Let’s Talk
Make effective feedback your superpower

Portfolio / Penguin Random House (January, 2021)

A game-changing guide for managers who want to give great feedback.

 
 
ThereseHuston_LetsTalk.jpg
 
Book - Let’s Talk

"Giving great feedback--whether recognition, coaching or evaluation--is a game-changer when it comes to helping each other do our best work. We know that. And yet, it's incredibly difficult to do it well, in a way that's useful, fair, and strengthen relationships. Let's Talk breaks down giving feedback with the latest research, relevant stories, and actionable frameworks that we can all apply to turn feedback into a personal superpower."

— Julie Zhuo, bestselling author, Making of a Manager

"Imagine being known as the person who makes those around them both successful and happy. Mastering how to give good feedback is essential. This book helps you navigate through the competing theories to become a feedback-giving maestro."

— Michael Bungay Stanier, best-selling author of The Coaching Habit

"It's easy to go your whole career giving well-intentioned but useless feedback. This brilliant book identifies the most common mistakes managers make with surgical precision, and empowers you with ninja listening skills, emotional management techniques, and whip-smart scripts to create real behavior change and lasting trust."

— Nir Eyal, bestselling author, Hooked and Indistractable

"If you've ever been afraid to deliver constructive criticism, this book is for you. It's full of practical examples and tactical tips to show you how to become an expert on giving feedback that works, and the type of leader that everyone will want to follow."

— Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy, bestselling authors, No Hard Feelings

"Therese Huston delivers a pep talk, toolkit, and decoding of employee behavior, all in one. Using both stories and science, she leaves us wiser, braver, fairer, and better. This book is a gift that belongs within arm's reach of every manager at all times."

— Dolly Chugh, author, The Person You Mean to Be and Associate Professor at NYU Stern

"Let’s Talk belongs in the hands of every supervisor who wants to give effective feedback. Full of practical suggestions undergirded by workplace research, this user-friendly guide will give you the tools you need to bring out the best in the people you work with. Highly recommended!"

— Beverly Daniel Tatum, bestselling author, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Other Conversations About Race

“I was impressed by Let’s Talk’s treatment of unconscious bias. The recommended practices allow managers to bypass influences of gender stereotypes that hinder the careers of strong women.”

— Anthony Greenwald, bestselling co-author, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People

"Rarely does an author make research so readable--and enjoyably instructive! You'll learn more about how you give feedback now versus how you can get better at it, engaging with people of all kinds. Therese's structure, descriptions, practices, and nuanced stories covering sensitive situations achieve something rare for a management book--entertainment, education, and humanity rolled into one."

— Joanna Barsh, bestselling author, How Remarkable Women Lead and Grow Wherever You Work

There’s a real feedback mismatch at work.  Recent studies reveal 44% of managers dread giving feedback and would rather not give it, while 65% of employees wish their managers gave feedback more often, not less.  But all too often, when managers fear they’ll hurt someone’s feelings, they bite back valuable insights. Or they rehearse feedback conversations obsessively in advance--only to find it still doesn't go as planned.

It’s a missed opportunity.  When critical feedback is delivered skillfully, it’s a game-changer.  Feedback can turn average performers into the hardest workers and stars into superstars.

Let’s Talk can elevate your feedback conversations and make you the kind of manager you wish to be.  If you’re a manager with a team of two or twenty, you’ll gather the insights you need to turn your next one-on-one into the most insightful and productive exchange you’ve had this quarter.  Brimming with eye-opening stories, thoughtful research, and sample conversations, Let’s Talk gives you the strategies you’re seeking.

This handbook will make a once-awkward chore feel natural, and, by greasing the wheels of regular feedback conversations, help you improve performance, trust, and mutual understanding.  You just found your next superpower.

 

How Women Decide
What’s true, what’s not, and what strategies spark the best choices

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2016)

An insightful playbook for women who want to make smarter choices in a world that still asks if we should really let men make the tough calls. 

 
 
Huston_HowWomenDecide_yellow.png
 
Book - How Women Decide

“One could imagine it becoming required reading on Wall Street.”

—New York Times Book Review

“An authoritative guide to help women navigate the workplace and their everyday life with greater success and impact.”

