What are you currently reading?

[Mike Weaver]

Friends,

Recently I heard the phrase that I completely agree with, "Leaders are readers but not all readers are leaders." It seems to me that if we want to be leaders in this field of applied improvisation we need to be reading. I assume that you are.

I just finished "Impro" by Johnstone and "Built to Last" which is a great book about building a business that will stand the test of time.

What are you currently reading in relationship to your business?

[Mike Weaver]

Our AIN virtual library is growing. Thanks to everyone who have contributed to this discussion. Here's a list of the books mentioned and recommended (I think I got them all):
"The Idea Machine" by Nadja Schnetzler
"Impro" by Keith Johnstone
"Made to Stick" by Dan and Chip Heath
"Teaching to Learn" by Christine Ward
"Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki
"Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert
"Perfect Pitch" by Jon Steel
"Quiet Leadership" by David Rock
"Launching a Leadership Revolution" by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady
"What a Great Idea" by Chic Thompson
"Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers" by Anthony Mersino
"Active Training" by Mel Silberman.
"Co-Active Coaching" by Laura Whitworth.
"Difficult Conversations" by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, and Roger Fisher.
"The Success Principles" by Jack Canfield
"Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
"Built to Last"
"Good to Great"

Might I also suggest Paul Jackson's book, "The Solutions Focus"? I picked it up at Banff and look forward to reading it.

Cheers,
Mike

[Andreas Benkwitz]

Hi folks,
thanks for this thread from me, too. I totally agree about the importance of reading. Since I also read some of the books already mentioned, I want to suggest and ask, if we might have a books section on this website, where we could have "deeper" discussions about how certain books are important for us.
Anyway, I also read "Stumbling on happiness" lately. Fine book to read, funny and important thoughts, but you can make a very short conclusion of it, that somebody can read, have most of the content and read another book. This is my summary: We are living more in the present than we think. Especially our emotions, and even more so our emotions and thoughts about how we will feel and think in the future, are so much influenced by our present state, that any statement we make about our own future is not reliable, to say the least. The only way out Gilbert provides is asking somebody who is currently in the same situation, that we are facing in the future and following his or her advice. That is my conclusion of Gilbert.
After christmas I took a few days off and one thing I tried was to reflect, how a few books I find interesting are linked with each other. Those were: Gilbert's "Stumbling..", the Gladwell books "Tipping point" and "Blink", the marvelous "Wisdom of crowds" by James Surowiecki and the book, that describes the work of the swiss company brainstore: "The Idea Machine" by BrainStore co-founder Nadja Schnetzler , you can get it on www.brainstore.com.
I leave out the Tipping Point, which is a great book, but different angle.
All the others describe human's presentism in different ways. "Blink" describes the chances and dangers of snap judgements. His conditions for good snap judgements are time (without a little bit of time to react our biases win over our perception and reaction to the moment), context information (which is overlapping with the time factor) and training. Whereas Gilbert leaves us with not much hope in training our abilities to interact with future possibilities, Gladwell gives us hope and good arguments to work as an impro-based coach or trainer. Surowiecki comes from the other angle, from the group side. He says: Groups are better decision makers than individuals, when the conditions of group diversity, independence of judgement (dangers of group think) and decentralisation (as much local knowledge as possible close to the question/problem concerned) are met and an appropriate aggregation mechanism is at hand. This works best for cognitive problems, where you can find a right answer. In the end this is not much more than saying good statistics work better than personal judgements for a lot of questions. For coordination and cooperation issues, i.e. social therefore reflexive problems, it's getting a bit more complex to meet the conditions mentioned, and that's why you should read this book by yourself. Sorry. Surowiecki writes like Gladwell, great to read.
I found it fascinating, how the work of Brainstore seems to be directly built on Surowiecki's thoughts (well, they work like that since 1989). Brainstore describes their work as "industrial idea production", which means, that they split up the process of idea generation and refinement into many parts, involving many different people in different stages of the process. Fascinating to see improv principles working without any reference to it: shared control, building a framework for unjudged, spontaneous creativity, teamwork above all, saying yes...
All those books promote or state our very presentish nature, describe ways to deal with it, each in his way promotes an improv-related world view. At least I like to think that way.
I finish for today. (I find it hard to write short blogs, sorry. Bloody german philosophers)
All the best to you
Andreas

[Leif Hansen]

Hi Andrea,
Thanks for the thoughts. What I'd suggest is re: deeper discussion is simpy starting a new thread about a book/topic/author that you'd like to discuss more....and/or you could do it here.
Cheers,
Leif

[Rachel Prosser]

Hello all and Happy Christmas,

I hope you all have a bit more time to read over the holidays. I've just finished a Boxing Day read of Judi Dench's biography by John Millar. She's an inspiration, what comes through is her ability to be present in the moment and to react to what is happening so her performances always seem fresh.

