Choosing A Book

Submitted by mauzenne on Fri, 11/23/2012 - 04:01.
in

Our guidance on how to choose a book.

We’ve said before that reading is one of the most important things an individual contributor, manager and executive needs to do each week. Reading (books) is one of the ways you understand subjects more deeply, explore new ideas and allow the moment of creation to take place – the one where your circumstance melds with someone else’s idea and something new is born. But if you don’t read and you don’t know where to start, how do you choose a book?


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dougp01's picture
Submitted by dougp01 on Fri, 11/23/2012 - 07:13.

Reading

 Ah,

Looking forward to this one.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/dougp01

 

wpjoosten's picture
Submitted by wpjoosten on Fri, 11/23/2012 - 13:43.

be selective on what to read

Same here! I am curious about the podcast. There are so many business and management books. And not to forget magazines, blogs, websites, newsletters, newspapers, etc. Time to read is limited, so I am curious on how to select the right books to read. Thanks in advance!

Peter Joosten
consultant paperless office and blogger www.reflectionformanagers.com

markwalsh99's picture
Submitted by markwalsh99 on Fri, 11/23/2012 - 16:49.

The formation of ideas

The idea that a book intercept's one circumstance to create something new is brilliant. Inspired by this, I bought "The Toyota Way" (Liker) partly because I'm interested in automotive issues and thought that I might learn about lean, just-in-time and so forth. What I learnt was something even more fundamental, about myself.

The very first quote at the head of Chapter 1 says, "There are many things one doesn't understand and therefore, we ask....why don't you just go ahead and take action; try to do something........[by] improvement based on action, one can rise to the higher level of practice and knowledge."

Or, as Mark likes to put it, 'Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid".

As a classic high-S, high-C, I to agonise about things I will never actually do wrong, because I never do them. My learning is that I need to do, perhaps fail, and then improve. After 48 years on the planet, it just took 1 page of 1 book this week.

Mark

mcfindley's picture
Submitted by mcfindley on Wed, 11/28/2012 - 18:38.

The joke's on me...

I fell for it.

At the 16:00 point in this podcast, Mark says that the best book on how to build a parking lot is titled The Dimensions of Parking.  I thought Mark meant building a "parking lot" for meetings, so I looked up the book on Amazon.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the book is about the design and construction of actual parking lots for vehicles.

Given that the introduction to The Dimensions of Parking says that efficiency is a major consideration in parking lot design, I'm sure that there is more to the analogy that is worth exploring. In the meantime, the score is Engineer 1, Liberal Artist 0.  :)

Good 'cast!  Thanks!

 

jimchiang's picture
Submitted by jimchiang on Tue, 05/21/2013 - 14:47.

 Each and every important

 Each and every important person in the world; past and present are/were self taught. Only guidance we need is a spiritual one. Education can be gained by yourself. You will find one way or other to learn if you really want to. Its really up to you. essay writing advisor