Category: Books
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Thoughts on Dostoevsky‘s idiot
There is a sentence in Fyodor Dostoevsky‘s ’The Idiot‘ related to the main character Prince Myshkin that goes something like this.. ’Compassion may be the only law that governs mankind‘ (though I will change that to humankind than mankind) How true and simple but at the same time how incapable we become to embody that…
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The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
Some people spend their entire life trying to escape from where they are, while others spend their whole life trying to return to something they lost. I recently read The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles, and wanted to recommend the book here. The novel follows four young people traveling across America after difficult personal histories,…
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Some Thoughts on Reading
I think it is more and more important for us professionals today to read classics and poetry and short stories and memoirs. Books about things other than our profession. A lot of things can be automated but not people’s wants and relationships. We can force systemic behavioral changes but for us to connect with others…
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Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
A few months ago, I listened to a podcast featuring John Green, where he spoke about his new book Everything Is Tuberculosis. My first reaction was an almost reflexive one: “Really? TB? Even now?” Like many of us, I’ve heard stories of tuberculosis somewhere in my family tree, distant, almost archival. For years, I hadn’t…
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What should I read Next?
Last weekend I was in Dallas attending a literature festival, where I also had a short session titled “What Should Be the Next Book to Read?” The crux of my talk was simple: people who read regularly rarely ask this question because the next book usually finds them. Most often, this question comes from people…
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Calling In by Loretta Ross: Book Positive
Calling Out and Calling In. I figured out the importance of that differentiation and was able to delver deeper into the meaning and difference as I read Loretta Ross’s new book Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel. We don’t agree with everyone we come across. People at work and…
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Happiness of being used
In Ichiro Kishimi‘s ’The courage to be disliked‘ there is an interesting sentence that comes to me over and over. It goes something like this, or that is how I understood. “Happiness and self worth comes from being beneficial to the community, by being of use to someone else.” This is a profound and deep…
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Slowing down with Carl Honore
Sometimes you feel there is no option to slow down and we have to keep running ! I listened to the Ted Talk by Carl Honoré in 2010 and then I read his “In Praise of slowness” and even connected with him on LInkedIn. Well that was a time when LinkedIn was all fancy 😜…
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The 4 stages of Psychological Safety
I recently read ‘The 4 stages of psychological safety’ by Timothy Clark. A book that is among the many books on my manager‘s desk. I love it when you have books around you at work. It is a sign telling you there is room for improvement for everyone. I have been reading the book for…
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The Friction Project Book
One of the most important books I have read in the recent times is The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder. Written by Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao. The title itself speaks a lot as there are times when we find the reverse manifest itself. It…
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