Ann Oliveri

Hedgehog in Paris

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is ideal reading over a grand creme in Paris.  I had been meaning to read it, but am glad I put it off until the trip.  After pouring over Michelin guides and tourist brochures, it was a relief to retreat to fiction while staying in the place.

Born in Casablanca, raised in France, and now living in Japan, Barbery has written a fable of two outsider intellectuals, one old and one young, mixing in German philosophy and Japanese art films, to create a delightful cast of characters, satire, and inspiration in one package.

Hedgehog has been on the New York TImes Bestseller list for the last three years and remains at #14.   Europa Editions, publisher of Hedgehog in paperback, also publishes Jane Gardam, author of another favorite novel, Old Filth.   With two winners like these, it's enough to recommend all Europa Edition authors to me so I hunted up Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett's Prime Time Suspect at the library.  Will let you know if the theory holds.

Zen Lessons for Leaders

Earlier this summer, Ben Bradlee posted a question to the Washington Post's panel of leadership experts on Laker Coach Phil Jackson's "unconventional use of spirituality" and generated a number of responses, all haiku brief, from Bill George, Marshall Goldsmith, and Warren Bennis--all reinforcing why I read these authors.

For more Zen lessons for leaders, here are a few of my favorites:

Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters by Bernard Glassman and Rick Fields

Real Power: Business Lessons from the Tao Te Ching by James Autry and Stephen Mitchell

Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos by Robert D. Kaplan         

Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons from a Hardwood Warrior by Phil Jackson

Work as a Spiritual Practice by Lewis Richmond

What Are You Reading This Summer?

What are you reading this summer?

In my beach bag for light weight summer-reading are three paperbacks: 

*  the dog-narrated, zen of auto racing book, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein;

*  the Pulitzer winning Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, set in Maine;

* and, Amagansett by Mark Mills, a murder mystery on Cape Cod.

My top pick, though, this summer is a giant, hardback volume, Iain Pears' latest, Stone's Fall.  If you can only take one book with you on a trip, especially if you are expected to pass it on to everyone you are traveling with, this is it.

Stone's Fall is a wonderful historical-adventure-mystery-thriller by the author of The Instance of the Fingerpost as well as the slender art forgery escapade, The Immaculate Deception.

Three books in one, Stone's Fall is a mystery wrapped up in the dead, enigmatic, arms manufacturing capitalist John Stone's financial manipulations that is as current as today's headlines, but set on the eve of WWI.  It's intelligent espionage, conspiracy and romance. 

A heavier read, but in paperback,is a painfully true to life, office-noir literary gem, Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris.  This pitch-perfect novel, narrated in the first person plural, conjures up cubicle-culture and group consciousness, office politics and rumor.  It's a modern masterpiece, but not for those who want to escape from their work in a big office.  My book club--mostly self-employed counselors and therapists--loved it.

 Want to tackle something weightier still, say placing the decline of the Roman empire and rise of Christianity in context?  Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman, now in paperback, made some waves two years ago from bristling religious reviewers.

A respected classical scholar, Freeman's goal is to provide a backdrop to today's face-off between organized religion and science.  His take on the God v. Science debate can be boiled down to the philosophical underpinnings of each side's assumptions, best summed up as Aristotle v. Plato. 

 (BTW, if you need a quick philosophy refresher, there is none better than Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...  by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein who reduce Freeman's question to Reason v. Revelation.  The chapter on logic is worth the price of the book. "If a man tries to fail and succeeds, which did he do?")

For another take on organized religion v. Darwin, try Robert Wright's new book, The Evolution of God.  His lens is the Abrahamic religions, and the exploration of Islam is a good addition to Freeman.  (The Salon.com interview, God, He's Moody, provides the basic argument.)  Although Wright's Nonzero is one my all time favorite books, I was disappointed in his latest, only because he is a fan of St. Paul--the misogynist primarily  responsible for making me a recovering Catholic.

So what are you reading this summer?? 

The Speed of Trust

In the last month, I interviewed and engaged a senior management team on the true potential of a journal on leadership; spoke to an audience of 100 membership and marketing professionals on trusting others with your brand; and ran an experimental workshop on social responsibility with 20 extraordinary association experts and leaders.