—Forbes

“Huston shows us convincingly and compellingly that women’s decisions are viewed and judged differently than men’s. I thought I had read everything I needed to read on gender differences, but, as a CEO, this book showed me a new and critically important area in which we need to be very aware of our biases and take the steps Huston recommends to address them.”

—Anne-Marie Slaughter, bestselling author, Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family and President and CEO of New America

“Finally! A well-researched book that affirms the fact that, despite their self-doubts, women make great decision-makers. This book will help you to compete with your male counterparts with courage and confidence.”

—Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D., author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office and See Jane Lead

“If you’re a woman, read it. If you’re a man, read it…Sometimes a book tells you something you really needed to know, whether you realised it or not, and How Women Decide is one of those books”

—The National

“How Women Decide blows up several myths about female decision-making that everyone believes, women included. Through thoughtful analysis and lively, entertaining anecdotes, it teaches us what's really happening—how bias works. Every woman needs to read this well-researched and wonderfully reported book.”

—Joanna Barsh, bestselling author of How Remarkable Women Lead and Centered Leadership

“Contains advice for everyone.”

—Financial Times

Every day, employees face an increasing number of hard decisions at work. Should I point out a problem or stay quiet? What should our team’s strategy be given COVID-19 and this economy? Our success depends not just on the outcomes of our decisions, but on how we handle making hard choices and the serious scrutiny that comes with them.

But is a woman’s experience issuing a tough call any different from a man’s?

Absolutely. From start to finish.

Men and women approach decisions differently, though not necessarily in the ways we expect. Stress? It actually makes women more focused. Confidence? A healthy dose of self-questioning leads to much stronger decisions. And despite popular misconceptions, women are just as decisive as men—though they may pay a price for it.

How Women Decide shatters myths about gender and decision-making. It delivers lively, engaging stories of real women and their experiences, as well as expert, accessible analysis of what the science has to say. This timely book opens up a conversation about how we can best shape our habits, perceptions, and strategies, so that we can reshape our culture and bring out the best decisions—regardless of who’s making them.

 

Teaching What You Don’t Know

Harvard University Press (2012)

A confidence-builder and strategy guide for anyone who has to stand up in front of a class and teach a topic for the first time.

 
 
teaching-what-you-dont-know.png
 
Book - Testimonials

“This is one of the best books I've read on university teaching and learning in a long time. It addresses an issue that's seldom discussed, in a book that's both carefully researched and wonderfully sparkling in style. The author makes a strong case that teaching outside your area of expertise is a serious and extensive problem, and she offers some highly practical advice about how to meet the challenges.”

― Ken Bain, author of What the Best College Teachers Do

“Have you ever been asked to deliver a lecture at short notice on a topic that is outside your comfort zone? ...If so, read this book. In fact, ever found yourself wondering how you could improve your teaching, even of topics well within your expertise? Again, if so, read this book.”

― Celia Popovic, Innovations in Education and Teaching International

“Moving behind the reassuring public image of professorial expertise, Huston exposes a growing but still largely hidden academic reality: university teachers―sometimes even full professors―teaching outside of their field. Interviews with dozens of university faculty convincingly establish the prevalence of the practice and clarify the institutional reasons that it will likely increase in the years ahead.”

― Bryce Christensen, Booklist

Your graduate work was on bacterial evolution, but now you’re lecturing to 200 freshmen on primate social life. You’ve taught Kant for twenty years, but now you’re team-teaching a brand new course on “Ethics in a Global Pandemic.” Everyone in academia knows it and no one likes to admit it: faculty often have to teach courses in areas they don’t know very well. The challenges are even greater when students don’t share your cultural background, lifestyle, or assumptions about how to behave in a classroom.

In this practical and funny book, Therese Huston offers many creative strategies for dealing with typical problems. How can you prepare most efficiently for a new course in a new area? How do you look credible? And what do you do when you don’t have a clue how to answer a question?

Encouraging faculty to think of themselves as learners rather than as experts, Huston points out that authority in the classroom doesn’t come only, or even mostly, from perfect knowledge. She offers tips for introducing new topics in a lively style, for gauging students’ understanding, for reaching unresponsive students, and -yes- for dealing with those impossible questions.Original, useful, and hopeful, this book reminds you that teaching what you don’t know, to students whom you may not understand, is not just a job. It’s an adventure.