Reading List
Intelligent Disobedience
As a lifelong student of the art of leadership, I learned early that there is a delicate bond between leaders and their followers. For starters, there is the study of obedience by Stanley Milgram. In this classical experiment, subjects continued to administer what they thought were electric shocks to individuals on the other side of… Continue Reading Intelligent Disobedience
Read MoreSticky Attention
Our attention, it turns out, is quite fragile. We start by focusing on one topic and, before you know it, our thoughts drift elsewhere. Frequently, this shift in attention results in moving us away from the present moment to some thought or event that has already occurred in the past, or to some event that… Continue Reading Sticky Attention
Read MoreA Millimeter of Progress in a Million Directions
Are you stretched too thin? Are you majoring in minor activities; busy but not productive; or always in motion and never getting anywhere? Many of us are making a millimeter of progress in a million directions. Lin Yutang, the Chinese writer and inventor, and the author of The Importance of Living, used to say, “the… Continue Reading A Millimeter of Progress in a Million Directions
Read MoreMaking Stone Soup
In the 45 minutes I spent on the elliptical trainer this morning, I read Jeff DeGraff’s Making Stone Soup: How to Jumpstart Innovation Teams. The title of the book caught my attention right away, and I was happy to learn what the significance of stone soup was to the practice of innovation early in the… Continue Reading Making Stone Soup
Read MoreThe Lost Art of Idleness
Rainer Maria Rilke, the Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, once wondered whether “those days when we are forced to remain idle are not precisely the days spent in the most profound activity”. Rilke believed it was important to be idle “with confidence, with devotion, possibly even with joy”. Idleness, though, seems to be a lost art.… Continue Reading The Lost Art of Idleness
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