I recently read and loved "Made to Stick" as well. I'm working through "The Leader's Guide to Storytelling" by Stephen Denning. It's hard going, very analytical. Working is the appropriate word. The ideas and analysis is interesting, but for a book about stories it isn't written as a story. Usually I'm a "read something in a sitting" person but this one needs to be taken chapter by chapter. I find myself wishing that the content had been handed over to Malcolm Gladwell or a similarly accessible and gifted writer to work their magic). Actually, writing it like his famous namesake - Lord Denning the judge would improve it too! The reason Lord Denning's judgments were so memorable was his vivid use of language and storytelling.

I'm also part way through Cordelia Fine's "A mind of its own" about how the brain works, and how it deceives us! She writes in an easier style. On the Stephen Denning - Malcolm Gladwell scale she is on the Gladwell side.

And I've just finished a course on adult learning styles and teaching in groups, so Teaching to Learn by Christine Ward is still on my bedside table. It's really accessible and good for a flick through for inspiration.

[Belina Raffy]

Hi Mike!

Two great books that I read recently are:

Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath - It looks at what makes ideas 'sticky' and does it in a really engaging way. It follows on from an idea in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (also a great book). Must get more of the learning reflected in my website!

Perfect Pitch by Jon Steel - he goes through how to develop and present ideas in ways that will really grab an audience. He talks about stages of developing an idea, and about the preparation work that should go into giving a presentation. Although it's aimed at pitching business, particularly in advertising, I've used lots of ideas from it to transform presentations and handouts for Learning & Development programs, as well as for my board meeting presentations.

Thank you for creating this excellent discussion!

V. best,
Belina

[Jerry Kail]

Hi, Mike. I'm alternating among several books right now - including Launching a Leadership Revolution:) I'm also reading:

Quiet Leadership, by David Rock. How to hold effective coaching conversations by avoiding "giving advice" and instead helping people to focus on the quality of their thinking.

What a Great Idea, by Chic Thompson. For me, sort of a refresher on basic creative-thinking techniques.

Emotional Intelligence for Project Managers, by Anthony Mersino, PMP. Since my primary role these days is teaching behavioral skills to project managers, this seemed an apt title to explore.

Active Training, by Mel Silberman.

(I also recently read Built to Last - the one concept that particularly hit home was the Stockdale Paradox: "Confront the brutal facts while maintaining an unwavering faith that you will prevail in the end.")

[Jerry Kail]

I'd also recommend Good to Great, which describes the Stockdale Paradox so well you'll forget you ever read about it in Built to Last (probably because you didn't, since it isn't in there).

{trips, goes splat, springs back up, bows deeply with great flourish and panache}

[Leif Hansen]

I've just started the 'grandaddy' of coaching books (for at least one school of coaching) "Co-Active Coaching", by Laura Whitworth. I'm liking it quite a bit and its making me consider doing some more coaching. This newest addition comes with a supplemental audio CD with some coaching examples that, although somewhat cheezy, are interesting to hear.

I'm also reading "Difficult Conversations" by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, and Roger Fisher. It's been good so far and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to improve their conflict resolution / mediation skills.

I'm also finally reading Canfield's The Success Principles - somewhat because a friend has pressured me to, somewhat because I know there are some good gems in there. I'm liking it more than expected, if not simply because its reinforcing core ideas that I know that I know I want to start acting on.

Thanks for the great thread Mike!
Warmly,
Leif
www.SparkNW.com
www.Wonderosity.com

[Terrill Fischer]

I just read "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert. . It really suprised me how many ways we stumble over what really makes us happy and how we fool ourselves. I highly recommend it. Happiness isn't hard to attain if we just notice what it is for us. It got me very curious about the human condition and helped to start noticing my blind spots.

Merry Christmas!

Warmly,
Terrill...ific!