VOICES is about listening. It is easy to hear but difficult to acknowledge the voices around us. We can experience the sounds but not always the meanings. This blog hopes to adjust our collective filters, stimulating questions and promoting conversation about ideas both professional and personal.
The Energy of “Wants” and “Needs”
I need to be on time. I don’t want to be late.
I need a haircut. I want a new look.
I need to read that report. I want to learn.
I need groceries. I want a well-prepared meal.
I need a job. I want a great job.
I need some overtime. I want some time to myself.
I need more business. I want to stretch.
I need someone. I want the one.
Missives
Perceptions rule our judgment. We all shape and reshape information to fit our perceptions in order to have control of our world. If we think something is real, it is so because we act on it as though it were real. Additional information, no matter how credible, rarely corrects misunderstandings. Without identifying and directly addressing the reasons for the misperceptions, conflicting information only deepens current beliefs. Changing perceptions requires empathy and skill.
Noted & Notable
The Art of the Idea: And How it Can Change Your Life.
By John Hunt
John Hunt’s unassuming book is all about how to see, the art of observation and what we gain by taking the time to experience the everyday in new and unexpected ways. This is not a “feel good” book, something left over from the 60s, but a beautifully written and illustrated owner’s manual for our own senses. Instructive? Yes. Inventive and imaginative? For sure. Chapters like Lemmings Have Plans Too and Expediency is Not an Idea are but a few subjects worthy of your time.
A Fine Line: How design strategies are shaping the future of business
By Hartmut Esslinger / founder of Frog Design
After getting past Hartmut Esslinger's (Frog Design) sometimes condescending-sounding manner, he has a great deal to say worth hearing. Filled with process-driven strategies that are almost clairvoyant, reading the book is like hanging on to a bucking bronco. Sony, Apple and Lufthansa did and gained financially and culturally.
Outliers
By Malcolm Gladwell
The latest book from Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink is the best of the three. Outliers focuses on identifying success and failure in all of their forms and conditions. His book is smart, fun and disturbing. Readers will discover that the distance between winners and losers is about 10,000 hours of work plus the luck of circumstances and your birthday. There are several Aha! moments that if applied might change your life.
A Whole New Mind
by Daniel H Pink
Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind, Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future is worth your time. Left-brain skills (logical, analytical, sequential), while still necessary, are becoming a commodity, Pink argues, while right-brain talents (artistic, empathic, more about context than content) will be at a premium in the future. Pink writes with charm and humor about subjects that heretofore were rarely, if ever, charming or funny.
Blue Ocean Strategy
by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant by redefining what you do in ways that separate you from your competitors. While the concepts are sound, knowing the rules doesn’t make you a player. Long-term success is never that easy or more people would be successful.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Most books that have anything to do with economics are either dumbed-down or so full of jargon they read like a text message. This book makes the theoretical tangible by connecting its concepts with real-life events and real people. While there is great deal to question in this book there is also a great deal to consider.
Human Dynamics: A New Framework for Understanding People and Realizing the Potential in Our Organizations
by Dr. Sandra Seagal and David Horne
A fascinating overview of how we function and interact with one another. The work of Dr. Sandra Seagal and David Horne, Human Dynamics offers a “systemic approach to the complexities and wonders of how we process information, learn, communicate, maintain well-being, respond to stress and develop as human beings, both individually and collectively.” These ideas represent the next generation of understanding how relationships of all kinds act and interact with each other. You can’t help but come away with insight. Available at humandynamics.com.
The Tao of Physics
by Fritjof Capra
The Tao of Physics, first published in 1975, explores the parallels between modern physics and Eastern philosophy. This is not the “blocked box” intersection that it might first appear to be. The arguments are well-grounded and support complex, even seemingly conflicting concepts. The real value of this read is the permission it provides to think about familiar subjects in new ways with new and more effective tools for understanding and interpretation.
Unstuck: A Tool for Yourself, Your Team, and Your World
by Keith Yamashita and Sandra Spataro
Unstuck is a quick, interesting read for anyone who wants to motivate themselves or their team through a difficult time, task or transition. Written by Keith Yamashita and Sandra Spataro, Unstuck is full of diagrams and tools that help a reader not only to understand the process but to implement it as well.
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
by Michael Lewis
All evidence to the contrary this book is not about baseball. The book illustrates the futility of attempting to improve the quality of performance of any closed system without the willingness to reexamine how success is measured. Additionally, Lewis contends that by redefining success using new goals with the same data, innovation is inevitable. Money Ball demonstrates that applied creativity can change the whole game.