Book Peek-September 20, 2012
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Transcript of Book Peek-September 20, 2012
BOOK PEEK Quick look at a few books
Deliver us from temptation
The prayer with which Damian Thompson
closes ‘The Fix’ (Harper) is ‘Deliver us from
temptation.’ Without trying to sound
moralistic, he urges us to rediscover the
vigilance that protected our hunter-gatherer
ancestors.
“The quicker we are to spot the technological
tricks that manipulate our ‘wanting’ impulse,
the greater will be our chance of resisting
them,” reasons the author. Ruing that the
modern consumer economy is partly
fashioned around our inability to exercise
willpower, he notes that the economy preys
on us but also rewards us, since we are part
of it and depend for our livelihoods on other people’s vulnerability to
temptation.
The book cites the article of Paul Graham, titled ‘The Acceleration of
Addictiveness,’ for the view that the world is more addictive than it was 40
years ago, be it about food, drink, drugs, television, or computers; and that,
as a result, we have got into the habit of liking things too much. Thompson
would, however, want to replace the notion of liking things too much with
that of wanting them too much. “It’s not the experience of pleasure that is
accelerating in the modern world: it’s the experience of desire, prompted by
environmental cues that continue to tantalise us even when the pleasant
feelings arising from consumption have evaporated.”
An important sociological insight in the book is that the sense of entitlement
to pleasure dovetails nicely with the business plans of the providers of
pleasure, especially for ‘a generation for whom an unlimited choice of
hedonic experiences is as natural as an unlimited choice of downloaded
music – and for whom novel fixes are an indispensable part of life.’ Reminds
Thompson that people born in the 1980s and 90s have access to a range of
mood-fixing tools that is vastly greater than anything available to their
parents, and that, in all likelihood, their children will have even more
choices laid out in front of them.
A book that sees a role for reasserting one’s will.
Find your passion
Fathers can make a difference, reassures
‘Daddy’s Logic’ by Anthony A. Rose (TMH),
through a whole lot of examples.
Take, for instance, the story about Lisa Ryan,
senior vice president and managing director
of Heyman Associates, New York, who
recounts how in 1984, she interviewed for a
special events position for a major company
travelling all over the country. “My father
prepped me by putting me through mock
interviews and asking me every possible
question,” Ryan adds. But, post-interview,
when she knew she was not going to get the
job, Ryan called her father and said she was
never going to get another job in my life. What was his response? “Follow
your passion and the rest will come.”
Reminisces Ryan that, deep down, she knew this was not the right position
for her, but she had tried. “Instead, I forged ahead and found a new
position. Till today, I hear my father’s voice telling me I can do anything I
want to do. My father died 27 years ago and he had the greatest impact on
my life, and I thank him for helping me find my passion in life.”
And Ryan puts that into practice when meeting potential candidates during
the course of executive search. She asks them flat out, ‘What is your
passion?’ Many people are taken aback, reports Ryan; “but I just sit back
and let them think about it.” Contrary to what many people think – that the
conversation is about skills – it is all about the intangibles, clarifies Ryan.
“Of course, you need the skills, but at some point you know you can do the
job; it’s more about ‘Is this where I want to be?’ It is about passion and
chemistry.”
To women, Ryan’s advice is simple: Try different things, you can be in
senior-level positions. Starting out in college admissions, she narrates how
the high school seniors, when talking about the future, did not know what
they wanted. “But I told them to take a variety of classes and eventually
they’d realise their strengths and move towards it.”
Inspiring collection of essays.
Workplace woes
The first myth in ‘101 Myths & Realities @ the
Office’ by Utkarsh Rai (Penguin) is that a
colleague has been promoted over you. When
an employee comes to know that a co-
worker, whom he does not consider as
possessing better skills, has been promoted
over him, he starts feeling that he has been
victimised, describes Rai. “He might view this
move as the triumph of a co-worker’s
sycophancy or as an act of managerial
favouritism. There are also those who think
that a person has got promotion only
because he threatened to leave the
organisation.”
While advising the management to ensure that there is no entitlement
culture building up around the promotion issue and that clear criteria be
set for determining eligibility, the author counsels the affected employees to
find out the criteria of the next job level and have a discussion with the
manager for identifying any gaps in experience. “Work out a plan with the
support of the manager and the HR department to fill in those gaps. This
plan should be reviewed periodically to ascertain whether you are moving in
the right direction.”
A section in the book devoted to ‘Colleagues’ begins by stating that
competitiveness among peers is better than jealousy. And the first myth in
this section is, “My colleagues have stolen my idea and presented it as their
own.” The reality, as Rai puts it, is: “You have not projected the idea as your
own to the management.”
He acknowledges that at the workplace many discussions take place, some
of which might give some people an idea which they can pursue to make it
realisable. Adding that it takes creativity, effort and time to convert an idea
into reality, Rai underlines that most of the time, during the process of
converting the idea into a working solution, the original idea gets
transformed significantly. “The person who takes an idea to its logical
conclusion is the one who can claim its ownership.”
Crisp treatment of the varied woes at the workplace.
You can change
Habit is often blamed for what seems to tie
you down. But it can also help in driving the
change, says Charles Duhigg in ‘The Power of
Habit’ (Landmark). If you believe you can
change – if you make it a habit – the change
becomes real, he assures. “This is the real
power of habit: the insight that your habits
are what you choose them to be. Once that
choice occurs – and becomes automatic – it’s
not only real, it starts to seem inevitable…”
Habits are not as simple as they seem, the
book highlights. “Hundreds of habits
influence our days – they guide how we get
dressed in the morning, talk to our kids, and
fall asleep at night; they impact what we eat for lunch, how we do business,
and whether we exercise or have a beer after work.”
Yet, every habit, no matter its complexity, is malleable, Duhigg declares.
Everything we about habits, from neurologists studying amnesiacs and
organisational experts remaking companies, is that any of the habits can be
changed, he informs. “The most addicted alcoholics can become sober. The
most dysfunctional companies can transform themselves. A high school
dropout can become a successful manager.”
What is most important, though, is that you must decide to change the
habit. You must consciously accept the hard work of identifying the cues
and rewards that drive the habits’ routines, and find alternatives, guides
Duhigg. You must know you have control and be self-conscious enough to
use it, he goads. “Once you understand that habits can be rebuilt, the
power of habit becomes easier to grasp, and the only option left is to get to
work.”
A chapter titled ‘The golden rule of habit change’ has a helpful tip on how
you can replace – not eradicate – a habit. “Find an alternative routine, and
your odds of success go up dramatically when you commit to changing as
part of a group. Belief is essential, and it grows out of a communal
experience, even if that community is only as large as two people.”
Empowering read.
Forthcoming in Book Peek
Published by: Shrinikethan, Chennai http://bit.ly/ShriMap
Edited by: D. Murali http://bit.ly/dMurali http://bit.ly/TopTalk
September 20, 2012