A treasured and precious friend shared the above with me recently.  Thank you for your courage, your care and your friendship.  I will reflect on this a lot in the days ahead.

What hooked me:

Not that an auto racing fan needs any form of excuse or justification, but here it is – racing, a metaphor for life – and even better,  the story  is told through the eyes of a man’s best friend, the philosopher dog Enzo.

It’s a riveting and complete novel –  thoughtfully constructed against a racing backdrop that engages the reader as much or more than racing engages Denny Swift, a Seattle based semi-pro race driver.   For non-racing fans – don’t let the racing theme distract you – it won’t.  Last evening my wife’s friend Tania, who has no interest in auto racing of any type was saying that she just loved the audio book version. Quite simply the racing theme exists in the form of a subtle framework – just enough to hook any fan of the sport, but without overpowering the story of Denny’s journey through love, betrayal, death and devotion.  Once started, this one is tough to put down.  In three or four evenings it took me through a full range of emotions, in the end leaving me feeling good, that deep contemplative heart-warming good!

Enzo on Active Listening:

“I cannot speak, so I listen very well.  I never interrupt, I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own.  People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another’s conversations constantly.  It’s like having a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street.  For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbour’s yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story, you hearing the words “soccer” and “neighbor” in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbour was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn’t he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that, no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele, and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length.  So my initial conversational gambit – that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbour’s dog – would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele.  Learn to listen!  I beg of you.  Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.”

Enzo Listening to Denny:

“When I was nineteen,” Denny said after a moment, “at my first driving school down at Sears Point, it was raining and they were trying to teach us how to drive in the rain.  After the instructors were finished explaining all their secrets, all the students were totally confused.  We had no idea what they were talking about.  I looked over at the guy next to me – I remember him, he was from France and he was very fast.  Gabriel Flouret.  He smiled and he said: ‘That which you manifest is before you.’”

A link:  http://www.garthstein.com/goenzo/

Simplicity – a recent phenomenon or fad?  A predictable response to our current society’s propensity to “cram 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag” (as my friend Matt so eloquently puts it)? Or, is a return to values that have been espoused for centuries?

• “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” - Thoreau
• “In order to seek one’s own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life.” – Plato

Some Excerpts:

• “Simplicity is a lighter lifestyle that fits elegantly into the real world of the 21st century.”
• “Simplicity blossoms in community and connects us to the world with a sense of belonging and common purpose.”
• “If you use throwaway cups every morning for your coffee, after 20 years, you’ve contributed over 7,000 cups to the landfill . . . If I don’t have my travel mug when I’m out, I don’t deserve coffee.”
• “Simple Living’s four tenets – environmental steward-ship, thoughtful consumption, community involvement and financial responsibility.”
• “Ultimately, Simplicity is asking yourself: “How do I really want to live? What truly makes me happy? What are my actions doing to the planet? How does my lifestyle contribute to the greater good?  Ultimately Simplicity is about knowing who you are, being clear about your values, understanding what brings true well-being.  . . . it’s about discernment and deliberation.”

Less is More asks great questions and delivers thoughtful, practical considerations and perspectives from credentialed thought leaders that guide the reader on a journey of personal fulfilment through Simplicity and Sustainability. There is an inner wealth to be mined from the time spent with this book.  Nearly every page contains a “quotable” worthy of additional thoughtful reflection.

Some links:

• http://www.awakeningearth.org
• http://www.simplelivingtv.net/

This is not a book about personality or capabilities profiles. Rather it presents a compelling and engaging perspective on the past, present and future of the development of worldviews, value systems and levels of psychological existence systems.  Spiral Dynamics is based on the decades of focus Dr. Clare W. Graves expended in building “the emergent, cyclical, double-helix model of adult biopsychosocial systems development.”  But, don’t be put off by his description.  The model is made eminently understandable by using colour coding to define the various stages of the model and what each component means in terms of worldview/values evolution and  development.

This book is essentially a Tool Kit for managing the deepest differences in people – creating understanding that, as the authors suggest will create the outcome that “any bright, curious human being can, quite simply, change the world”.

Some excerpts:

1. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the king’s horses; And all the king’s men; Couldn’t put Humpty together again.  Like unsinkable Titanic, we are at-risk because we are prisoners of our own paradigms.  Our successes, like the Big Egg’s girth have overwhelmed us.  We thought our worlds would continue forever along the same trajectories. We thought it was safe to ‘drive change’ down from our lofty perches.  Little did we know how limited and distorted our views had become, and how much we were not seeing because of our walls.”
2. “As you will discover, the Graves conceptual system provides the human factors component that the followers of Edwards Deming have been seeking and others do not yet realize they lack.  His framework maps out how to transform a company or a culture to make it healthy and receptive for the introduction of complex technologies and rapid change.”
3. “The human normally lives in a potentially open system of needs, values, and aspirations.  We tend, however, to settle into what appears to be a closed state wherein we operate in a consistent, enduring steady way.  Once reached, we tend to stay in these zones of comfort – “I y’am what I y’am”, quoth Popeye – unless powerful forces induce turbulence.” 

One final note:  if you too enjoy the thought stimulation provided by Richard Dawkins’ perspectives you’ll enjoy the specific contributions that he made to the understandings in Spiral Dynamics.

A link: http://www.spiraldynamics.ua/Graves/colors.htm

I came away with the sense that  the perspectives are well worth the 10 minutes or so of viewing time – recognizing that rather than being an “answer in a box” for all that challenges organizations, this is but one component piece that goes into creating a race-worthy engine.  The best part of this assignment for me was reading the comment posted by others – some of whom predictably stated “brilliant piece of work” and “my day was made better by this bit of inspiration and enlightenment” to those who shared  some realities from their experience, including those  a person purporting to be a software architect and development manager for the past 35 years who pointed out:

-Thirty-five years of seeing this phenomenon over and over would cause me to be inclined to ultimately disagree with the notion that autonomy will make people more productive . . . realistically most people simply do the minimum required to be by.  Incentive, one way or the other makes little difference.”

And, “each one has their own idea of what autonomous means and by simply allowing autonomous development to occur you wind up with pieces that are like ships passing in the night.  When you ask them to follow standards and talk to their co-workers about that it seems to them that they are no longer autonomous.”

Links:

http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/04/08/rsa-animate-drive/

http://www.danpink.com/about

“You may have had a great insight, seen opportunity for change, or been excited about your future prospects only to be tripped up by the ego.  Before you knew it, you are experiencing doubt, anxiety, and insecurity.  The little voice of the ego (using your own voice) started to say things like, What are you thinking about? You’re too old for this! Or, You’re too young for this! Or, You don’t have enough money for this! Or, It’s never been done before.  All this doubtful internal chatter happens incredibly fast, and in an instant, your dream, your vision, this potential for something great, has been squashed by the ego.”  Quote from Chapter 3 – How The Ego Operates

HK Comment:  This is one of the most powerful books that I’ve ever read in terms of delivering insights into one’s own soul, motivations, fears and aspirations.  Suffice it to say that I read the first 6 of ten chapters in the first ‘sitting’.

I was initially going to add a glib “if you can take it!” to the first sentence of my comment, but that would not have been fair.  As one turns the pages, because of the skill with which Eitan Sharir wields the tools that elicit the sometimes painful insights, there is truly a sense of relief, healing, empowerment and renewed purpose for the journey ahead.