Commons theory + evolutionary theory + mindfulness
4 stars
This is a book about working in groups, and while the target audience seem to be companies most of the content is transferrable to non-profits or anti-profits.
The 3 co-authors are all guys with PhDs, psychologists. Hayes seems to be one of the main people behind Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which seems to be the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy + Mindfulness.
The theoretical basis of the book is multi level selection (evolutionary) theory (MLS)+ commons theory. MLS expands Darwin's model of genetic & epigenetic variability, heritability and fitness to include learning & culture. They claim this expanded model accounts for social innovations and that the 'fitness' of humans really can't be accounted for if learning and culture are ignored. Apparently MLS is the mainstream evolutionary theory, so we can all stop straw-manning "hard geneticists" and their "selfish gene".
I skimmed the chapter on commons theory, but I think …
This is a book about working in groups, and while the target audience seem to be companies most of the content is transferrable to non-profits or anti-profits.
The 3 co-authors are all guys with PhDs, psychologists. Hayes seems to be one of the main people behind Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which seems to be the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy + Mindfulness.
The theoretical basis of the book is multi level selection (evolutionary) theory (MLS)+ commons theory. MLS expands Darwin's model of genetic & epigenetic variability, heritability and fitness to include learning & culture. They claim this expanded model accounts for social innovations and that the 'fitness' of humans really can't be accounted for if learning and culture are ignored. Apparently MLS is the mainstream evolutionary theory, so we can all stop straw-manning "hard geneticists" and their "selfish gene".
I skimmed the chapter on commons theory, but I think they did a good job for people new to it. They reformulated Ostrom's 8 principles in a convincing and accessible way.
The chapter on the evolution of learning was quite interesting from habituation, to classical condition, to social learning (e.g. mimicry), to operant conditioning, to symbolic learning. Not very detailed, but stands out as being the clearest I've heard the differences being described.
The second part of the book, the larger half, was less interesting. Here the authors go through their reformulations of the commons principles and how they apply to groups. The anecdotes and experiences are interesting, and there are some practical tips in there. However it's pretty dry... professional I guess. It feels steeped in Capitalist Realism — see book of same name by Mark Fisher. And they have this 4-quadrant matrix thing that they claim solves everything, and refer to the Prosocial method a lot ("Prosocial" appears over 300 times in the book!) which gives a strong taste of trying to establish a brand.
I recommend the first part (4 chapters on theory) but can't really recommend the second part.