Skip to main content

Vital Friends- A Book Review by Sutton

Vital Friends:                             


 The People You Can't

Afford to Live Without  


By Tom Rath

Reviewed by

   Geoffrey W. Sutton







Events like Covid-19, severe illnesses, and disasters remind us of the importance of friends.

 

Weaving together stories, historical examples, published research, and survey data, Rath makes the case for the importance of close friends (i,e, Vital Friends) to life-satisfaction and productivity. The author organized 14 chapters into four parts. Four appendixes, research notes, suggested reading, and acknowledgments complete this easy-to-read paperback.

 

In the six chapters that comprise part one, we learn Rath's point that our culture may have focused too heavily on personal growth to the exclusion of developing relationships with others. In addition to examples from daily life, Rath invokes the research of Gottman to show the importance of positive interactions to marital and individual well-being.

 

The three chapters of part two focus on the importance of friendships at work. In contrast to companies that discourage friendships on the job, Rath points to research demonstrating the value of friendships to employees and ultimately to productivity. Among other findings, those having a best friend at work "are significantly more likely to engage customers, get more done in less time, and have a safe workplace with fewer accidents… (p. 53)." 


If one friend is good, how many friends are enough? Rath reports that a "three-friend threshold" maximizes life satisfaction.

 

Readers will find practical applications in part three. Chapter 11 describes eight vital roles that friends can play in a relationship. The reader's task is to use the examples and descriptions to identify these varied roles and find ways to enhance the strengths that others bring to the relationship. Finally, part four consists of a potpourri of suggestions to develop friendships at work including ideas on arranging the environment to encourage discourse and a reminder that people need to be appreciated in order to be engaged at work.

 

Readers who want practical suggestions will find more information in the Q and A motif of Appendix A and the case study in Appendix B, Those looking for research support will find useful information in the technical report in Appendix C, The research team of Harter and Hodges provides respondent data along with various analyses of their 65-item friend assessment form, including internal consistency values (coefficient alpha .79 to .92) and the results of a factor analysis used to support the eight vital roles described in chapter 11. Appendix D contains data on Gallup Polls about friendships and related values. In addition to endnotes and recommended readings, readers will find a code permitting them to take the friend assessment online.

 

Overall, I find Vital Friends well-suited to the educated reader who holds a leadership role in

any organization, I am impressed by Rath's ability to take a research study, combine it with related research, and write a book based on what a psychology journal might call Research into Practice.

 

Researchers may wish to examine the supporting evidence and conduct follow-up research. Clinicians may find the book useful for clients who need to develop and enhance healthy interpersonal relationships. Finally, I think the book would be useful to those adding executive coaching to a counseling or consulting practice.


Disclosure: I received my copy at a Gallup meeting in Omaha.


Links to Connections

My Page    www.suttong.com

  

My Books  AMAZON          and             GOOGLE STORE

 

FOLLOW   FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton

 

PINTEREST  www.pinterest.com/GeoffWSutton

 

Articles: Academia   Geoff W Sutton   ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Denial of Death and the Meaningful Life- Book Review

  The Denial of Death   by Ernest Becker A Review by Geoffrey W. Sutton The prospect of death, Dr. Johnson said, wonderfully concentrates the mind. The main thesis of this book is that it does much more than that: the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity—activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.  — Ernest Becker, xvii I completed a recent reading of this old classic yesterday (13 December, 2015) because I was interested in Becker’s contribution to Terror Management Theory, which I find so helpful in understanding the ways U.S. leaders are publicly responding to terrorist activities. Becker’s ideas are more than forty years old and many have not withstood the test of time. However, his basic premise that we deny the reality of death in many ways remains valid

A Christmas Carol offers lessons in Psychology and Faith A Book Review

A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens A Review by Geoffrey W. Sutton My copy of A Christmas Carol was a gift on Christmas day, 1963. Two Christmases before I had walked the cold, fog-laden, smog drenched streets of Old London with my dad whilst my mother visited with her family. It was a grey day and a grey week. We took turns warming parts of our body by fireplaces here and there. After five years in the U.S. we had returned home to London on the occasion of my maternal grandmother’s death.  Dickens’ story paints a familiar tale textured by my early memories and enriched today by having watched my favourite rendition of A Christmas Carol ( 1984 ) with my wife on Christmas eve. My interest in reviewing the book is not just for a pleasant walk about the old streets of London but I'm motivated by a sense of appreciation for the poetic and colourful artistry with which Dickens plumbs the hopes and fears of humanity. So, follow

WILLPOWER Setting & Reaching Goals- Book Review by Sutton

WILLPOWER Rediscovering the Greatest    Human Strength By Roy Baumeister & John Tierney Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton I go to a gym, which is crowded in January. Regulars know the early Happy-New-Year commitments to fitness will weaken sometime in February. Roy Baumeister has spent a good part of his career studying self-control. His book, Willpower   written with Tierney,  entertains and informs us with an organized set of findings explaining factors that influence self-control. Two critical factors weaken our judgments: food and sleep. We need glucose and sleep to be at our best when it comes to making wise decisions and marking progress toward our goals. A pretty woman can loosen a man’s grip on his career--we hear these news stories from time to time as one political group takes aim at each other's leaders--men who failed at sexual self-control and sadly blame women for their lack of self-control. Fat shaming happens. T