Living in More Than One World

Last week, I wrote for the second time on 50 Philosophy Classics, the new book by Tom Butler-Bowdon. One of Tom’s featured books is 1843’s Fear and Trembling, by the Danish philosopher-theologian Søren Kierkegaard. The 200th anniversary of Kierkegaard’s birth was celebrated on May 5th, and there will be activities throughout the year in his native Copenhagen and elsewhere.

Much of my interest in Kierkegaard stems from Peter Drucker’s deeply personal 1949 Sewanee Review essay, “The Unfashionable Kierkegaard,” which was anthologized in his 1993 book The Ecological Vision. In the essay, Drucker describes Fear and Trembling as “my favorite among Kierkegaard’s books.” As I wrote in 2011, Joseph A. Maciariello and Karen E. Linkletter examined this essay eloquently in their book Drucker’s Lost Art of Management.

You can also find a commentary on the essay by Richard Brem on the Drucker Society of Austria website, followed by the text itself. A highly interesting typewritten manuscript on the Drucker Archives website contains the text of a lecture, “Søren Kierkegaard: Or, How is Human Existence Possible?” It was given by Drucker 70 years ago yesterday, on May 20, 1943, at Bennington College, where he was teaching at the time.

Most people will not travel to Copenhagen to celebrate, but there is considerable reading online, including Judith Thurman’s post on newyorker.com; a post on Free Exchange, the economics blog of The Economist, and an op/ed in The New York Times, “Kierkegaard at 200,” by Gordon Marino, professor of philosophy and director of the Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College, in Minnesota. For the time being, Oxford Journals is providing free access to selected Kierkegaard-themed articles.

Perhaps reading this material will provide the spark to attend one of the upcoming events, or to visit Copenhagen to see where Kierkegaard lived his relatively short, but influential life.

In my previous post, I wrote about the release of the new book 50 Philosophy Classics, by Tom Butler-Bowdon. The publisher, Nicholas Brealey, has re-released all titles in Tom’s 50 Classics series as “The Literature of Possibility.” Taken together, they represent a highly valuable library of inspirational thought throughout the ages, aimed not at the specialist but for curious readers who are hungry for deep knowledge with applicability for daily life.

I mentioned that books by contemporary thinkers such as Daniel Kahneman and Nassim Nicholas Taleb shared space in the new book with the more familiar historical names (Aristotle, Plato, Confucius and so on). One of the strongest contributions of 50 Philosophy Classics is the inclusion of, besides Kahneman and Taleb, other modern-age writers that we more readily associate with other disciplines, including Iris Murdoch (a philosopher but better known as a novelist) and Marshall McLuhan (better known as a media/cultural observer).

Many readers will also appreciate the inclusion of the highly popular Harvard government professor Michael Sandel and his 2009 book Justice, as well as the oft-referenced Thomas Kuhn (“paradigm shift”), and his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In addition, there is the physicist David Bohm (who has been written about elegantly by Peter Senge, Joseph Jaworski and others) and his 1980 book Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

Butler-Bowdon shows that philosophy is a big tent that can encompass ideas and inquiries that hold significant meaning and maps to understanding for some, and the opposite effect on others. “The purpose of this book,” he writes, “is not to tell you who is “right,” but to lay out some of the ideas and theories of note to help you make up your own mind.”

Spring is the season of renewal and rebirth, the perfect time for the publication of Tom Butler-Bowdon’s new book 50 Philosophy Classics: Thinking, Being, Acting, Seeing; and the re-release of the previous five books in his 50 Classics series (Self-Help, Success, Spiritual, Psychology and Prosperity).

I’ve written about Butler-Bowdon a number of times, both in this blog and earlier in USA TODAY, most recently when I blogged about his 2012 book, Never Too Late to Be Great. I find his writing to be endlessly inspirational, useful and practical; and I reread sections in short bursts on nearly a daily basis. His ability to get the gist of a book and clearly and concisely communicate it is truly formidable.

50 Philosophy Classics follows the winning format of the earlier Classics books; concise (usually around six pages) chapters on each selected book giving the main points, context, some quotations and a basic bio of each author. The introduction clearly explains his rationale for the new book, and along with a brief glossary, there is also a list of 50 additional classics. Basing his writing on particular books, rather than having to write a chapter each explaining the entire work of,  for instance, Plato or Aristotle, makes this more manageable and compact.

Given its place in the series, it is fitting that the book aims to demonstrate how these classics of philosophy can help guide us to leading a smarter, more fulfilling life. I’ll delve more into some of the specifics in my next post, but it’s worth noting the wide time range covered, from the 5th century BC Analects of Confucius, to contemporary authors, including some that may not always be identified as philosophers, such as Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan). I’ll return to 50 Philosophy Classics in my next post, but in the meantime, it’s worth quoting Butler-Bowdon’s description that “philosophy is high-level thinking to establish what is true or real, given the limits of human thought and senses, and the implication of this for how we act.”

It’s not surprising that the new book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, by Jonah Berger, is itself catching on and getting lots of attention. Berger, who is in his early 30s, is the James G. Campbell Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies and teaches about how and why products and ideas go viral and get other forms of attention, both online and offline. These days it’s not only companies and other organizations that have to continually get the word out in effective ways about their offerings. Individuals have to do it too, and the marketplace is crowded, confusing and noisy.

Berger’s media attention has been impressive, especially for a new author. The book was reviewed in The New York Times and Boston Globe. He did a Q&A, “‘Contagious’ explains secret behind infectious ideas,” with my former colleague Sharon Jayson, in USA TODAY. Fast Company ran a profile by Lydia Dishman, “Why Ideas And Products Become Contagious: The Jonah Berger Formula,” and has also been running excerpts online. This Sunday, March 10th, he’ll be doing a book signing in Austin at the SXSW® Interactive Festival.

In 2011, after reading and being impressed by one of his scholarly articles, I interviewed Berger for a brief article on word of mouth marketing for the journal I edit, Leader to Leader. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover recently that he had published his book, which he told Jayson in USA TODAY is “about understanding why people talk and share. You could think about it as understanding conversations — the science of what we talk about.”

In my previous installment of posts about the new book Drucker: A Life in Pictures, I remarked on the tremendous variety of people who are represented in documents depicted from the Drucker Archives, including Cesar Chavez, Rick Warren and Frances Hesselbein. As the chapter “The Social-Sector Advisor” makes clear, Peter Drucker was a citizen of the highest order. Besides some of the organizations mentioned in my earlier posts, this also illustrates his involvement with CARE International (CARE Foundation International Humanitarian Award; May 24, 1995), the Salvation Army (Evangeline Booth Award, 2001) and Mutual of America (Distinguished Citizens Service Award; April 4, 1991).

I was particularly struck by the photo of the typewritten document “Peter F. Drucker (Partial) List of Community Service Responsibilities 1950-1988.” He separates the list into two categories: (1) Doing, (2) Advisor and Consultant. The first includes (all as Drucker typed it): Trustee-some time Vice-Chairman, Montclair State College, Montclair, NJ, 1960-71;[Drucker lived in Montclair when he taught at New York University]; Board of Directors, American Management Association, 1952-1960; 1972-1976; Commissioner, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 1986; Member, Asian Art Council, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986; Member, Advisory Council, Peace Corps, 1968-1973; President, Society for the History of  Technology.

In category two (again, not repeating organizations from my earlier posts, and as he typed it), the list includes the American Heart Association, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford Graduate Business School, Navajo Indian Tribal Council, International Rescue Committee, Japan House NYC, American Symphony Orchestra League and the Western Association of Hospitals. Those are only some of the organizations on both lists. And all of these responsibilities were on top of his other consulting work, as well as his teaching and writing. Peter Drucker as role model is on full display in this chapter, and in the entire book.

