Living in More Than One World

Sally Blount, Dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, recently wrote about the benefits of going on a retreat. Hers was silent, a focused time to contemplate, especially useful for major changes in life. This fit her situation well as the new dean of the school. I’ve been on somewhat similar retreats and found them valuable, but last week I attended a different type of retreat, of the Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative. It was my second, and both were remarkable experiences. Here are four reasons why I think it’s a great idea for knowledge workers to make time for retreats: 1. Meeting new people and renewing friendships. Although some of the attendees at the BK retreat were people I met in 2009, I also made new friends. Some were Facebook friends that I had not yet met in person. There were three communal meals a day that provided added opportunities for getting to know people better. 2.  Education. I learned a lot from the writing/marketing/publishing sessions run by my fellow BK authors, or members of the BK management team. 3. Personal renewal. There are major benefits to getting out of your routine for a few days. Many retreats, as this one did, have built-in time that can be used for contemplation, reading and being in nature. In the mornings before breakfast, if you chose, there was also time for group yoga and meditation. 4. New Activities. The BK retreat had a nonjudgmental atmosphere of acceptance. Some of this came from structured activities of trust, sharing and bonding. One night there was a campfire, and another night a talent show. Before the latter, we had a brief art therapy session. Although I went into it mentally kicking-and-screaming, I really enjoyed it and found commonalities with writing and editing. This is an intentionally short list. I’m interested in hearing about other benefits from retreats you’ve taken.

“300 Words With…” is a new, semi-regular feature on my blog, in which I interview people I admire, especially those who exemplify the spirit of living in more than one world. The featured person today is Tim Wendel, who is the author of eight books, writes for a number of great publications and teaches fiction and nonfiction writing at Johns Hopkins University. I’ve known Tim since our days as colleagues at USA TODAY.

1. You have quite a varied career; writing and teaching both fiction and nonfiction. Do these activities require different mindsets and mental/emotional adjustments?

The line is much finer than some would think. The key to any quality narrative, fiction or nonfiction, often hinges upon characters, setting, plot, etc. Certainly nonfiction pieces require more attention to detail and truth. That’s why I always fact-check those stories. Still, Joseph Conrad was once asked what the key was to quality writing. His reply? “If I can make you see.” In essence, the scenes or people I have in my mind I offer to you through my writing. When it works we’re dreaming the same dream, in a way. That’s when the writing becomes so enthralling that you miss your subway stop or you stay up past your bedtime, still reading away. That only happens with great characters and memorable situations, regardless of what form we’re working in.

2. Since the earliest days when you added being an author to your work in journalism, how has your life changed, in a day-to-day sense and otherwise?

I used to write much more at night. I think raising two kids drove that out of me. Now I’m older and I find my best time to write is in the morning. I’ll have a quick bite to eat and then start working. When you’re working on a longer work, you need to focus on it a little bit each day. If not, the characters or concerns don’t rattle around in your head enough. At least not for me. Finding the time can be a concern. I wrote my first novel, Castro’s Curveball, on the D.C. Metro [subway]. That’s all the time I had back then, but it all adds up if you stay with it.

3. What non-work/non-writing activities do you find particularly meaningful in your life?

Now that I’m in my 50s, I realize how important it is to stay in shape. I run with a local group most Friday mornings. I also do other classes, as much for the friendship as the fitness. Writing can be a lonely occupation, so we need to find people we can talk things out with. I’ve been meditating and I’ve read a lot of spiritual texts, everything from Gnostic Gospels to Joseph Campbell. And, finally, family is important to me. I never expected to learn as much from raising my two kids as I have. It made me vulnerable and open in a way that I didn’t expect. Which made me a better writer and perhaps a person more receptive to the world in general.

Warren Bennis, whom I wrote about last year, is one of the world’s top authorities on leadership. He’s also a great example of someone who remains relevant, in-demand and active in his mid-80s. I think a worthy goal for knowledge workers to aim for is what Bennis has accomplished: deep into what many would term as advanced years, people still want to know what he thinks, and many will pay for the privilege. His book with Burt Nanus, Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge, has sold more than a half  million copies, and has a front cover endorsement from Peter Drucker. (Last year, I saw Bennis give a thought-provoking presentation at one of the Drucker Centennial events in Los Angeles.) Now, at 85, Bennis has his first website. And at the same time, he’s published his account of a fulfilling, meaningful life, Still Surprised, A Memoir of a Life in Leadership (written with Patricia Ward Biederman, with whom he has collaborated previously). The website has lots of interesting material. He has published 30 books and countless articles, and there has been lots of positive coverage of the new book. You can also get a good sense of Bennis as a person from the photo page of the website. And if you want a short, tough, clear-eyed view of the responsibilities of the leader of today, read Diane Brady’s September 23rd Q&A in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Speed Dial: Warren Bennis. The art of brevity is celebrated in this quote: “Sound bites are important. A leader has to talk to people’s hearts. Sound bites give specificity, but they have to be relevant and meaningful and resonant.”

This is the first of an occasional series I’ll be writing on the Peter Drucker book The Drucker Lectures: Essential Lessons on Management, Society and Economy,published earlier this year. Many of the ideas and concepts will be familiar to his longtime readers. But these talks, from 1943 to 2003, two years before his death at 95, have not been published before. Each of the seven parts represents a decade, from the 1940s to the 2000s. In 1989, there are five knowledge lectures. Five years later, he returns for “The Knowledge Worker and the Knowledge Society.” In 2003, there is the four-part “The Future of the Corporation.” The collection was edited and has an introduction by Rick Wartzman, the Executive Director of The Drucker Institute, who writes a column, The Drucker Difference, for Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Rick also answered questions for a 2 ½ page Q&A in my book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. Although many of the lectures were given at The Claremont Graduate University, Drucker’s home base for the last 34 years of his life, the settings for some of the others are impressively varied. For instance, “What We Already Know About American Education Tomorrow,” was given as the William T. Beadles Lecture for the American College of Life Underwriters, in 1971. “Management in the Big Organizations” is from a 1967 lecture at a workshop for YMCA managers, in Estes Park, Colorado. “On Health Care” comes from a 1996 speech at the Harvard Medical School. Drucker’s voice rings true, and that’s good news, no matter what subject he tackles, or where the words were spoken.

