I was listening to this Harvard professor’s Ted Talk on the difficulties of having engaging conversations and how to overcome some of them. Picked her book up which is essentially a research into what makes conversations interesting and what does not. A lot of the input is from simulated exercises of speed dating.

There are some interesting things to pick up from the book no doubt. Some of the pointers, I am sure, we are all aware of but the book serves as a good reminder. To finish the whole book though, you really need to be interested in the science behind conversations. Which can quickly turn to be fairly dry.

Some interesting things I learnt:

1. Most of us think our conversations are worse than they actually are!
2. A good conversation is usually devoid of “strong opinions”
3. Conversation, at the end of the day is a huge coordination game that requires a staggering amount of simply guessing the other party’s mind.
4. The name of the book is actually an acronym for what the author says makes for a good conversation – Topics, Asking, Levity, Kindness
5. Topic : The author says prepping for conversation is the best option. Most would object to this might becoming rehearsed but she cites a lot of research to prove otherwise. If not anything else, it helps, per her, in switching up when the conversation gets stuck or go “up” and “down” in the pyramid of familiarity as the conversation progresses.
6. Asking: Even insincere questions is a form of caring. No boomer asking or repeated questions. Follow up questions are most engaging.
7. People who ask more questions are better liked.
8. This is interesting: Researchers never found any evidence that asking sensitive questions is more dangerous than asking benign ones!
9. Levity: Find the fun, rather than trying to be funny. Compliment effusively. Laugh
10. We massively underestimate the positive impact of compliments and overestimate how bothered or uncomfortable they can make somebody.
11. Kindness: This takes work. Speak respectfully and listen responsively.
12. Calling people by their names (or by other preferred forms of address) matters tremendously!
13. Great listening is not to be equated with silence and attention. Great listening is expressed through verbal response.
14. Group Conversations: These are more tricky. There are fluid status hierarchies in topic to topic. Take a stewardship mindset.

I had picked up this book randomly at an airport bookstore. Did not have much expectations. Turned out to be a fairly interesting one. Won’t go to the extent of recommending this book but if you come across one, it is a good read. A few good observations and insights from the author.

This is more of a scientific look at what is optimism and anecdotes of how optimism made a difference in the world. It certainly is not about how you can be an optimist. On that point, the second part of the subtitle is a bit misleading. This is no self help book.

The author starts with his personal tragedy of losing his wife at a very young age after their first and only pregnancy. From there it dives straight into why “Optimism is the only true moral courage” (quote from Shackelton and his incredible voyage of getting lost and yet getting every person back home alive – which included going back to an uninhabited island to retrieve the ones that had to stay back).

An interesting concept is that of “optimism gap”. People tend to be more optimistic about their personal future but far less of that of the society. Even more interesting find is that the richer the country, the larger the gap! Interestingly, we extend that optimism to those close to us but it weakens as we go further. (Lawyers are an exception to this!! They see their futures more closely tied to the world’s futures)

“Optimism bias” is built into most human beings. Our expectations – even when given data on reality – supersedes most all likely scenarios. In fact, we tend to be more optimistic on things that are desirable, mundane or controllable.

So, what is the case for an essentially positive illusion that optimism is? The author argues that while optimism may not make the outcomes better (too many uncontrollable variables), it will make you better able to deal with them without becoming stressed. Upon reflection, I concur with this when I think about friends and colleagues in my life.

Another way of looking at it was articulated by the Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci who was imprisoned by Mussolini and suffered appallingly. “Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. The ability to see the world for what it is and press on anyways.”

A few more interesting learnings for me –

(*) We tend to pay more attention to information when it holds positive implications for our futures and less when it has negative

(*) Mark Zuckerberg quote – “Optimists tend to be successful; pessimists tend to be right!”

(*) Research has shown that while, in general, people with higher incomes are happier than poorer people at any given time, they don’t get any happier if there’s any general increase in income. It seems that our happiness is less about how much we make but more about how much we make in comparison to people around us!

(*) “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

Towards the end of the book, the author dives deep about two very relevant topics of today – AI and Climate warming. I am not sure he did a good job of drawing the connection of his discussions to the topic de jure.

P.S. There is an irritating part where a few paragraphs are repeated word for word in two different chapters. Seems like an editing snafu.

This is a near 400 page book that is a must read, in my opinion, for every person. Young or old. One of the better books which takes a stab at trying to make sense of what is going on in the world. Not that the conclusions are going to be any less scary. But it frames all the changes in the world going on in a thoughtful framework.

Of the various systems – fascism, communism and liberalism, only the last had survived. First one died after Second World War. Second died with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But liberalism is also dying now. Ecological collapse and technological disruption (that brought globalization) has out sped liberalism. We know the system is not working but we do not know what the new system will be. Across the whole world, we are seeing this struggle against liberalism. While different people/country are taking different approaches all are agreed on good international relations and are equally against immigration.

The scariest prediction the author makes is that technology will concentrate wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer that will create massive new “useless” class. This will lead to social and political upheavals the likes of which we have never seen before.

We are looking at an era where technology changes will need people to continuously retool themselves. In theory, it sounds good. In practice, that is impossible. The emotional cost of realizing one does not have a job and skills are useless and needs to start re-learning… over and over again will give rise to mental issues that is going to throw the society into turmoils it has not seen.

The author gets into another controversial topic. It starts with the theory that democracy is a superior system because it gives everybody a choice to rationally decide what is best for them. And then goes to prove that the “rational” part is overblown. We are not rational at all and certainly most of us are not knowledgeable enough to know what is best for us. Richard Dawkins – the famous evolutionist – when asked about Brexit had asked the interviewer a head scratcher – “why are you asking me to vote? I am not an economist. I am not an expert on this. I want experts to tell me what is good for me.”. In the end, the author says, we vote the way we “feel” not what we “know” to be best for us.

One observation I am personally very aligned with the author is the fallacy in believing in what the media says. I get into regular debates with the TikTok generation on this. Media, as the author points out is not about truth. It is about getting your attention. Getting your eyeballs is what makes them money. The data they gather on you when you are paying attention to what they are saying is what is then sold to advertisers and others. You would do the same if owned a media channel (or were an influencer or had your podcast) – provided you wanted to make money off it.

The big question about AI and super accelerated technology is this… who gets to own “Big Data”? The author suggests both Big Tech and Government are extremely bad choices. Government slightly more so.

And this only concludes the first part of the five part book. If this has intrigued you, you will love the rest of the book too.

By: Geoff Smart, Randy Street and Alan Foster

A big thumbs down from me. The decision to present the book in a Q&A format was an extremely poor decision. The questions are not natural, at times seem extremely contrived, too frequent and severely interrupts the reading. (because those were not the questions that were going thru in my mind.)

I was hoping to pick up some aha moments in getting to understand the complex topic of talent, putting effective teams together and some of the challenges of building culture. These topics tend to be so complex that whenever you try to put a framework to it, they necessarily get dumbed down.

And that is what happened here in this book, to me. Took me less than an hour to finish.

At a high level, the mathematical formula proposed is

Power Score: PxWxR. Each rated 1-10 and the the required score should be higher than 729.
P = Priorities – Are they connected to the mission, are they correct, are they clear?
W = Who – Has the team been diagnosed? Has it been deployed? Has it been developed?
R = Relationships – Coordinated thru communication, Committed to mission and one another and Challenged to accomplish something bigger than themselves