You can’t judge a book by its cover…nor its catchy name. I should have been wary when one of the comments on the book cover was from Stephen Hawking who said that it was “A wonderfully readable guide.” I admit to being intrigued by learning “how randomness rules our lives” as the subtitle of The Drunkard’s Walk
Mlodinow explains why screaming at someone who screws up seems to work while praising someone’s outstanding efforts often results in a poorer performance the next time. His example centers around how military flight instructors treat their pupils. One screws up during a flight and is reamed only to redeem himself on the next flight while his colleague does great and receives praise only to do poorly the next time.
The theory is that the student who did poorly probably had a bad day and performed below the norm while the other student had a great day and performed above his norm. One got screamed at while the other got praise. The next time out they both performed normally. For the “poor performer” this meant an improvement hence the belief by the instructors that screaming works while the “good performer” did worse adding fuel to the belief that praise does not work.
His assertion is that neither strategy would have made any difference. This makes a lot of sense though probably not a theory ready to be adopted by military trainers (or the nuns I experienced in Catholic schools). Mlodinow also had an interesting discussion explaining the strategy behind picking the three doors in Let’s Make a Deal. You’ll have to read the book to learn about that one.
Unfortunately for me those highlights came early and the book got sadly unreadable (sorry to disagree with Mr. Hawking). I tried and tried and tried to get through it, but alas I failed. I believe that this is only the third book in my life that I gave up on and I love statistics. My son had borrowed the book earlier so I asked him what he thought. He had not finished it either.
Great title, great cover, however the stuff in between left me walking away!
