How well to do contribute in your work environment? Most of us rate ourselves fairly highly, but we all have blind spots. Today, Jessica Hagy offered some simple truths to help us lift our game. She suggested we all need six people around us, to challenge and encourage us to perform well.
Thanks Jessica, your thoughts were a timely reminder for me as I continue to wrestle with my doctoral research.
Are you a reader? I used to be. But university intervened. Thirty years ago, after reading my way through university (text books, journals and articles—not novels or anything of general interest), I lost my appetite for reading. When asked "What are you reading?", I'd answer with "Nothing, university cured me." After plowing my way through heavy material for four years, I had reached the point where I simply did not want to pick up anything longer than an article. I still read a little, but my diet was based entirely on articles published in the popular press (Times, National Geographic, The Economist, HBR), and material I needed to read for work.
A few years ago, after a long hiatus, a switch flipped. I rediscovered reading again—reading for pleasure and relaxation, that is. I can't recall the time, the place or the exact trigger. Like earlier in my life, I still read to learn. But now I also read to relax. Here's a selection of titles I have read recently:
The following titles are stacked up awaiting my attention:
I tend to read about times, people and places—history and biography. I've discovered that, by reading this sort of material, I relax and learn at the same time. Articles like this motivate me. Reading about the past helps me understand today's world
If you read, I'd be interested to hear your story.
I am no English scholar, but I am a bit of a stickler when it comes to grammar and punctuation. Take for instance the humble apostrophe. How often have you seen an apostrophe inserted in the word "it's" to imply ownership when "its" is correct? Another rather common mistake in business writing is the incorrect usage of the plural "are" following a company name. When a company (singular) takes an action, the company "is" acting.
The incorrect usage of words, punctuation and grammatical constructs is a sign of sloppiness. It also creates an opportunity for miscommunication to occur. In today's technologically-equipped world, real-time grammar checkers should have all but eradicated poor grammar. Yet the evidence seems to show the opposite. The widespread influence of instant communication via email, text messaging and Twitter seems to have elevated speed (of response) over precision (of message).
Think about the messages you have received in the last seven days. How many contained ambiguities or grammatical errors? Perhaps more importantly, how many messages did you misinterpret or misunderstand—to the extent that you needed to ask a question or double-back to check on a relationship? This might sound a little picky, but each poorly constructed message has the potential to reduce our productivity. And that brings me to the point. Isn't technology supposed to enhance our productivity? I'm sure it can, but only if we get the basics correct first.
A couple of months ago my PhD supervisor recommended that I read The Arch of Knowledge by David Oldroyd. The book provides a concise (if you call 400 pages concise!) history of the philosophy and methodology of science. In other words, it's about how knowledge is created. My supervisor said I should read it because doctoral students need to understand this stuff.
When I took on this challenge, I expected to skim read the book and move on. However, after persevering with the densely packed text for a couple of weeks, the opposite has happened. Famous philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Galileo, Hume, Popper) and their theses have slowly become real. I've been drawn in. Along the way, I've gained an insight that may well enable me to frame my research in a new way (I'll expand on this in a separate post later). If this insight has legs (I think it does), it should be good for governance research all round.
Reading Oldroyd has provided another (unexpected) benefit. My vocabulary has been expanded—albeit mainly with Greek and Latin phrases like ex suppositione, ex ante, a priori, and a posteriori—by quite some margin. Now if I can get my wife's agreement to allow Greek and Latin alongside English, I might have half a chance of beating her at Scrabble!