Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

19 Jun 2008
3 Comments

Influenced by Randomness

I’m reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s marvellous Fooled by Randomness.

A couple of initial observations:

1. I love the comment in the acknowledgements for the updated second edition: ‘human warmth: Something in our nature may help us grow ideas while dealing and socializing with other people’. It felt like an angle on my comments in my post on creativity and focus in talking.

2. I fear I am on a journey from being a ‘utopian who believe(s) in an idealized humankind….. your how-to-reach-happiness-in-twenty-steps and how-to-become-a-better-person-in-a-week book writer… thinking we (I) can control our nature at will and transform it by mere edict in order to attain, among other things, happiness and rationality’

Item 2. very much makes me observe (already) that I feel like something has shifted and that I currently feel like a different person from the one who wrote over a number of days the happiness system series of posts.

Posted in Communication, Conscious and Unconscious and tagged ,
18 Jun 2008

The Why of Story Telling

Why is story telling so important? What is the equivalent of the nature vs. nurture analysis when applied to story telling?

I can see that through the ages, and particularly prior to the written word or books, stories/ myths/ legends were the ways in which human and cultural knowledge and history was passed through the ages.

I can see that it had practical uses that served its purposes. Whether providing warning of dangers or advising of best practices. Or merely for entertainment.

But why is it still so powerful? Companies are advised to tell their story. Brand advisers and advertising executives go back through the annals of the corporate histories to find the stories and put them central to the brand or product messaging. And it works. As an individual you engage with that company or product because of an historical or projected story that it weaves.

Client pitches or proposals invariably have a section for the story of the company. The ‘About’ sections of corporate websites are heavily trafficked as people strive to found the company in place, time and events.

Leaders are now advised to find their story too. It helps provide a hook into the real person rather than the faceless executive; both for their company and the people who work for it, and the media.

What is it in our nature that that requires this comfort? Is it a ‘knowing’ and ‘trust’ thing? Does somebody or something’s story enable us to create a fuller map of that individual or corporate? Something that we can then work on and from in building a relationship into the future.

Whatever it is, it’s powerful and without it you’re missing out.

Posted in Business, Communication, Leadership and tagged | Leave a comment
17 Jun 2008

The Three P’s: Personality, Performance and Personal Development

For a long time I’ve been thinking about how there are two things going on in personal development circles. Two things that don’t seem to have found their way together in popular fields of personal development (the big books and the big themes/ systems)

1.       Personality profiling/ types/ psychometric testing

2.       Time and personal management/effectiveness systems

My apologies to those who have married them and are successfully expounding new hybrid systems and theories. Let me know what they are and where I can look at them.

Maybe my lack of awareness of them is that there is an element of self-fulfilling prophecy (if that’s the right phrase) about it/ them. That to achieve what I’ve been thinking about would lead to a set of niche or sub-niche texts or self-help books that will never make it main stream.

Imagine the power though pulling together two big powerful ‘knowns’. The first, that our profile/ personality type drives so many elements of our personality/ behaviours and actions. So many of the ways in which we act and interact is driven by who we are as an individual (but within identifiable clusters or types and therefore capable of being sliced/ diced and niched)

The second, that time and personal management /effectiveness systems are the two foundation stones of the self-help industry.

So you end up with systems tailored to your type. Completer-finishers (using a Belbin cluster/ type/ label) probably won’t be as effective in attempting to manage themselves starting with grand visions and goals. Give them the structures and frameworks and plans however and they’re laughing.

… you can see where this can lead..

Posted in Time Management and tagged , | Leave a comment

Post Navigation

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →