this is the first book you should read.

What we have here is a good, research-backed distinction between two kinds of mindsets--promotion and prevention--spun into a book of excess length. It could have been a 25 page article with little loss in content. <br /><br />If, like me, you're not a person from the middle ages, you'll probably notice that this distinction smacks of well-worn ideas and dichotomies in economics and psychology: loss aversion, risk aversion, the optimism-pessimism spectrum, etc. The fact that these glaring similarities are left unexplored and barely remarked upon is strange indeed.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

Un 3 cu indulgenţă, mi-e greu să cred că după 20 de ani de cercetare DOI oameni au scris această carte care spune, greoi, repetitiv, adesea pueril, ceea ce Carol S. Dweck a realizat şi EXPLICAT extraordinar în cartea "Mindset". Pe scurt, cartea focus împarte oamenii în două categorii (extreme!): cu focus preventiv (un soi de pesimişti, dar nu prea - spun autorii, nu eu) şi cu focus promotor (un fel de optimişti extremi care riscă să greşească la orice pas fiindcă în mintea lor nu există riscuri). În afară de faptul că până şi părtinirea autorilor e clară, singurul lucru util din carte îl reprezintă cele câteva metode de a scrie o reclamă/un anunţ/un text publicitar folosind pe rând cele două tipuri de focus. Sunt sigură însă că poate părea extrem de interesantă, dar nu e cazul, nu după ce citeşti cărţi cu mult mai bine argumentate ştiinţific şi cu studii îndelungate, nu cu idei împrumutate şi răsdovedite. Aşadar, citiţi "Mindset".

Overall a fast and easy read. Describes two ways people can see the world: "prevention-focused" and "promotion-focused". Prevention-focused people try to avoid losses and are motivated by the status-quo and keeping things working unless there is a real, proven reason to change things up. Promotion-focused people are focused on gains, rewards, and benefits, and they're motivated by the possibility of better opportunities around the corner. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, and you can be prevention-focused in some areas and promotion-focused in other areas. <br /><br />The first half of the book describes the two types of focuses, and how they affect all areas of your life - from family, to work, to making purchasing decisions, to interactions with society as a whole. The second half describes ways to determine other peoples' primary way of focusing, and how you can use that knowledge to motivate and influence them (e.g. to buy a product, to make a certain decision, to take a certain action, etc). For example, according to studies that the authors and their colleagues have done, people are more easily persuaded when the message they receive is a good fit for their dominant focus. There are plenty of practical examples throughout, which is great.<br /><br />The only issue I had with this book is that in my opinion, it felt like many of the main points could have been compressed into one or two chapters. A 20-page essay, tops. There just wasn't enough material to fill a 227-page book. The chapters were repetitive, and I kept thinking to myself, "ok, this is great, but it was already discussed in the first chapter. I get it." <br /><br />Despite that, it's still a good read, and provides great insights on understanding yourself and others. I can see myself referring back to it in the future as a reference. Hat tip to my brother for buying me a copy (it was a birthday present).

This book is based on a very simple principle: your dominant focus is either promotion or prevention. Generally, East Asians are prevention focused, as are your other stereotypes: Senior Citizens, accountants, attorneys, engineers, and bureaucrats. Their job is to make sure things don't go wrong and to avoid mistakes. <br /><br />Promotion focused people are generally: Americans, sales/marketing people, entrepreneurs, and Young People. According to her research, most voters are also promotion focused since it requires a "fit" of go out and vote for (ie. promote) a person. A lot of her research is based on studies of messaging fit. For example: "Avoid cancer, don't smoke" vs. "Enjoy life, you are too focused on health to smoke". If you say: "Enjoy life, don't smoke," you are mixing messages and trying to appeal to both types. To say the last phrase another way, you could say: "Don't miss out on life, avoid smoking" to appeal to prevention focused people.<br /><br />The point is to identify the filter people use to sort opportunities and threats and see if their primary motivation is vigilance against a threat or opportunity recognition. An interesting study had researchers test students' dominant focus, then gave them math assignments. They did a control test and both groups did equally well. Then they turned on a TV and told students to try and focus and block out the distraction. Those with a prevention focus did better than the promotion focused subjects. And surprisingly, the prevention focused subjects actually outperformed their own results from the control group! Being vigilant took their game up a notch and helped them find flow.<br /><br />Some people do better with criticism, and some with praise, but much of that is based on having something to lose (eg. experts prefer criticism because they don't want to lose mastery and they are already motivated to correct things).

Taught me the difference between Prevention Focused Vs Promotion Focused people and their different methods in approaching things; optimism Vs defensive pessimism.<br /><br />Loved it because I got to know that not all people get affected by motivational speeches because this speech does not suit their personalities or their "focus" ! :)

<b>“...there are two different and distinct sets of lenses we use to see the world…” p.227</b><br /><br />Focus is a great complement to Halvorson’s 2010 book, Succeed.<br />The opening chapters of Focus touch upon many of the topics of motivation (promotion-focused vs. prevention-focused) that were outlined in Succeed; most likely to build a foundation for those who haven’t had the opportunity to read Succeed. If the first couple of chapters of Focus are a re-hash, then the remaining chapters most certainly are an extension of those ideas. Halvorson and Higgins present cases of motivational fit (and non-fit) from perspectives of: self-assessment, motivating kids &amp; employees, advertising &amp; purchasing, and message delivery, just to name a few. Once you’ve properly identified your audience’s motivational focus, you’ll learn the strategies one needs in order to influence them.

I had a hate-like relationship with the authors perspective on grouping people into two types of motivation orientations, either promotion focused or prevention focused. And he went on emphasizing his point with examples throughout the book, to a point where I was too bored to continue reading.The author put (in my opinion) detailed examples that were a bit repetitive in nature. However, the idea itself, was interesting as unintentionally have I started to notice the motivational focus in those surrounding me.

I enjoyed reading this book. It fits greatly to the other books of Heidi Grant Halvorson and deepens the understanding of focus which is mentioned in her other books as well. I found the book to be quite repetitive, but I think that this does not make the book worse. It’s better to bring the message across too much than too little. It could have been a bit better explained (e.g. prevention focus does not mean that we have to frame things negatively - they still have to be framed positively; the negative outcome is only mentioned as a possibility that can be avoided). Anyway, I love this book as much as I love all other books by the author!

Generally a good book but one of those that I think might better belong in a shorter format (ie it was longer than it needed to be). Granted it was new ground, so setting the scene and some context was necessary. Still it felt like it was one aspect of influence among many, and because the research focused on "framing" it made it seem as if the authors felt it was the most important part of influence among all others (and maybe they did, but I certainly didn't, and still don't).<br /><br />Worth a read if you can get it on loan.<br /><br />Update: A month or so after reading it, I actually came back and increased my rating from 3 to 4, because I realised how much it has influenced my thinking. I was using the concepts even in my conversations with people. My qualms with the book did not go away (it might have been shorter), but it's worth plodding through.