Devora Zack Book order

On the famed Myers-Briggs personality scale, Thinkers are guided by objective principles and impersonal facts and Feelers put more weight on personal concerns and the people involved. This simple distinction lays the groundwork for the profoundly different ways that individuals make sense of and engage in both the workplace and the world. Devora Zack argues the best use of our energy is to focus on our own reactions and perceptions rather than trying to fix or change others. Zack guides readers to channel their emotions and successfully connect with those on the other side, both inside and outside of the workplace. Print run 10,000

Would you rather get a root canal than schmooze with a bunch of strangers? Does the phrase “working a room” make you want to retreat to yours? Is small talk a big problem? Devora Zack used to be just like you—in fact, she still is. But she’s also a successful consultant who addresses thousands of people each year, and she didn’t change her personality to do it. Quite the contrary. Zack politely examines and then smashes to tiny fragments the “dusty old rules” of standard networking advice. You don’t have to become a backslapping extrovert or even learn how to fake it. Incredible as it seems, the very traits that make you hate networking can be harnessed to forge an approach even more effective than traditional techniques. It’s a different kind of networking—and it works. Networking enables you to accomplish the goals that are most important to you. But you can’t adopt a style that isn’t true to who you are. “I have never met a person who did not benefit tremendously from learning how to network—on his or her own terms,” Zack writes. “You do not succeed by denying your natural temperament; you succeed by working with your strengths.”

Your Mind Can’t Be Two Places at Once Too many of us have become addicted to the popular, enticing, dangerously misleading drug of multitasking. Devora Zack was once hooked herself. But she beat it and became more efficient, and you can too. Zack marshals convincing neuroscientific evidence to prove that you really can’t do more by trying to tackle several things at once—it’s an illusion. There is a better way to deal with all the information and interruptions that bombard us today. Singletasking explains exactly how to clear and calm your mind, arrange your schedule and environment, and gently yet firmly manage the expectations of people around you so that you can accomplish a succession of tasks, one by one—and be infinitely more productive. Singletasking is the secret to success and sanity.

Devora Zack, an avowed introvert and a successful consultant who speaks to thousands of people every year, found that most networking advice books assume that to succeed you have to become an extrovert. Or at least learn how to fake it. Not at all. There is another way. This book shatters stereotypes about people who dislike networking. They're not shy or misanthropic. Rather, they tend to be reflective—they think before they talk. They focus intensely on a few things rather than broadly on a lot of things. And they need time alone to recharge. Because they've been told networking is all about small talk, big numbers and constant contact, they assume it's not for them. But it is! Zack politely examines and then smashes to tiny fragments the "dusty old rules" of standard networking advice. She shows how the very traits that ordinarily make people networking-averse can be harnessed to forge an approach that is just as effective as more traditional approaches, if not better. And she applies it to all kinds of situations, not just formal networking events. After all, as she says, life is just one big networking opportunity?a notion readers can now embrace.