Have you seen this video that went viral a few weeks ago?
If not have a look now before reading further.
It is tempting to judge harshly. It is obvious to the watching outsider, it makes no difference how many slices there are … it is still the same pizza.
Well, technically yes.
But that is not how our minds work. That is not how we perceive what is going on around us.
Look at the following image. Continue reading “What Does the Size of a Pizza Slice Teach Us?”
Benchley’s Law – there are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don’t – points us in the right direction. To collaborate, we must admit ambiguity and complexity, and avoid premature classification.
Intertwingled is in my top 10 non-fiction books. I enjoyed it enough to have read it twice within 12 months.
This article is one of a series of excerpt that Peter Morville, the author, has been writing from his books.
This article covers one of the core messages in the book, classification.
I am intrigued by the idea of how we classify things. It influences our conversation and the way we see the world. Many of the difficult topics are in some sense bounded by their classification; race, religion, equality, feminism etc. are all forms of grouping. We like to believe that there are clear boundaries, but the truth is never that binary. Things are never that clear.
The real world is grey. Everything is grey. We think it’s not. That is just an illusion.
It all depends on where you start from. If you can change the way a person classifies what they see, you change how they see, and therefore how they think about it.
I work with ambiguity all day. As a business analyst you have to be comfortable with ambiguity and complexity, because that is where the truth is. Continue reading “Handpicked: Classifications, A Listening Politician, Grown Men Cry and Leceister City”
A much shorter version this week. I was travelling with work and ended up reading and listening less than I thought.
The chapter I have been slow to read this week is called ‘Improving Your Reflecting Skills’.
Put another way this is about improved listening.
I won’t comment much further but leave you with a few selected quotes.
Many times a person will discuss his problems with a spouse or friend and leave without any solution in sight. The speaker will often have greater insight into the problem and the alternatives facing him. He may need time to mull over these ideas and options before moving on to a firm decision.
Though it can be frustrating for the listener to get involved with another and not see the problem resolved immediately, that kind of tension is part of the cost of being a creative listener.
That last passage gets to a question that has been on my mind reading this book, and probably gets to something I need to work on; When do you do more than listen?
He goes on:
When people are not heard and responded to, time can be saved in the short run, but in the long run, the resulting misunderstanding and alienation will often require far more time or take an enormous toll on efficiency. Experience has demonstrated that when employers do not take time to listen to employees, when salespersons do not understand their customers’ needs, and when teachers do not hear the concerns of their students, they are far less efficient in accomplishing their tasks. Listening often seems to be inefficient, but when there are strong needs, deep feelings, or important concerns, the refusal to listen is very detrimental and can result in wasted time, effort, and money.
It is hard to take the step back and listen. I find it easy at times, at work in particular. In my job I know that listening and getting it right up front pays off later in a project.
* Emphasis on those quotes is mine.
Continue reading “Handpicked: Listening, Censorship, Thresholds, and Writing”
A shorter, and hopefully more useful format this week. Let me know what you think.
This week covered body language.
You can read more on what I learn here.
As Gerard Egan says, the averted face may mean an averted heart:
“Our approach to communication stresses the primacy of feelings. Unquestionably the content of the conversation can be very important. When the emotions are strongly engaged, however, they should normally receive primary attention. Since nonverbals are the major means of communicating emotions, they are central to understanding many of the most important things that others communicate to us.”
I won’t normally mention a fiction book I am reading. Fiction is escapism for me, my evening reading when the brain needs a rest.
However, this book was mentioned in passing in a few podcasts. They never spoke about it explicitly.
It is worthy of mention here is it paints a possible future only 20 years out where Virtual Reality, in particular, has become the drug of choice. The parallels with our obsession with smartphones and Facebook are too easy to imagine. If you find yourself checking Facebook 10 times a day you could imagine yourself living a life in this alternate reality.
Continue reading “Handpicked: Virtual Reality, Gangrenous Fingers, Travel Agents, Brexit, and Home”
I am going to try a different approach to my regular Handpicked series. My intention with that series is to share what I have read or listened to in the past week, with a brief comment on why. However I found myself writing longer paragraphs, not a succinct useful curated post.
With that goal in mind I will keep the Handpicked posts shorter. Where I feel the urge to go into more detail on a book, article, or podcast, I will write a separate post.
Below is what would have appeared in this weeks Handpicked post in the ‘What I am reading’ section.
I haven’t read a lot of this book this week. I made it through one chapter that covered body language.
The theme of this chapter is that we cannot NOT communicate via body language.
Whether or not we intend to our body is always saying something. Usually our feelings and emotions leak through.
I have been fascinated by body language for years and even read a couple of books on the topic back in 2002/3/4. For example I pay attention to where I sit in meeting rooms. If you sit opposite the person, across a table, that creates a barrier, whereas sitting at an angle adjacent to them is less so. It makes for a less confrontational conversation.
Continue reading “Weekly Reading: Why is Body Language so Important?”
Heath 