Picked up three books and read them over the last couple of weeks. One I thought interesting was Difficult Conversations--How to Discuss What Really Matters
by a Harvard Negotiation Project. Hoping to overcome some of my fatal flaws when dealing with people, reading this I thought I'd evolve into a more intelligent communicator. I think I was pretty much wrong. There's all kinds of great ideas that seem logical and enlightening, but trying to remember any of them during a discussion, not only is difficult, but takes away all the fun.
For example I got an email from a co-worker that I pretty much hate even though he's a basically mild and nice guy. Why I hate him is another story that I don't really understand myself. (Some other fatal flaws of mine I'm sure.) So, I try to write my boss and his boss an email because I'm all pissed off at him, and the best I can come up with from after reading through this book is saying something like "this guys makes me FEEL angry." Yeah. That was the height of my new communication skills. The book highly advocates expressing your "feelings" in the business world like this. Neither boss replied. I'm sure they just rolled their eyes.
How Markets Fail--The logic of Economic Calamities
by John Cassidy. Highly praised book, but about three-quarters through it I find no great insights or revelations which is what I wanted. First half just goes historically through the main thinkers including Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, the University of Chicago economists following Milton Friedman thinking (which I've also read and generally fall prey to such Libertarian thinking) and some others I was never aware of.
It's good history and insightful slightly from a evolution of economic thought in 20st century perspective. The second half, which I suspect is where he's coming around to his big answers seemed centered around Game Theory and the basically how a lack of complete information in any given system prohibits true equilibrium efficiency (classical supply and demand balance) and therefore explains market failure.
What happens is, as in game theory and in any win-lose scenario, the players, not knowing opponents plays is inevitably forced into making a less than optimal choice for everyone, forcing the system to degenerate to failure. Classic game theory and it makes sense. We'll see how the book concludes.
My most enjoyable recent read is my old favorite author Scott Adams book entitled Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
. Now we're talking some fine reading here. Adams disguises truly insightful wisdom of the human species in the work environment as humour once again. His initial thesis is that all humans are weasels. Yes, even you and I. A weasel is a person who basically tries to gain as much advantage for his/her self and minimize as much pain. And in doing so a mode of behavior in dealing with other people (who area also looking for the same--but for themselves--in direct competition to your goals) tends to evolves whereby open truthfulness is fudged a bit here and there to wiggle and squirm one's way to success. It's that subtle mode of behavior that we all would rather not look at directly that Scott Adam's is so adept at finding and pointing out into revelatory "ah-ha" moments of "yes, I've done this" laughter.
Now to be fair, I've enjoyed two of his other books even better and would recommend them first. His classic Dilbert Principle
and also Top Secret Management Handbook 
are well worth reading. These two I read many years ago, and in the first one mentioned he even explains how he became so rich and famous on a serious note at the end of the book. He actually heard from some mystic to write down on paper over and over again his desire to become just this. And he did. And he did become just that.
Odd, but Adams has a penchant a bit for the mystic in spite of all his non-religious rhetoric and his common sense engineering scientific attitude. If I could hang around any one person in this world and pick his brain for a few days it would be non-other than this man. Check out his blog sometime and you'll see what I mean.
by a Harvard Negotiation Project. Hoping to overcome some of my fatal flaws when dealing with people, reading this I thought I'd evolve into a more intelligent communicator. I think I was pretty much wrong. There's all kinds of great ideas that seem logical and enlightening, but trying to remember any of them during a discussion, not only is difficult, but takes away all the fun.For example I got an email from a co-worker that I pretty much hate even though he's a basically mild and nice guy. Why I hate him is another story that I don't really understand myself. (Some other fatal flaws of mine I'm sure.) So, I try to write my boss and his boss an email because I'm all pissed off at him, and the best I can come up with from after reading through this book is saying something like "this guys makes me FEEL angry." Yeah. That was the height of my new communication skills. The book highly advocates expressing your "feelings" in the business world like this. Neither boss replied. I'm sure they just rolled their eyes.
How Markets Fail--The logic of Economic Calamities
by John Cassidy. Highly praised book, but about three-quarters through it I find no great insights or revelations which is what I wanted. First half just goes historically through the main thinkers including Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, the University of Chicago economists following Milton Friedman thinking (which I've also read and generally fall prey to such Libertarian thinking) and some others I was never aware of. It's good history and insightful slightly from a evolution of economic thought in 20st century perspective. The second half, which I suspect is where he's coming around to his big answers seemed centered around Game Theory and the basically how a lack of complete information in any given system prohibits true equilibrium efficiency (classical supply and demand balance) and therefore explains market failure.
What happens is, as in game theory and in any win-lose scenario, the players, not knowing opponents plays is inevitably forced into making a less than optimal choice for everyone, forcing the system to degenerate to failure. Classic game theory and it makes sense. We'll see how the book concludes.
My most enjoyable recent read is my old favorite author Scott Adams book entitled Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel
. Now we're talking some fine reading here. Adams disguises truly insightful wisdom of the human species in the work environment as humour once again. His initial thesis is that all humans are weasels. Yes, even you and I. A weasel is a person who basically tries to gain as much advantage for his/her self and minimize as much pain. And in doing so a mode of behavior in dealing with other people (who area also looking for the same--but for themselves--in direct competition to your goals) tends to evolves whereby open truthfulness is fudged a bit here and there to wiggle and squirm one's way to success. It's that subtle mode of behavior that we all would rather not look at directly that Scott Adam's is so adept at finding and pointing out into revelatory "ah-ha" moments of "yes, I've done this" laughter.Now to be fair, I've enjoyed two of his other books even better and would recommend them first. His classic Dilbert Principle
and also Top Secret Management Handbook are well worth reading. These two I read many years ago, and in the first one mentioned he even explains how he became so rich and famous on a serious note at the end of the book. He actually heard from some mystic to write down on paper over and over again his desire to become just this. And he did. And he did become just that.Odd, but Adams has a penchant a bit for the mystic in spite of all his non-religious rhetoric and his common sense engineering scientific attitude. If I could hang around any one person in this world and pick his brain for a few days it would be non-other than this man. Check out his blog sometime and you'll see what I mean.
