As organizations and other groups move forward in a more global economy with a more diverse workforce, they often lose sight of two integral aims - What the organization stands for and how well their members are doing. The motive of profit or other short-term measures can often hide these important values from view. Before long, the group has lost its way and its members and customers begin to drift away from what brought them into the fold. When individual and short-term interests override the group and long-term interests, you get dysfunction, inefficiency, and ultimately poor outcomes.

Prosocial tackles these issues head on and provides a step-by-step guide to meeting the challenges of a new era. Using wisdom derived from evolution, behavior science, and organizational psychology, the authors demonstrate how groups can forge a way forward while staying true to their mission and their members.

Nobel prize winner, Ostrom, showed how successful groups adhered to eight Core Design Principles, such as Shared Identity and Purpose, Fair and Inclusive Decision Making, Authority to self-govern, etc. With a chapter devoted to each design principle, the authors walk us through how to make these a reality within a group. 

One of the barriers that groups often struggle with is a lack of Psychological Flexibility - the ability to recognize what is truly important and act in pursuit of that even in the presence of difficult thoughts and emotions. Through the use of the Matrix, which the book covers, psychological flexibility is made understandable and applicable. The literature on psychological flexibility is vast and shows a significant benefit for human health and functioning in a myriad of settings, including the workplace.

The giant step this book takes is combining the core design principles with psychological flexibility via the Matrix in a ready-to-use package. Drawing on examples from their own experiences in different settings, the authors walk the reader through how to apply their techniques with groups. It is honestly impressive how simply and clearly things are laid out for the practitioner.

This book is essential reading for consultants, coaches, or anyone else who works with groups. It is a guidebook on how to bring groups together and have them work cooperatively for a common purpose with zeal. In these pages, you will learn how to build trust, increase efficiency, improve outcomes, and better the health and profitability of your groups. Highly recommended!

This is a really interesting read for anyone interested in the principles behind working as part of a group. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an egalley.

This was new for me, because I am not well versed with Evolutionary science and the first thing I did as I started reading this book was look up Ostrom's Principles. It's an insightful book especially for anyone working with groups in whichever context- and for me, communities in rural areas.
The book attempts to answer how exactly do you design, build, and sustain effective groups? It's an interesting approach, one that I believe anyone who is new to evolutionary science would find interesting. Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.

** Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review **
Libro muy interesante, para quienes lideren grupos principalmente, pero también para quienes no, ya que es importante formarnos, para poder tener una mejor conciencia de nuestro desempeño en los grupos de los que tomamos parte. Los conceptos están bien explicados, desde los más básicos, y es interesante que ademas de los conceptos teóricos, podamos ver aspectos más prácticos para llevar adelante. Personalmente, me interesa el enfoque empresarial que puede dársele al tema, pero lo bueno es que no se limita a eso.