Last week I wrote the first of several installments about the new book Drucker: A Life in Pictures, by Rick Wartzman, Executive Director of the Drucker Institute; with photos by Anne Fishbein (whose work has been displayed in many major museums and galleries), and curated by Drucker Institute archivist Bridget Lawlor. The content reveals a lot about Peter Drucker’s work processes, the thought that underpinned his work, and how varied that work was. In the previous post I mentioned the notes from leaders in business, politics and even baseball. But his involvement and influence extended beyond these worlds. One of the most eye-opening pages contains a short letter to Drucker from the legendary labor leader Cesar Chavez, from February 8, 1982, looking forward to their next meeting ten days later. (Would this be the type of formality taken care of in an email these days?)

Drucker’s social sector work has been well-documented, and is reinforced by the visuals here. He consulted in the 1980s during the tenure of Frances Hesselbein as CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA, and pages 98-99 display photos of Drucker’s Girl Scouts sash and lifetime membership. After retiring as CEO, Hesselbein, Bob Buford and Richard F. Schubert started the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, in 1990. (It’s now called the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute, and with Jossey-Bass, co-publishes the quarterly journal Leader to Leader, where I have been managing editor since 2011.) Buford, the chairman emeritus of the Drucker Institute, was a longtime friend, colleague and consulting partner of Drucker’s. He’s represented by an 8-point document from 2002, “What Peter Drucker Does For Me.” Buford was instrumental in introducing Drucker to people who eventually led the megachurch phenomenon, which I first learned about through Drucker’s writings in the 1990s. One of its major figures, Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren, also had a longstanding relationship with Drucker. On the page opposite Buford’s is a picture of a specially-personalized copy of Warren’s huge-selling book The Purpose Driven Life.

I’ll continue my exploration into Drucker: A Life in Pictures next week. Until then, it’s worth reflecting on not just how Peter Drucker led a life of such significance and influence in so many spheres, but how we can as well.

The life story of Peter Drucker has been told in a number of ways, by a number of people, including Drucker himself. But telling it in photographs is a different twist, thanks to the fascinating, beautifully designed new book Drucker: A Life in Pictures. It is the work of the Drucker Institute, in Claremont, Cal., with an introduction and running commentary by Executive Director Rick Wartzman; and curation of images by archivist Bridget Lawlor. The images of items from the Institute’s Drucker Archives were photographed by a renowned Los Angeles-based photographer, Anne Fishbein. There is so much packed within these pages (and in the Archives itself), that I plan to devote several different blog posts to its contents.

The chapters are arranged by various areas of Drucker’s life, beginning with “The Immigrant,” “The Writer,” “The Teacher,” and so on. The photos are of artifacts (such as his U.S. citizenship card and portions of his FBI file), objects (albums from his record collection, his Brother GX-6750 typewriter) and documents, including letters to and from him and handwritten notes to him. Each chapter begins with a brief interview excerpt. I am honored that an excerpt from my April 11, 2005 interview with him leads off the chapter “Family Man, Friend and Fan.” The names of some of the people who wrote to Drucker provide a sense of how far his reach extended. A short list includes General Electric’s Jack Welch, Herman Miller’s Max De Pree; politicians Daniel P. Moynihan and Newt Gingrich; and, in the baseball world, Peter Bavasi, president of the Cleveland Indians, whom Drucker advised in 1986. Separately, there is a full page photo of him in a Kansas City Royals jacket and cap.

In my next post I’ll get into more of the specifics of some of the letters and notes. In the meantime, the textual and visual contents of this book reinforce the fact that Peter Drucker was a one-of-a-kind person; even the greatest of the novelists he so admired could not have invented his life story.

