I'm eating a rolling buffet of books. What's on your menu?

I tend to read more than one book at a time – usually a novel, a history or politics book, and something in the self-educational realm.  It’s a sort of rolling buffet of books; some taking me months to consume, others a day or two.  Occasionally the mix is planned, usually it’s accidental and from the latter come some wonderful surprises.  The fusion I’ve got at the moment is too good not to share so I’m going to pause and give you a snapshot.  FYI – this is not me saying “Hey I read books! I’m smart”.  This is not to encourage my children to read more – come on people – it’s Linkedin! It’s actually to share good work by good writers and what can sometimes happen without the aid of a reading list from your boss/teacher/parent.

So, here’s the current buffet menu:

1.     Sword of Honour by Evelyn Waugh (nearly finished re-reading for the third time)

2.    Jerusalem by Simon Sebag Montefiore (half way)

3.    The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle (finished)

4.    The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle (just finished)

5.    The Hardtalk Handbook by Dawn Metcalfe (nearly finished)

Ok.  The links between the last three are pretty obvious. Growing individuals, growing teams and growing better conversations are inextricable linked and together reinforce each other.  Nothing radical in that except the authors all tap into the critical role that thoughtful and appropriate communications play at every level.  My Grandfather used to say “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are a fool than open it and prove them right.”  Fair enough in certain circumstances but, even better, these three books together seem to say “If you think first, practice lots, learn from others, nurture a safe environment then you can pretty much talk about/do anything and thereby unlock multiple positive potentials.” Most importantly, these books share practical ways of doing that.  Process rich? For sure.  But the evidence is clear in all three – if we want it, we cannot afford to just wing it.

How do the first two add to the flavour savour?  Waugh (despite being, let’s say, a difficult man) has the ability to empathetically take us right into the characters of his novels.  Some of them are pretty awful people yet he enables us to understand them better (the listen first/get curious message is very clear in Hardtalk).   He also shows webs of interconnected individuals (Culture and Talent Codes) and the conversations between them are masterclasses in communication – good bad and ugly (HardTalk).  He lingers painfully for a long time in the world of training (Talent Code) and takes us into the teams and tribes of wartime Britain letting us bask in the pride and wince at corporate stupidity (Culture Code) during a time of global conflict.

Conflict seems to be the defining feature of Jerusalem thus far (Jesus has just been crucified).  I’m not much of a statistician but I’m tempted to go back and attempt a body count.  The amount of killing is astounding.  To be fair there is some other stuff apart from the killing - incest, torture, deceit, slavery, forgiveness, shifting alliances, love oh and the three major monotheistic religions.  In short, the scope and scale are immense and the cast is full spectrum humanity:  saints and sinners and all the ones in between.  Pretty much like the world today.  I think it shows that there really is little new in human interaction – in Jerusalem, there are some equally effective and ineffective individuals and teams (Talent and Culture Codes) and stunning examples of communication and mis-communication (HardTalk).  

Together, Sword of Honour and Jerusalem powerfully endorse the need for books like Talent and Culture Codes and Hardtalk because frankly, we haven’t got it sorted.  Jerusalem (spoiler alert) remains a pawn in a bad game of global chess and is not (yet) a global beacon of tolerance and harmony.  Too many humans in multiple forms of employment still struggle with bias of all kinds and workplace-induced unhappiness or worse.  Regional and global security still totters on the brink of…who knows what?

All five books are great reads on their own.  If the last three are illuminating and practical manuals, the first two are fantastically well told tales and all of them are terrific observations of the human race.  Taken together the fusion has been pretty powerful. The key message I get is that if you want to get back with your ex- wife, you want to ask for a pay rise or you want to make the world a better place then better get busy, learn from our immensely rich observed past and use the tools out there today to make it happen. (Polite burp.) So, what’s on your menu?

PS.  You may not be a fan of lift music but the background buzz to my buffet has been neither Richard Kledermann nor a string quartet but the awesome podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat by Bruce Daisley.