On The Bookshelf #14

Tom Peters has a selection of recommended titles about the skill of listening in his fantastic book (that I have mentioned here before): The Little BIG Things – 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence.

Here are four of them:

Listening Leaders: The Ten Golden Rules to Listen, Lead & Succeed by Lyman Steil and Richard Bommelje

The Zen of Listening by Rebecca Shafir

Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask by Michael Marquardt

Listening: the Forgotten Skill by Madelyn Burley-Allen

On The Bookshelf #13

Moonwalking with Einstein: the Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

—  ‘I learned something remarkable: that there's far more potential in our minds than we often give them credit for. I'm not just talking about the fact that it's possible to memorize lots of information using memory techniques. I'm talking about a lesson that is more general, and in a way much bigger: that it's possible, with training and hard work, to teach oneself to do something that might seem really difficult.’ Foer

This is a new release that has my attention and is on my list. I particularly like his inclusion of dealing with what he calls the ‘OK Plateau’:

‘The OK Plateau is that place we all get to where we just stop getting better at something. Take typing, for example. You might type and type and type all day long, but once you reach a certain level, you just never get appreciably faster at it. That's because it's become automatic. You've moved it to the back of your mind's filing cabinet. If you want to become a faster typer, it's possible, of course. But you've got to bring the task back under your conscious control. You've got to push yourself past where you're comfortable. You have to watch yourself fail and learn from your mistakes. That's the way to get better at anything. And it's how I improved my memory.’

On The Bookshelf #12

Bendable Learnings – by Don Watson

‘ The disease may not yet have run its course, but Watson’s acerbic wit restores hope in the power of well-chosen words to entertain and to inspire.’

This is Don Watson’s third book on the subject of tortured language after Death Sentence and Weasel Words – and now just go buy it.

Watson advises to read this one aloud and do the exercises. For example, first this quote from Professor Jeanette Ward, former area director, NSW Health:

‘I can’t even begin to tell you how empowered I am now after our coaching. I’m spending two-thirds of my week building relationships.’

And then the exercise:

What is Professor Ward actually doing?

;-)

On The Bookshelf #11

The Kings’ Speech

You just knew I was going to love the film, right? It is deeply moving and very real. And that’s because this story of two ordinary and yet extraordinary men speaks to all of us in that quiet place, the place where we fear we don't have the right to be heard and the place where we have a deep desire to be acknowledged.

The book, same name, is written by Lionel Logue’s son and based on Logue’s recently discovered diaries from the time.

To be honest, if I start talking about this in much detail, I probably couldn’t stop. There is so much that is relevant to our work. And so much that resonates with me as someone who works closely with people in positions of influence to be better writers and speakers.

[The work I do with individuals around improving how they speak, present and lead meetings is intimate and powerful and can have enormous benefits for how they ‘show up’ in all parts of their lives — at work and at home.]

So let me say this: if you enjoyed the film, read the book. Give yourself permission to write in it as if you were having a conversation and underline the bits that jump off the page when you’re reading and really take the story to heart.

Because the messages that are at its heart are worth embedding in our brains over and over.

We are all flawed. We are all great.
Faith, trust, ongoing support and connection are key.



On the Bookshelf #10

1. The Same River Twice – Honouring the Difficult by Alice Walker

‘ . . . offers a rich opportunity to understand how an artist may operate in and engage the popular culture, and a candid look at some of the pleasures and the costs.’

— The full title of this book adds: A Meditation of Life, Spirit, Art, and the Making of the Film The Colour Purple Ten Years Later. The actual title is veiled in irony. It echoes Heraclitus’ time-honoured observation that you cannot step into the same river twice. Think about it. It’s a beautiful analogy. This book is now 14 years old and my copy is a first edition hardback that I probably pick up every three or four years and re-read. So the state the title evokes also works  for the reader. It is always fascinating (for the ‘magic’ of the filming process with Spielberg & Quincy Jones); always personal (her candid notes from her on-set diary); always illuminating (her original screenplay for the film that was never used); always surprising (how the writer of such a deeply moving Pulitzer prize-winning novel can also have been so vilified by many in the African-American community). Yet I understand more with each read and learn something new about myself and where I am in my own life at the time.

2. Seeing Further: the Story of Science & the Royal Society edited by Bill Bryson

‘ An inspiring celebration of Science past, present and future' – Melvyn Bragg.

— This book is FANTASTIC! I picked it up a couple of months ago and ‘had to buy it’. It is full of the most interesting essays (and illustrations from the Royal Society’s archives). I’m reading an essay about once a fortnight, which is enough for me because frankly some of the ideas bend my brain. It also means I can savour this for longer. The essays are written by some well known authors and scientists (Margaret Attwood, Neal Stephenson, Richard Dawkins) and some not. The subjects covered range from the Society itself; the work of individuals such as Darwin and Newton; the notion of mad scientists; splitting atoms; biodiversity — as the book jacket says, it is a lively and learned celebration of Big Ideas.