Scholarly Review - West Texas A&M University | WTAMU



Scholarly Review of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel PinkByByron May, Justin Richardson, Teri Mora, Bethany Davis, and Angelica Okamoto, Ed.D. candidates at WTAMUand edited by JoAnn Franklin Klinker, Ph.D.In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, best-selling author Daniel H. Pink (2018) examines 700+ studies from across different fields to uncover a science of timing and to create a compelling case for refocusing our daily lives. Over the years, Pink has covered a tremendous amount of ground in behavioral science, social science, and psychology— from motivation theories to analysis of shifts in the world’s labor markets. When asked about his work, and what genre he feels he fits, Pink hints at why he wrote When as a science book that is practical.I’ll read a book about ideas, and I’ll pause and think, ‘What should I do about it?’ Then the book will end. Then on the other hand, [there are] books that tell you what to do— purely self-help and self-improvement…[I] want to marry the two. You want books that are well researched, built on evidence and rigorous journalism, that convey big ideas, but you also want to give people some things to do. The takeaways help people understand ideas, and the ideas help people put in place the takeaways. (Harris, 2018)Pink’s writing style makes When comprehensible even for busy professionals, but those takeaways at the end of each chapter provide meaningful tips and tricks for applying the answers on a daily basis that are useful for academic, professional, and personal consideration and application. That combination of research, relatable anecdotal examples, and the sensible strategies for implementation achieve Pink’s goal. When is a book that conveys big ideas plus what to do with those ideas. Pink effectively argues that if we can figure out how hidden patterns affect our decision making, we can avoid disastrous mistakes and accomplish and influence far more than what we do now. Few of us understand that the majority of humans are at their best in the morning, and that in the trough of the afternoon, when that powerful, invisible, daily oscillation of positive mood plummets, they are at greater risk of making mistakes. This trough is followed by a rebound in the early evening as positive mood rises. Numerous studies of blunders in decision making in hospitals, manufacturing, schools, and from the captain of the Lusitania illustrate that the “trough . . . is more dangerous than most of us realize” (p. 35).Pink slots humans into three chronotypes—larks, owls, and third birds—as an easy tool for remembering. Larks peak in the early morning; owls peak in the evening; and third birds, which is where the majority of humans cluster, peak in the morning, plummet in the afternoon, and rebound in the early evening. But because this is a book of ideas and self-help, he includes at the end of each chapter how decision makers can compensate. For example, Pink suggests if you are an owl at an early morning meeting, make a list the night before of what you will need in the morning, take a quick walk before the meeting to invigorate yourself, and repeat any questions that are asked of you before you answer them. These surprising, but relatable examples support his argument that effective and informed time utilization matters significantly. The way we plan and carry out our daily responsibilities influences matters outside of our own agenda. We are creatures of habit, often following the same routine day in and day out; therefore, awareness of such routines and habits is essential to uncovering the perfect timing for making important decisions. Pink also emphasizes that while patterns can be learned and understood, there must also be a realization that emotional and circadian patterns may change for individuals in various seasons of life. For example, beginnings matter. Midpoints can make us nose dive or jump. As for endings, those are the times that we ditch nonessentials in our search for meaning. We “edit our friends” (p. 157) as we age, but we also engage in this socioemotional selectivity in our final year of college or when we take a new job. Why? Because in the end, in that moment of transition to something new, “we seek meaning” (p. 164). Now, whether we are on this ride alone or together makes a difference as well. Synching with others creates a group synergy; when we feel good in one area, we tend to do well in other areas. Working in groups influences timing. Understanding our chronotype (lark, owl, third bird), that beginnings matter, that restorative time can help us rebound from a beginning that has not gone well, that midpoints can unravel us, and that we prefer endings that elevate us can lead to more successes throughout the day and eventually, throughout life. As Pink says time and time again in this book, “I used to believe that timing was everything. Now I believe that everything is timing” (p. 218).For the rural school leader, whether a principal or superintendent or a dean or department head at a community college, this book offers insight into how to improve, as well as the research from which that data stems. For example, there is much helpful analytical and practical guidance to the educational processes within the text, specifically relating to learning and assessment. One such example described is the standardized testing disparity of Danish school children according to morning versus afternoon testing. Students tested in the earlier hours of the day performed at a higher level than those who were tested during what Pink refers to as an afternoon slump. This raises many issues for consideration related to not only the scheduling of assessments, but also the scheduling of lecture hours, writing, and other areas. In a similar fashion, it raises questions about the effectiveness of longer school days, time of day scheduling for types of coursework which demand different cognitive processes, and much more. Pink suggests immediate pragmatic solutions and habits, but also brings to the forefront an awareness of the need for further research on time of day and various forms of