The Power of the Other: The startling effect other people have on you, from the boardroom to the bedroom and beyond-and what to do about it

by Henry Cloud

First, the science of feedback tells us that it is crucial to performance. Without it, you cannot achieve new levels of performance, much less get past a current limit. You must know how you are doing in order to get better. One of my favorite works of performance research is Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper & Row, 1990), by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who points out that the best zones of performance occur when there is immediate feedback. Rock climbers, for example, get this. They know very quickly how well what they are doing is working—maybe too quickly! Do something that works, you stay on the wall. Do something that doesn’t, you feel a quick drop—hopefully not too far.