Each interaction reinforced my belief that social responsibility is personal and as a consultant working in this movement my role is to coach, helping individuals live lives of purpose and ultimately transform their organizations and communities.

Fortunately, for all of us, there is a field-guide for this practice.  It's Stephen M.R. Covey's book, The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything.  In the foreword, his father, Stephen R. Covey, pinpoints the credibility of the author and the value of the book, noting that it is "deep, practical, and comprehensive."

Ed Able recommended this book to me, and I would like to do the same for you.  Because it really is all about you and this book helps you do the most important work of your life. 

After exploring the four cores of credibility--integrity, intent, capabilities, and results--SMR Covey delineates 13 behaviors.  The final chapters on stakeholder trust explores Organizational Trust and alignment; Market Trust and reputation; and, Societal Trust and contribution.  The last section on Smart Trust tackles the toughest subject, restoring trust to take the exponential leap.

Covey uses a French proverb, "Fish discover water last," to illustrate the ubiquitous nature of trust.  "For fish, water simply is...They're so immersed in its presence, they're unaware of its existence--until it becomes polluted or nonexistent."  That's what trust is to humans.  We discover it last because it is vital to our well-being.  "Without trust, society closes down and will ultimately self-destruct."

My career has been about aligning organizations and leadership development, building trusted brands, and moving beyond self-interest to the larger good.  I have read many books on ways to do all three, but The Speed of Trust is one of the few that gets to the heart of what really matters and shows you what you need to do to get there.

Citizens Once More

The Good Citizen's Handbook: A Guide to Proper Behavior is a tongue-in-cheek tour of truisms from my childhood--advice on being a good neighbor, showing the proper respect to authority, good penmanship--all the stuff that was beaten into us in the 50s, rejected in the 60s, and cynically repurposed to sell detergent and win elections ever since.

Its Dick-and -Jane illustrations and hokey lessons aside, what's remarkable about writer and designer Janet McKnight-Trontz' 2001 pocket guide is the reminder that social norms are a shared assumption about personal behavior. 

Social responsibility is the sum of our individual actions.

No one wants to return to the bigotry and mores of the 50s, but there's no reason we can't be more than consumers and once again be citizens responsible for our shared future.

Community: The Structure of Belonging

Structure changes behavior. An association's structure creates the space and terms of engagement--defining  roles, norms, power, and position. Structure trumps governance. 

So can we create a better structure to engage and inspire our members and stakeholders?

Peter Block's most recent book, Community: The Structure of Belonging, offers a distinctive alternative.

"My intent" he writes, "is to provide structural ways to create the experience of belonging, not just in those places where people come to just be together socially, but especially in places where we least expect it. This includes those places where people come together to get something done. These are our meetings, dialogs, conferences, planning processes––all those occasions where we gather to reflect on and decide the kind of future we want for ourselves."

In Community, Block turns closely held assumptions about leadership, problem-solving, and citizenship literally inside out, inverting them to create possibilities.  For example, if you believe the audience creates the performance, less effort is required inventing what is on the stage. Every auditorium and conference room would be redesigned. Chairs would be mobile and the audience would have clear sight lines with each other.

"Community building requires a concept of the leader as one who creates experiences for others--experiences that in themselves are examples of our desired future," Block writes. "The leader's task is to structure the place and experience," to create the context and the conversation, asking great questions and listening closely to the answers.

Fifteen years ago, another book by Peter Block, Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest, broke away from the pack and now he's done it again.

ISO Argentina

Traveling to South America for the first time, we thought Argentina would be an easy place to start.  (Check out the photo album for an overview of our trip.)  In addition to our detailed Buenos Aires street map, oriented south to north, and an extensive glossary of  cuts of beef never mentioned in U.S. restaurants, the most valuable guide to appreciating the culture and contradictions of this country turned out to be the hefty Argentina Reader.

Nothing like the rest of the continent, Argentina serves up familiar Mediterranean traditions transplanted to a harsher colonial terrain.

