Some years ago I read a great book called the Power of Full Engagement by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr. It was one of those books that you could read over and over, it was so full of good reminders. Well, Tony Schwartz has a new book out, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, and it’s another great book that is full of good thoughts, great reminders, and an outline of how to expand your capacity, build good routines and habits, and have a more balanced life. The book builds on some of the thoughts from his earlier book and gives a good, practical plan to being more engaged in your work and at home. It challenges the conventional wisdom that putting your head down and grinding out long hours is the best way to accomplish tasks. Instead it challenges you to find the way you work best and to create natural rhythm in your life of pressing hard and recovery.
Here’s a few of the great quotes from the book:
1. “Because the number of hours we work is easy to measure, organizations often default to evaluating employees by the hours they put in at their desks, rather than by the focus they bring to their work or the value they produce.”
2. “If you are not actively working to get better at what you do, there’s a chance you’re getting worse, no matter what the quality of your initial training may have been. As Geoffrey Colvin points out in his provocative book Talent is Overrated, simply doing an activity for a long time is no guarantee that you’ll do it well, much less get better at it”
3. “Human beings, on the other hand, need to meet four energy needs to operate at their best: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. By moving rhythmically between activity and renewal in each of these four dimensions, we fulfill our corresponding needs: sustainability, security, self-expression, and significance. In the process, we build our capacity to generate more and more value over time.”
This book is terrific for those who are seriously looking at trying to develop their own skills & capacity and to better manage the most important, and really the only person you can truly manage, yourself.
I’ll buy a copy for the first 5 people who post a blog, or a tweet to my account, letting me know “Why I’d like this book”. I can send you a hardcover from Amazon, or send you a credit to your Kindle. Either way, please leave an email where I can get your shipping address.
David Curry
As an extra, I’ve added this talk from Tony Schwartz. It’s the full meal deal, so watch it when you have a few minutes:
