Emotional intelligence, Kaizen, and Lean UX: recommended books
In recent months I have had the opportunity to read some books. I want to share with you a small review for each one, in case it could help you in choosing your next read.
In a recent study with the best workers from different companies, from entry-level positions to executive positions, the most important factor for good performance was not the IQ, but the emotional intelligence. Of all the competencies required to adequately perform the functions of the jobs, 67% were emotional competencies.
Abundant research shows that emotional skills are susceptible to being learned and perfected throughout life. Daniel Goleman did not invent this term, however, it was first introduced by Wayne Payne and later developed by psychologists Peter Salovey and John D. in the 90s.
However, it was popularized from this best-seller.
The concept that explains the fusion between intellect and emotional instincts: emotional intelligence. Natural instincts and spontaneous impulses deny us the opportunity to apply rational thinking in certain situations.
The book will give us guidelines and provide us with examples to understand to what extent and how we can take control of the emotions we need to reach our goals and improve the relationships around us.
Accounts of psychological experiments will help us understand how our brain works and what we can do to control what we feel and think. Applied in various sectors such as education, health and sentimental partner.
Kaizen, translated from Japanese as “improvement”, is a process of constant and incremental improvement developed with small cumulative steps, which may seem insignificant at first, but which sustained consistently over time can achieve extraordinary results.
The Japanese productivity system is organized around this principle. This philosophy of action therefore has a minimalist background: if we want to achieve something, we maintain the long-term goal, but we focus on the next step to reach it: small, gradual and apparently modest.
Techniques on how to think without awakening emotions of fear that could paralyze or block us (big thoughts of change, big challenges difficult to encompass, etc). Small insignificant changes that easily adapt to our daily habits. Surely, like me, it will make you rectify many of the preconceived ideas of how to achieve your goals, whatever their scope.
Lean UX offers a complete perspective on how the principles of Lean Startup can be applied in a user experience design context, combining them with customers, design thinking and agile software development methodologies.
New techniques and tools to achieve greater collaboration between different departments and faster deliveries. A new approach to user experience development avoiding waste and second phases of improvements that never arrive.
Ideal complement to Lean Startup.
I like how it relates product design, information architecture and usability in the product creation process through minimally viable products and how it addresses the continuous progression of these through research experiments and tests (Create-Measure-Learn).
I have been very interested in concepts such as BDUP (Big Design Up Front) as one of the biggest mistakes of wasting time, collaborative design, prototyping tools and methods of managing assumptions and hypotheses for the solution of needs or problems, the approach of adaptation to work with SCRUM and the advisable changes to implement Lean UX in an organization.