From the Bookshelf : The Power of Us

I am often asked for book recommendations that help HR professionals to continue to grow and challenge themselves professionally and personally.??This month, I am recommending the new book --???The Power of US?– written by psychologists and neuroscientists??Jay van Bavel??and?Dominic Packer.??The book offers important insights into the process by which social identities are shaped. The broad social and political implications of this research are apparent in today’s complex political context. The critical lessons to be learned for the business are just as essential. These insights can help those of us who work on shaping unified corporate cultures. They also??explain the critical steps to take if we want the employees to develop the shared sense of belonging.??

The Power of US??is the wakeup call for and the antidote from some of the most urgent challenges in organizations today.??Drs. Van Bavel and Packer show how dependent people are on the social context of the communities in which they grow up and live in. They prove that individuals are largely susceptible to the norms, value systems and beliefs of the groups they belong to. They explain how bias is born and why it persists. The authors convincingly prove the destructive power of echo chambers and provide recommendations on how to escape from them. The book also explains how to boost collaboration and enhance productivity at work.?

Here are a few laws of social identity that Jay van Bavel and Dominic Packer outlined in their research, described and explained in?The Power of Us.??

·??????Personality is not a stable, standalone entity.?

·??????Personality is a function of the social world in which it is created

·??????Knowing who you are often means understanding the social context in which you flourish or perish?

·??????Humans are prone to dividing the world into “them” and “Us”?

·??????The Focus on “Us” creates social harmony, alignment, cooperation?

·??????Positioning “us” vs. “them”??can lead to rivalry, discrimination and discord

·??????Leaders who succeed often inspire in their people a shared sense who they are as a community

·??????Members of the same social group celebrate their group’s symbols and often??invest in their group’s identity and culture?

·??????The true self-discovery comes with the learned ability to question the shared perceptions of oneself as a member of a certain group.???

·??????The ability to grow and change the world for the better also comes with one’s ability to take leadership and challenge the received perceptions of the group?

These insights came from many years of research; they are told in the book in a compelling and accessible way.??The intention of the book is to help organizations on their journeys to create inclusive cultures and support their employees’ growth and development.???Supportive cultures help employees to move from wondering “Who am I? “ and “Why am I here?”??to “What do I want to be ?” and “ How do I get there?”??The book is the 21st?century validation of the??17th?century poem by John Donne:??“No man is an island.”???It shows how much of who we are and what we do is the function of our shared human identity. It works for teams for organizations, and for nation states alike.??