The Power of Choice summary

In research cited in a 2006 New York Times article, psychologist Anders Ericsson noticed that a large percentage of the world's elite soccer players were born in the first three months of the year. Sound like a coincidence? Ericsson didn’t think so. The cutoff birthdate for youth leagues is usually December 31, he reasoned. So these players are nearly a year older than their peers born late in the year.

Not only are these older players physically more mature, they also benefit from a whole additional year to practice and develop their skills, making them more likely to get selected for the most competitive teams. It goes to show that even something that appears to be a function of natural talent, like world-class soccer proficiency, is driven by practice and effort.

Germaine worked for an insurance company for five years, and she was really good at her job – maybe too good. To meet her manager’s expectations, she often corrected her colleagues’ work. This meant she spent ten hours a day doing largely the same task – for five years.

Then her manager offered her an opportunity to join a team working on a software evaluation. As hard as Germaine strove to expand her professional horizons, she was so busy with her usual workload that she had to decline. 

Eduardo was a young Mexican-American production manager who was offered a promotion and a transfer to Ohio – far away from his tight-knit community of extended family and friends in Texas. 

Six months into the new job, Eduardo found that coworkers were still reserved with him, and he even suspected that some mistrusted him. It was also evident that his was the only Hispanic family in his neighborhood. The more he missed Texas, the more he wondered if the promotion had been a mistake. 

A manager named Darnell found himself stuck squarely in the middle of a contentious disagreement between the manufacturing company he worked for and a longtime supplier. Things got so heated that both parties threatened to call off the relationship – something Darnell believed would be a serious mistake for both sides. 

So he set up a meeting with each party. At both meetings, he articulated how each side was integral to the potential success of the other: Darnell’s company would become the supplier's largest customer, while the supplier had technological capacity that the company lacked. 

A young supervisor in a distribution warehouse was assigned to join a new committee, tasked with improving some of his company's processes. He was about to decline when the author encouraged him to take advantage of the opportunity. Why not look for active ways to participate and be visible?

Taking the author’s advice, the supervisor joined the committee. As he picked up on his colleagues' thoughts, he began to think about solutions to their problems. He proposed one solution during a committee meeting, and later saw a version of it implemented.