Fortune’s January 14, 2013 edition is The Future Issue; with around one-quarter of the pages devoted to the topic. The magazine explores various dimensions of what tomorrow might be like rooted in work and effort taking place in the present. The centerpiece feature (eight pages long) is “Larry Page Looks Ahead,” about the Google CEO/co-founder’s vision for the company and its potential game-changer initiatives like self-driving cars. The article, by Miguel Helft, portrays a company in constant motion, reinventing itself 24/7; appropriate for a service that has to be always available, with no exceptions or downtime.

Other features include “Meet Your Next Surgeon,” on robotics in the operating room, such as the da Vinci, from the Silicon Valley company Intuitive Surgical. Also mentioned is the experimental research platform Raven, by Applied Dexterity, a recently formed company spun off from the University of Washington. “The $50 billion question,” Ryan Bradley writes, “for the future of surgery: Will there be (operating) room for more than one kind of robot?” If you want to know more about the future of the intersection of brands and pop culture, see Daniel Roberts’ “Will.i.am, Hit Machine.” It details the future-focused work the Black Eyed Peas rapper is providing for companies like Intel and Coca-Cola, whose CEO Muhtar Kent calls him a “visionary.” A shorter section, “The Future Dispatches,” briefly tackles a variety of issues with implication for the future. One, “Teaching Watson the Meaning of ‘OMG,’” concerns the work of Eric Brown of IBM to program computers to understand slang. There is also a short Q&A with technology pioneer/inventor/author/futurist Ray Kurzweil about his new book, How to Create a Mind. And to complete the circle of the future, it was announced in December Kurzweil is joining Google as a director of engineering.

January is a great month for introspection, especially about one elusive subject: what really drives success? There are innumerable guides in this area, and there is no shortage of people who have and will continue to offer advice. If you’re open to the idea of the random nature of success, the involvement of luck and the serendipity factor behind it, the work of Frans Johansson provides a sense of hope and a set of strategies.

I just finished his terrific book published last year, The Click Moment: Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World. It is a worthy follow up to 2004’s The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation. Johansson is a fluid and engaging writer; a born storyteller. Even if you think you know everything about the corporate histories of companies like Microsoft or Starbucks, it’s worth reading The Click Moment for his angle, especially for the lessons drawn, and how they fit with the many other examples in the book. In his HBR blog post from last October, he expands on one of the stories in the book, about how he built a successful career as a speaker/writer/thought leader after his first book was published. It’s an example of a brilliant strategy that only became one in retrospect. It’s true that he had business experience, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and all the networking advantages that come with it. But lots of people have that, and it won’t automatically turn them into thought leaders who sell lots of books. Thinking differently, reaching out to a wide range of people, being open to possibilities beyond the obvious, and then running with unexpected success worked for him, and the people and companies he profiles. See what happens by adding these thoughts to your introspection, this month and throughout the year.

Improving your life at any time of year can seem overwhelming. That is especially true for mid-late January, with many people trying to implement new year’s resolutions or similar goals and strategies. Last year I wrote about keeping on track at a time when the weather is bleak and things don’t seem to be changing fast enough. I believe that my thoughts from last year are still valid, but you might want to add the ideas of Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman to the mix. I wrote about him in 2009 and 2011, and he has a new book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking. It has drawn lots of attention, in part because it reminds us that not all self-help is helpful, and that we don’t necessarily help the situation by constantly putting pressure on ourselves to improve.

Burkeman addressed the resolutions issue last month in a guest article for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, which among other things introduced me to “the Buddhist-influenced Japanese psychologist Shoma Morita.” He quotes this advice from Morita, about essentially starting where you are, with what you have, warts-and-all, to “begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect or a procrastinator or unhealthy or lazy or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself.”  Burkeman’s clear-eyed, realistic and fairly gentle way of bringing you back to earth is also evident in his latest column, about creative thinking, another area that is fraught with unreasonable expectations. A key takeaway for me is that there are many paths to improvement, happiness and enlightenment; you have to find what is right for you. The best authors in these genres forge a direct connection with their readers, a worthy aspiration that can slowly lead to improved lives.