by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke

Why is it that your high IQ, years of university studies, and your unique, innovative ideas are not enough to make you feel comfortable and valued in your workplace?  Do you feel like an awkward stranger around the staff water cooler? You yearn to feel connected to a friend, a group or your co-workers but you have trouble fitting in and getting along.  Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke must know about you because they have teamed up and written just the guide-book that will open up your social radar system to figure out your own emotions and other people’s emotions too. Social Thinking at Work: Why Should I Care? A Guidebook for Understanding and Navigating the Social Complexities of the Workplace will not only explain the challenges some have to perceive and respond to other’s emotions but will also give you the Social Smarts to do the “expected” to make others and yourself feel better and accepted.

What is Social Thinking?

Social thinking is a way to train your brain to help you figure out the people around you.  The authors explain further, ” The thinking part of this process is what we call social thinking; the behaviors you use to convey your message are what people refer to as social skills.”

What is preventing you from achieving the success and validation you crave? Does everyone feel this way? No. Individuals with social-cognitive challenges must learn the why and the how of their own and others’ abilities to process social information. For most people, this is intuitive; they are born with this sense that allows them to be naturally aware of social expectations but for individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA), Asperger’s, ADHD, and many undiagnosed individuals, this has to be taught explicitly.  Even very young, neurotypical children can read the message in their mother’s eyes or on her face and know when she is pleased, angry and even sad.

To write this book, the authors pooled their years of experience based on their clinical experience working with very high functioning adults who have social learning challenges at their Social Thinking Center in San Jose, California. Their goal as stated in their introduction is “…to make information explicit by breaking down and defining how the social mind works, and how it is linked to socio-emotional and behavioral expectations… After reading this book, you’ll never think about making small talk or presenting your ideas in a meeting the same way again.”

Who Can Benefit From This Book?

Social Thinking at Work: Why Should I Care? is helpful to all adults in the workplace who wish they could blend in and have a better relationship with the others they meet or work with every day. You will benefit greatly from this book if:

• You are unable to pick up facial or verbal cues.

• You miss subtle behaviours used to convey emotions.

• You struggle to recognize people’s feelings.

• You have problems entering or exiting a group.

• In a group you do not know what to do if you are not talking.

• You do not know how to interpret sarcasm or read between the lines.

• You can’t get people to listen to your ideas.

Social Thinking at Work: Why Should I Care?  is also for parents, educators and service providers to teach the Social Thinking required for the development of real social skills. If your are an employer or work in the Human Relations department for a company, this book will help you understand human behavior and help you be more aware of the different  feelings and needs of some of your employees.

Features of the Book

Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke, both speech language pathologists, are also born teachers. This complex topic is presented very well, with step-by-step advice broken down in manageable increments in an organized manner.

Chapter titles and subtitles are descriptive and help you find the information you are looking for, however, to be used often as a resource book an index would be appreciated.

Each chapter begins with a quote which adds another dimension to their topic. One I liked, “The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them.” ~ Daniel Goleman

What is not easily understood becomes so, by their use of many case studies or true accounts of the people they work with. The case studies also show the reader others make social faux pas and this makes them feel they are not alone in this battle.

For the many visual learners who will be using this book, the authors have equations, bullet point information and numbered lists like the levels of friendship in the workplace, an emotional scale diagram, a problem-solving thermometer, social mapping charts for adults,…

Need a chuckle with such a serious subject? No problem,  Winner and Crooke have seen to that also with their Dilbert comic strips perfectly matched to the contents of the chapter.

Each chapter ends with Points to Consider, a great summary in bullet format to recap what you have learned in the chapter and a great review the next time you pick up the book before you read a new chapter.

As an added bonus, Winner and Crooke have a last chapter entitled Strategies: Tips and Pointers Based on Information in Each Chapter.  The authors have gone over each chapter and they give you tips and pointers how to apply the knowledge you learn in each. You are called to action to bring the desired change to your behavior:

• Begin the process by simply observing your own mind. Recognize that you think about what you are expected to do before you do it,…

• Explore your own social emotional memory system. Observe how it works…

• Observe your own communication style. How good are you at giving feedback by nodding your head in agreement …

• Watch a TV show with the sound turned off to observe how many emotions you can see if you focus on looking at the face…

In the last chapter we read, “Learning social thinking and related social skills begins by becoming more acute observers of the social world and its many entwined expectations. “ Read carefully Social Thinking at Work: Why Should I Care? A Guidebook for Understanding and Navigating the Social Complexities of the Workplace by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke and you will start to understand body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and the information not said. Teamwork, negotiation, corporation, and respect will be easier to achieve and you will learn how to express your thoughts so that your message gets through. Like one of their quote says, “Two monologues do not make a dialogue.” ~ Jeff Daly

About the Authors

Michelle Garcia Winner, MA, CCC-SLP is a Congressional-award winning speech-language pathologist who specializes in treating individuals who are experiencing social and communication problems. She runs a clinic in San Jose, CA, has authored number books and speaks internationally on the Social Thinking treatment approach she developed. She serves on the panel of professional advisers of the Autism Society of America.

Pamela Crooke, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is part of the clinical faculty at San Jose State University and senior therapist at the Social Thinking Center in San Jose, CA. Prior to joining Social Thinking, she conducted research published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders on the effectiveness of the Social Thinking Vocabulary in the teaching of students with high-functioning autism. Dr. Crooke has presented on social thinking and on autism spectrum disorders nationally and internationally.

Buy the  book here and here.

Review of  Socially Curious and Curiously Social: A Social Thinking Guidebook for Bright Teens and Young Adults by Winner and Crooke.

I will soon post the review to another book written by Michelle Garcia Winner and Pamela Crooke, “You are a Social Detective: Explaining Social Thinking to Kids”

Related Reviews

• You are a Social Detective: Explaining Social Thinking to Kids
• Socially Curious and Curiously Social