Where's the common sense? During the COVID-19 pandemic, the TSA is allowing passengers to board planes with unlimited amounts of hand sanitizer, while maintaining its 3.4-ounce limit on all other liquids. You need a chainsaw to pry open your new pair of headphones from their package. Your eighth Zoom meeting of the day keeps freezing, and if you hear "No, wait; no, you go first" again, you will implode. But first you have to sit through an endless PowerPoint presentation that everyone claims they've read - no one has - that could have been summarized in one page. What has happened to common sense? And how can we get it back? Companies, it seems, have become so entangled in their own internal issues and beset by reams of invisible red tape (and frozen screens) that they've lost sight of their purpose and culture. Inevitably, we pay the price. New York Times best-selling author Martin Lindstrom combines numerous real-life examples of corporate common sense gone wrong with his own ingenious plan for restoring logic - and sanity - to the companies and people who need it most. A must-read for today's executives, managers, and office workers, The Ministry of Common Sense is funny, entertaining, and immensely practical. "Essential reading for all of us who feel bogged down in workplace bureaucracy and wish to improve our quality of life at work." - Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global

A humorous yet practical five-step guide to ridding ourselves-and our companies-of the bureaucratic bottlenecks and red tape that plague every office

How often in your life do you spend time following a rule or a procedure that makes no sense, offers little or no advantage, and slows you down in the process? In a world of work governed by a system of well-intentioned rules, that's something that happens all too often.

In this book Martin Lindstrom - a global leader in branding and expert in organisational culture - takes you behind the scenes at companies which are paralyzed and demoralised by a breakdown in common sense. Lindstrom shares a five-step process for identifying and repairing these lapses, showing that restoring common sense always cuts costs, boosts engagement and increases customer retention.

The stories in THE MINISTRY OF COMMON SENSE are entertaining, troubling, eye-opening and recognisable to anyone who works in or leads an organisation of any size. It's easy to get blinded to problems right in front of you - but setting up your own Ministry of Common Sense will mean less time wasted on unnecessary things, less mistakes and misunderstandings, and a better way of working for all.

The New York Times Bestseller named one of the "Most Important Books of 2016" by Inc, and a Forbes 2016 "Must Read Business Book" 'If you love 'Bones' and 'CSI', this book is your kind of candy' Paco Underhill, author of Why We Buy 'Martin's best book to date. A personal, intuitive, powerful way to look at making an impact with your work' Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow Martin Lindstrom, one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World and a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, harnesses the power of "small data" in his quest to discover the next big thing. In an era where many believe Big Data has rendered human perception and observation 'old-school' or passe, Martin Lindstrom shows that mining and matching technological data with up-close psychological insight creates the ultimate snapshot of who we really are and what we really want. He works like a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, accumulating small clues - the progressively weaker handshakes of Millenials, a notable global decrease in the use of facial powder, a change in how younger consumers approach eating ice cream cones - to help solve a stunningly diverse array of challenges. In Switzerland, a stuffed teddy bear in a teenage girl's bedroom helped revolutionise 1,000 stores - spread across twenty countries - for one of Europe's largest fashion retailers. In Dubai, a distinctive bracelet strung with pearls helped Jenny Craig offset its declining membership in the United States and increase loyalty by 159% in only one year. In China, the look of a car dashboard led to the design of the iRobot, or Roomba, floor cleaner - a great success story. SMALL DATA combines armchair travel with forensic psychology in an interlocking series of international clue-gathering detective stories. It shows Lindstrom using his proprietary CLUES Framework - where big data is merely one part of the overall puzzle - to get radically close to consumers and come up with the counter-intuitive insights that have in some cases helped transform entire industries. SMALL DATA presents a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to create global brands, and reveals surprising and counter-intuitive truths about what connects us all as humans.