The speed of change is accelerating. It took radio twenty years to attract ten million users; it took television half that time, Netscape only twenty-eight months, Hotmail eighteen and Napster twelve.
– J. Harris in Blindsided
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Free to learn
I recently attended some very different training. I?m used to going to highly technical Java training, to portal seminars and to IT seminars, but over the last couple of years I?ve tried some different stuff.
And it has been great. Not only have I learned stuff that?s way different from what I normally learned, but I?ve also learned something new about learning itself.
How different was this training? Well, I started out with a week-long leadership course. Then a 3-day course in general consulting skills, and a 2-day course in conflict management. Then it got really weird. Over the last 6 months I?ve been to :
* A one-week course in modern dance (yes, the stuff where you roll around on the floor a lot)
* A 1-day course in painting (I painted a still life of a book, a boot and a banana)
* Evening classes in creative writing (I?ve written a great short story)
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Quote
Here’s a nice quote, related to a previous posting.
The seed that is to grow must lose itself as seed.
And they that creep may graduate through chrysalis to wings.
Wilt thou then, O mortal, cling to husks which falsely seem to you the self.– Wu Wei
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Book review: Getting to yes
This is the classic book about negotiating, from way back in 1980. I like the book, because it stresses a positive mode of negotation. A mode that is based on honesty, integrity, fairness and mutual understanding.
The basic view is, that in a negotiation, the two extreme positions are hard and soft. Hard negotiators are adversaries, soft negotiators want to be friends. And between these two poles stands the principled negotiator, who ses himself and the other side as problem solvers. A very constructive view.
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Exercise: Being and becoming
We define ourselves by what we are. This goes for individuals as well as groups of people.
But life is change and learning. Everything is always in flux, is always developing. So shouldn’t you define yourself at least as much by what you’re becoming? I think, that if you derive your identity solely from what you are right now, you’re missing something crucial.
Basing your identity only on what you are right now, may narrow the way you think about the future. In the future you will be changed. You won’t be exactly as you are right now. So if your thinking about yourself is limited to what you are now, it may be difficult to see all the potential the future holds. This might lead to anxiety about the future and change in general.
I’ve come up with an exercise that can shed light on this issue.
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Book review: The fifth miracle
The ultimate question to science must be “how did the universe come to be?”. After that, I think the central question is “How did we come to be?. How did life come to the earth, and how did life create us?”
Science has been working on these questions for a relatively short time. Remember that untill the late 19th. century, most people believed that the universe was static and unchanging. That the way things looked now, was they way they always had looked and always would look. Some scientists clung to a steady-state universe up untill the 1960’s.
The fifth miracle by Paul Davies examines the search for the origin and meaning of life. It is a thorough overview of the scientific theories that are currently being used to explain life on earth.
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An honest company
Imagine a company that practices total, uncompromising honesty in their advertising. If they have a great product they’ll say so. And if they’re trying to sell you something mediocre, they’ll tell you that too. They might actively warn you along the lines of “Don’t expect good service from these people” or “The product here is nothing to write home about”, or even “If you have any complaints talk to Benny. If he breaks down crying, ignore it, it’s just a trick he uses.”
Do you think a company like that could possibly survive?
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More books
I’m almost through with the last batch of books, so I’ve ordered some more. Here’s a list of what I will be enjoying soon:
Business titles:
The Customer Comes Second: Put Your People First and Watch ’em Kick Butt (Revised)
The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning
The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism
Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People
Action Learning: A Practitioner’s Guide
The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-era Organizations
Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination
Freedom and Accountability at Work
Nuts!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal SuccessPsychology:
Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness
Playful Approaches to Serious Problems: Narrative Therapy with Children and Their Families
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence
Loving What Is: How Four Questions Can Change Your LifeAssorted science:
The Web of Life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter
Chaos: Making a New Science
Wittgenstein’s Poker: The Story of a Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers
What Just Happened?Science fiction:
To Hold Infinity
Dark Light: Engines of Light Book 2 (Engines of Light)
Engine City (Engines of Light)
Redemption Ark (Gollancz S.F.)
Misspent Youth
Eight Skilled GentlemenAnd of course some music to listen to while reading:
Serve Chilled Vol.1
Astor Piazzolla & The Golden Age of Tango
Melody A.M.
Another Late Night – Zero 7The order should arrive in a week or so, I can’t wait to get started! Reviews will appear continuously.
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There is no either/or
I’m currently reading Ken Wilbers book No Boundary. The book states, that the boundaries we perceive in the world, are only products of our perception, and not really a part of the world.
Every time we divide the world into us and them, good and evil, right and wrong, guilty and innocent we’re creating divisions in our minds that are not part of the world itself. Thus, we increasingly see the world as it is not – which can hardly be a good thing.
This got me thinking about all the either/or thinking that I do, and that I see in others. And I have yet to find a single example of a valid either/or proposition. Let me explain.
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Book review: The dance of change
Whew!
I’ve finally finished Peter Senge’s trilogy on learning organizations. After The fifth discipline and The fifth discipline fieldbook, comes The dance of change: The Challenges of Sustaining Momentum in a Learning Organisation.
The first book lays the theoretical foundation, and introduces the five disciplines which Peter Senge believes are the key to creating learning organizations. They are personal mastery, systems thinking, shared vision, team learning and mental models. The second book contains practical tips on how to implement each of the five disciplines. By now we’re already past the 1000-page mark.
The dance of change brings the tally up another 550 pages, and deals with the challenges that all change initiatives in organizations meet. The link between change and learning permeates the book. You can’t turn an organization into a learning organization without changing. Conversely, any strategic change in a company, that doesn’t contain learning in some form is probably doomed. So change is learning and learning is change.
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