On Becoming a Person

Written by one of America’s most distinguished psychologists, Carl R. Rogers uses this book to take us through his experiences as a therapist. He discusses personal growth and creativity throughout the book, as well as how they can be successfully developed into making us more flexible in relationships, and less open to suggestion and control.

I found this book incredibly tough to read in parts, it took nearly three months to complete since my background is not in psychology or psychotherapy. Nevertheless, I loved it, it’s a great book and it ties in nicely with Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and Roger Martin’s The Opposable Mind and The Design of Business, which I have previously recommended.

I love learning and improving on my own qualities and if I don’t feel that I am progressing in either of these I become unhappy. So, it was a no-brainer for me to pick this book up.

The particular areas that stuck most with me were The Person Who Emerges and Second Stage of Process. These areas helped increase my understanding of certain types of behavior and helped to teach me new concepts that I had only just begun to grasp.

The Person Who Emerges

This section talked about openness to experience in which the person becomes open to a wider range of experiences that build towards helping them grow.

The most valuable piece I took away from this was that we as people need to learn that reality doesn’t accommodate for us, we need to work with it instead.

Second Stage of Process

This is actually the second of seven stages. It discusses the idea that many people perceive problems as being external to themselves, outside or their control and not their fault.

Nobody likes to admit they are wrong or that they may even be causing their own problems but I think in many cases this is exactly the problem. This also reminds me of the reality model that is discussed in The Opposable Mind.

Final Words

Although I found parts of this book difficult to read, I forced myself through it and I am still to this day happy that I did. Some sections of it were beyond my understanding but that’s OK, I feel that in a year or two I will be able to return to this book and read through it again, further building on the foundations of my understanding so far.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, since I believe from the two sections alone that I have mentioned, everyone could learn a great deal from them and the book as a whole is great in helping people work towards personal growth.

If you want to find out more about the book or purchase your own copy, you can head on over to Amazon.

Phil.

The Design of business

Following on from the Opposable Mind, I checked out another book by Roger Martin called The Design of business.

I loved this book. It’s a great addition to the Opposable Mind and it felt to me like an extension of it too. The knowledge funnel particularly stuck with me and it was probably the most valuable thing I took away from the book. I apply it to everything I do now, so that I can try to get a better understanding of where I sit within the bigger picture.

The Knowledge Funnel

Roger Martin argues that when it comes to understanding something, it can be broken into three sections (with the exception of a few areas).

Mystery - Heuristic - Algorithm

Mystery - Why do leave and apples fall at different rates?

Heuristic - Gravity!

Algorithm - Newtons law of universal gravity.

The book mentions that the likes of McDonalds have everything down to an algorithm, from how to interview people through to how long you should cook a burger for. However, the likes of law firms dealing with complex cases cannot simply apply an algorithm to every case. They may use a heuristic to loosely deal with the given situation, but they will need to address each case as a highly unique and individual scenario.

The book does focus on a lot of business, but I don't think anyone should let that put them off. I feel that you can easily apply the concepts in this book to everyday life. Saying that however, there is an amazing section on reliability Vs Validity.

Reliability Vs Validity

“Reliability aims to produce consistent, predictable outcomes, Validity aims to produce outcomes that meet a desired objective.”

Roger Martin - The Design of Business.

The book discusses that in order for a company to remain successful and innovative they need to find a balance between the two, but it also says that the two are inherently incompatible.

Validity is uncertain, you can't give it a budget because no one knows how long it will take to develop something from a mystery into a heuristic, or from a heuristic into an algorithm. The negative side of this is that if a company sticks only to what is reliable, there is a good chance that they will stagnate and a competitor will release a more innovative product, making their own obsolete.

Final Words

This book is excellent and I advise everyone to read it. However, I strongly suggest reading The Opposable Mind first and then going on to The Design of Business.

Let me know what you think and if you know of any similar books, please comment below and tell me about them.

If you like what you've read so far, or would like more details on the book, you can head over to Amazon for a closer look.

Phil.

THE OPPOSABLE MIND: WINNING THROUGH INTEGRATIVE THINKING

This book is amazing! buy it now and thank me later.

This is easily one of the best and most important books I have ever read. It has actually changed how I think, and how I think about how I think.

The book focuses on something called integrative thinking, which is the ability to hold two opposing ideas and, rather than choosing one, you generate a new idea that contains positive elements from each of the opposing ideas into something superior.

“The ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but superior to each”

Roger Martin - The Opposable Mind.

Reality Models

One of the key topics in this book that stuck with me was the discussion on reality models. This is the idea that each individual has a different view on reality, which is turn is differs in varying degrees to reality itself. This is how people develop opinions and why I think two people can watch the same discussion and come away with differing opinions

I’m fascinated by how people see reality around them and this section was very insightful. I really think this is something that everyone should read in order to try and get a better understanding of the idea. I truly think that this would be great in helping people to understand opposing points of view and even aiding people towards becoming a more understanding and knowledgable person.

Final Words

I could talk about this book all day, but I want to keep these posts relatively short and easy to digest. So, I strongly recommend that you get yourself a copy of this book and check it out. I would also be more than happy to hear about any similar books, so if you have any recommendations of your own, please leave a comment below.

If you like what I have had to say about this book you can head on over to Amazon and get a closer look.

Phil.