What I am Reading

Before I forget, Joe Raasch, of the Happy Burro Blog, tagged me on a "What are You reading" blog chain letter, so here goes. Also, for some reason I'm supposed to quote sentences six through eight of page 123 on the book I'm reading.

The current read is: The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees) by Patrick Lencioni. For you Lencioni fans, you know that he writes a fable before he delivers his model, so you won't expect much from the excerpt:

And with that, the chain reaction began. Tristan and Migo started flipping chairs. Carl hit the lights.

Exciting, huh? But the book is awesome. The story is about a retired CEO that gets interested in a small Italian restaurant and works to make it so the people actually like working there (and he moves on to do the same at larger companies too). Then at the end he presents his model. Short version: people hate their jobs because: (1) they don't know how to measure whether they, individually, did a good job that day; (2) because they don't understand how they make a difference in other people's lives; and (3) because nobody really knows who they are. Immeasurement, irrelevance, and anonymity. I'll write more about the book later.

Of course that's a book on the work side of my life. On the personal side, I'm reading Pema Chodron's Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion. Come to think of it, that SHOULD be a work book, now shouldn't it? As a bonus, here's 6-8 on page 123 (actually 5-7; there are only seven sentences on that page):

Begin with being willing to feel what you are going through. Be willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of yourself that you feel are not worthy of existing. If you are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if you even aspire to stay awake and open to what you're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best you can in each moment, then something begins to change.

Next on my reading list, both professional and personal:

What Were They Thinking: Unconventional Wisdom About Management, by Jeffrey Pfeffer
The Future of Management, by Gary Hamel
The Valkyries, by Paolo Coehlo

I tag the following bloggers who, of course, have the right to completely ignore the tag:

Jeff Cobb
Bob Wolfe
Lindy Dryer
Helen Mosher
Lisa Junker

Comments

[Lisa Junker]

Thank you for thinking of me, Jamie! I'm not really supposed to do too much posting about my personal self on Acronym, but I'm happy to talk about books here in your comments, if that's OK.

(I'm happy to talk about books anywhere, really.)

For work right now I'm reading The Global Brain by Satish Nambisan; I'll be interviewing him later this week about his ideas on network-centric innovation. I'm also reading Jessica Hagy's Indexed and Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin for a feature idea I have that I hope comes to fruition the way I'm imagining it ...

At home, my geeked-out stack of books includes a new biography of Catherine the Great, because I've always found her to be fascinating; After the Ice, a book on human cultural development from 20,000 BC to 5,000 BC, which uses a strange narrative framing device that I don't like but, other than that, has lots of interesting information so far; The Book of Air and Shadows, which is so far proving to be a really well-constructed thriller with great characters; and Over the Edge of the World, on Magellan's voyage around the world, which I'm looking forward to but haven't started yet.

I'll definitely be interested in what you think about the new Lencioni book! I really enjoyed his other books that I've read, and I'm sure I'll pick up this one, too.

[Jeff Cobb]

Jamie - It might take me a few days to get to it, but I'll be happy to share what I am reading. The Hamel and Pfeffer books are on my list, too. Might have to add the Three Signs now, after hearing that you like it so much. - Jeff

[Bob Wolfe]

Thanks for the tag Jamie. I'll post tonight once I have a chance to see what sentences 6-8 hold.

bob

[Joe Raasch]

Hi Jamie,

Thanks for taking the time to share your reading list! I had not heard of the "Comfortable with Uncertainty..." book - I'll be reading it soon.

Best,

Joe