Like Australia, time and distance and immigration shaped its relationship with the rest of the world. Like Turkey, its politics requires one to simultaneously grasp mutually exclusive ideas, like authoritarian democracy. And like the former Yugoslavia, it's clear that memories are long and divisions deep.

Yet, like American jazz, the best expression of Argentina is tango--from milonga to modern fusion.  Tango crossed class lines long before politics and established an etiquette unsurpassed by any other dance.

Recent economic woes have triggered something of a renaissance of homegrown designers, chefs, and artists, as well as making it a very affordable destination. Of course, it's also attracted carpetbaggers from Texas and Napa-Sonoma looking for cheap land.  So go now before it evolves again!

You Are What You Read

Looking for a good mystery to curl up with?   I once relied on the Edgar awards to find new authors, but there's another alternative, the Dilys Awards, from the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association not to mention all the authors featured by the ever reliable Felony & Mayhem Press.

For what it's worth, my favorite mystery writers are Jan Burke, Carol Goodman, and Andrea Camilleri.

Jan Burke is at the top of my list.  I always enjoyed her Irene Kelly books--complex murder mysteries solved by an investigative reporter married to a police detective--but this year I read all of her work, thanks to our public library, from start to finish, including her short stories, and admire her skill and abilities as a writer all the more. If I have to choose, Bloodlines might be my favorite because it anchors the characters, but Flight is the most powerful.  

Just finished The Night Villa by Carol Goodman.  Her six books are better classified as fiction, escaping the usual pattern and dictates of the genre, anchored in classical languages and sparked by academic intrigue.  Best to start from the beginning with The Lake of Dead Languages and The Seduction of Water.

As for detectives, Inspector Montabano, the Sicilian detective stands out, as he is "as committed to finding the ultimate meal as he is to solving crime."   Best read while traveling in Italy, like Donna Leon's Venetian Inspector Brunetti books, Andrea Camilleri's stories are a delight and expression of the Sicilian soul and palette.

Taste in books is a very personal thing, and looking at this list I can see why these three authors rise to the top for me, given my interest in investigative reporting and Italy, being married to a brown-eyed sweetheart of a man and having survived high school Latin. 

Two other books, much more widely acclaimed, and beautifully written are Christina Falls and In the Woods.  Both are described as debut books, but that only applies to the latter.  Christina Falls is the first mystery by John Banville writing as Benjamin Black.  It's pitch perfect. Enjoy.

Be cool. Be social. Be the change.

 A new book by Mzinga's Barry Libert and Rick Faulk, Barack, Inc: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign, provides a case study for the application of social media for the rest of us. It's the new handbook of professional practice and its website is a demonstration of Mzinga's art.

Take your pick of interviews with the authors this last week to learn more about the three central themes:  Be cool.  Be social. Be the change.  The Ideashare section of the website continues the conversation as do the fans, followers and groupies on Twitter, Facebook, and Linked In.

The best blog posts, though, are Libert's  on amazon.com.  Libert is also co-author of the recently published We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business.

Thanks to Cheryl Kiser at the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship for the heads up on Barack Inc's launch.

Uncharitable

Dan Pallotta created the multi-day fundraiser--biking for AIDs, walking for breast cancer research--raising hundreds of millions of dollars and the ire of other charitable groups. 

Why?  Scaling up events, more social movements than fundraisers, required large advertising budgets and paid staff--serious investment.  According to PallottaTeamworks.com, that first race netted $1 million with each racer raising almost $3,000 each.   Six years later, the net topped $80 million.

Uncharitable is Pallottta's manifesto about liberating those who work for social good from an antiquated metric: overhead costs.  Listen to a 20-minute interview he did on KQED San Francisco public radio on January 2, 2009.

The issue isn't payrolls or ad budgets.  It's the metric.  Until a standard for measuring outcomes, not outputs, is established, the war will rage on. I know all too well a foundation with zero overhead--costs are covered by the association--that lacks a cause, the juice, to make anyone care, yet it has the highest Guidestar rating.

Is the goal to feel good or to end suffering? Extreme problems demand extreme measures.