delivery of curriculum to those whose chronotype are different—those larks, owls, and third birds that populate classrooms. Thus, Pink addresses a hole in the research of decision making and learning. Kahneman (2011) wanted to enrich the vocabulary of decision making with his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, and that is how various heuristics and biases made their way into common language. Gazzerley and Rosen (2016) focused on the distracted mind and how the executive control centers in the brain impact decision making. That ability to cope with the noise of distractability may prove to be a trait for rural school leaders. Wang (2018) discussed the top 20 framing concepts that comprise research in educational leadership and neither emotion nor decision making made the top 20 nor did the science of learning that Myran and Sutherland (2018) believe should drive the decisions made by administrators. Within the field itself, rational decision making is prized despite the evidence that Kahneman provides which shows that the human mind is incapable of rational decision making and that emotion and decision are inevitably linked. Yet, none of these researchers mentioned the powerful daily oscillation of positive mood, its effect on decision making especially in the trough, and the immense amount of research that indicates decision making can suffer because humans are influenced by how they divide their day and organize their routines.Daniel Pink is the author of six books, with When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing the most recent. He is the former speechwriter for U.S. Vice President Al Gore and was host and co-executive produce of Crowd Control, a National Geographic television series about human behavior. His work is considered transformative in the business world as he is one of the world’s leading and most innovative business minds. According to his website he was named by Thinkers 50 as one of the top 15 business thinkers worldwide and his TED Talk on motivation is one the 10 most-watched TED Talks of all time. He is a recognized expert on the science of motivation and the science of timing, both of which he brings together in this book to expound on the theory that the when is just as important as the why and the what of decision making.Daniel Pink’s strength is the crossover appeal he holds between academics and general consumers. This is the single greatest strength of this academic work: that he has found a masterful balance between the head, the research, and the heart, especially in those Time Hacker Handbook sections at the end of each chapter that allow the reader to try on the ideas for size. His writing is engaging, and his illustrations, usually from fascinating real-world examples, like the dabbawalla food delivery service of Mumbai, are quite memorable. The power in his writing, however, is the method he uses to weave an overarching narrative in varying areas of scholarly research. Timing may be as powerful as gravity, but as Pink explains there are guidelines, tips, and interventions you can use to mitigate the damages of that insistent, oscillating pattern of positive emotion. Pink uses extensive outside research to create his narrative. He did not conduct the studies himself, which some consider a limitation as conducting research in one’s area of focus implies expertise. However, as a writer, journalist, and television host, he is not a scholar in profession. In describing the numerous studies used in the book, little attention is given to methodology, potential biases, or limitations, although some studies are discussed in depth. This can be seen as a weakness; however, for someone of Pink’s stature, whose gift is to synthesize large amounts of research and find links that others have overlooked, this distance makes the content more accessible to the common and casual reader, which was his intent. The book is especially attractive to the practitioner scholar, that working administrator who wants to incorporate the latest research but does not have the time to sift through educational journals to find it. However, what is also valuable for the practitioner scholar are those very studies that Pink has referenced, especially those studies that document improvement in children’s test scores when the tips for avoiding the trough are implemented. Leaders, including the ones leading K-12 school districts, will find key takeaways that can be immediately applied to their practice in this when to manual for those who want to reimagine how one spends time. Educators interested in the field of transformational leadership certainly will find this collection to be particularly fruitful. In Pink, they find a like-minded spirit who seeks to challenge the status-quo, encourage creativity, and empower their community to be more effective in their practices—one of the hallmarks of the transformational leadership model (Leithwood & Sun, 2012). Pink casts a wide net from many fields of study, which practitioners should find useful. Timing, that invisible daily oscillation of mood, impacts nearly every decision which faces the 21st century educator.ReferencesGazzaley, A., & Rosen, L. D. (2016). The distracted mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Harris, D. (Producer). (2018, April 8). Ten percent happier [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from , D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.Leithwood, K., & Sun, J. (2012). The nature and effects of transformational school leadership: A meta-analytic review of unpublished research. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(3), 387-423.Myran, S., & Sutherland, I. (2018). Defining learning in educational leadership: Reframing the narrative. Educational Administration Quarterly, 55(4), 657-696.Pink, D.H. (2018). When: The scientific secrets of perfect timing. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.Wang, Y. (2018). The panorama of the last decade’s theoretical grounding of educational leadership research: A concept co-occurrence network analysis. Educational Administration Quarterly, 54(3), 327-365. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download