Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Black Lives, American Love: Essays on Race & Resilience

By Scott J. Pearson | November 7, 2023October 22, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

After the horrific murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the most racially biased US presidential administration in about a century, America faced an uproar on a scale not seen since the 1960s. “A racial reckoning,” boomed the press while corporations funded new efforts for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Astute observers noted that real change would consist not in ephemeral gestures but in lasting structural change. Three years later, the uproar has died down. Some…

The Things We Make: The Unknown History of Invention from Cathedrals to Soda Cans

By Scott J. Pearson | November 5, 2023November 5, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Engineering is a vocation that usually doesn’t get the deep treatment in modern literature. Popular portrayals often play off an inventor’s brilliance and introversion, but don’t poke around in depth about what made an innovation successful. Instead of one distinct epiphany to an individual, inventions often follow a series of efforts by a community. These efforts often include many failures and halted efforts. Society has less tolerance for these difficulties and prefers a story of…

Kids Sports

Raising Empowered Athletes: A Youth Sports Parenting Guide for Raising Happy, Brave & Resilient Kids

By Scott J. Pearson | October 29, 2023October 29, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Youth athletics in America is an ever-evolving landscape. People continue to focus on its educational benefits, whether learning teamwork or getting a college scholarship. However, these competitive foci can also bring out the worst in parenting. Parents often become more drawn into success than their kid-athletes. At the college level, tantalizing new constructs like the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) marketing and the Transfer Portal require wise decision-making to avoid pitfalls. What are kids to…

Biography-Memoir Family Psychology

Words with My Father: A Bipolar Journey Through Turbulent Times

By Scott J. Pearson | October 26, 2023October 26, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Those of us with bipolar disorder understand firsthand the upheavals this mental illness can exert on a life. Before diagnosis, moodiness can lead to a lack of linearity in life. Diagnosis typically only comes after a crisis. Self-awareness can grow after diagnosis, but medications and therapy cannot fully “cure” this disease. Many stories in this genre focus on hardships and a general lack of life control – not exactly fodder for inspiration. Into this millieu,…

Leadership Management-Business Mentoring

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

By Scott J. Pearson | October 24, 2023September 24, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

When approached with an issue, most of us instinctively respond with doling out advice. We assume that people want to use our expertise. However, many of the best leaders have a different response: curiosity about the other person. They ask questions to empower the people around them to make better decisions. After all, the question-askers are the ones closest to the issues, not the one being questioned. In this book, Michael Bungay Stanier seeks to…

Writing-Communication

To Show & To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction

By Scott J. Pearson | October 20, 2023October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Writing about yourself seems like an incredibly easy task at first. Doing so in a way that captures the attention of an audience, however, is in truth quite difficult. Augustine of Hippo wrote his psychologically probing Confessions at the end of the fourth century CE and opened up the world of conveying a message with one’s life story. Ambitious authors have been doing so ever since, and the rate of personal nonfiction writing is only…

Psychology Writing-Communication

Is That Clear? Effective Communication in a Neurodiverse World

By Scott J. Pearson | October 17, 2023October 17, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Neurodiversity is a new term to encompass the many ways different brain makeups impact our ways of being in the world. The word is most heavily used concerning the autism community to refer to different ways of relating. Many with autism express frustration and frank exhaustion with ineffective communication practices. Many of us who don’t have autism can learn a few relatively simple techniques, described in this book, that will enhance our communicative abilities with…

Management-Business Software-Technology

Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

By Scott J. Pearson | October 15, 2023October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Since computers and digital technology have become so ubiquitous in contemporary life, creating good software and technology products has become an important business function. Many (exceeding 50%) technology products fail, despite significant design, engineering, and financial efforts. How can we make this process more efficient and profitable? That’s the job of a relatively new job title: the product manager. In this book, Marty Cagan discusses how to fulfill this role in an organization so that…

Management-Business Psychology

The Motivation to Work by Frederick Herzberg

By Scott J. Pearson | October 14, 2023October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

This classic study from 1959 describes, better than everyone else why modern men work beyond economic subsistence. Because it focuses only on men, it’s limited in a gender-diverse workplace, but because it studies two diverse occupations – accountants and engineers – it remains fairly generalizable. It concludes that the main reason people dislike their workplace is mismanaged environmental factors. But it also concludes that managing environmental factors properly does not positively motivate people to work.…

Management-Business Psychology

A Theory of Human Motivation

By Scott J. Pearson | October 11, 2023October 12, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

This foundational 1943 paper about human motivation and work deserves to be read in its original form, accessible here. Many textbooks provide a good summary of AH Maslow’s theory of human motivation around needs, but Maslow’s original work describes a more complex picture. For example, he does not describe a linear progression as lower needs become met. Instead, he paints a picture where multiple motivations often play off each other, where higher motives mingle with…