A new, semi-regular feature begins on my blog today: “300 Words With…” I’ll be interviewing people I admire, especially those who exemplify the spirit of living in more than one world. Their responses will be (in the range of) 300 words. The first person is Tom Butler-Bowdon, who has written the excellent 50 Classics series of books; on self-help, success, psychology, spirituality and prosperity. In the past, I wrote about and interviewed him for USA TODAY.
1.    In what ways (day-to-day and otherwise) has your life changed in the years since your first book was published?

It was important because I could start to see myself as a proper writer, and work towards writing full time, which didn’t happen until a couple of years after. I thought my book would ‘set me up’ in terms of a career, but in fact it was just the first step. I had to write four more books before people really began to see me as an authority in the personal development area. Every day I do what I love, whereas before, although my career as a political and policy adviser was exciting, it was never fully ‘me’.  Now, there is really no limit to what is possible if I keep at it.

2.    You excel at synthesizing large amounts of information succinctly, and in a reader-friendly way. Any tips on how people can accomplish this in their own work?

Because I have had to read, absorb and write about so many books with my 50 Classics series, people always assume I am a speed reader. Actually, I don’t do this and in fact read every word carefully of the first few chapters. I believe that if you give a book this sort of respect, you will truly ‘get’ it. Once you have the essence, you can write about it comparatively easily. Trying to summarize from the first page in a machine-like way is difficult and a drudge, whereas the act of synthesis is basically exercising your natural insight and judgment.

3.   What non-work/non-writing activities do you find particularly meaningful in your life?

I enjoy cycling, running, swimming, spending time in nature and with my daughter. Beyond these things that have the power to refresh, what gives me real insight and peace is spiritual practice. This includes meditation (I usually attend a Buddhist group each week), and purposively giving up my day to God. That may sound wacky to a non-believer, but giving control to a Higher Power gives you great clarity and direction. You are like a pen in the hand of the real writer. I also read a range of spiritual literature; everything from Christian theology, such as Rick Warren, to New Thought writers including Catherine Ponder, to Eastern traditions and the Kabbalah. I feel it doesn’t matter where you get your inspiration as long as you get it on a daily basis.

Yesterday marked the 111th anniversary of the birth of the author Jorge Luis Borges, who died in 1986. Penguin has been releasing a series of collections of his poetry, prose and fiction this year, such as On Mysticism, On Writing, On Argentina and The Sonnets.  For many years his work has been reissued in new forms, such as topically or in new translations; making it almost akin to the kind of rock album anthologizing and remixing treatments given to bands like The Rolling Stones. I was intrigued to see that The Borges Center has moved to The University of Pittsburgh. I didn’t find out about it until recently, after my visit to that city in April. It was definitely a case of so close yet so far, as I visited the building housing the center, the magnificent Cathedral of Learning, an entirely appropriate home for Borges scholarship. Though the center has lots of material online, I’ll try to schedule a visit for the next time I am in Pittsburgh. One item in particular caught my attention on their site: an event held earlier this year in Jerusalem, called “Borges and I,” in which five Borges scholars discussed their work. One was Professor Saul Sosnowski of the University of Maryland, who years ago taught in the Hebrew school I attended as a child in Scranton, Pa. As a new school year dawns, it might be a good time to employ the device of a conversation with your younger self, as Borges describes in the short story “The Other.” Finally, take a few moments for reflection with the recent NPR blog post Borges, The Universe and The Infinite Library, by the Dartmouth theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser. It reminds us that Borges’ work, in all its forms, remains thought-provoking, timeless and subject to new interpretations as the world changes.

Last year I enjoyed blogging about my virtual experience of the Guardian Hay Festival. It has already taken place this year, but those of us who missed it in person can still enjoy it online. The Guardian still has lots of material – text, photos, audio and video – on its site for the event. The text offerings include a brief wrap-up piece, Best of the Hay Festival 2010. Hay is more than author readings. It’s also about book-buying, as driven home by the photo essay Used books, new books, looking for the perfect book … and the videos representing the Hay Festival Bookshop Challenge, including this one featuring Val McDermid. Continuing the video theme is a section of short author interviews, such as this one with Alexander McCall Smith, on Sky Arts’ The Book Show. The others in the series include McDermid, Simon Schama, Audrey Niffenegger, Bill Bryson and more. There is another photo essay in which festival-goers answer the question What Are You Reading at the Hay Festival? An extensive section of audio Haycasts features author interviews from this year, 2009 and 2008. I was happy to see one particular video from The Book Show that exemplifies the concept of Living in More Than One World: an interview with Brian May, the guitarist of Queen, who also happens to have a Ph.D. in astrophysics and is an author. The video snippet describes the recent book he co-authored with Elena Vidal, A Village Lost and Found. The Hay Festival material serves as a reminder that the extensive Guardian Books site is always worth a virtual visit. You can easily lose yourself in new and older articles, reviews, blogs, special features, audio and video. And if you still want more of the Hay virtual experience, go back to the Guardian’s main page for Hay, to access links for its coverage going back to 2006.

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of the publication of my book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. It’s been a fast moving year as a first-time author, an experience I’m treasuring since you can only do it once. (I welcome eventually being a “second-time” author.) My big recent news is that Diamond, Drucker’s publisher in Japan, has bought Japanese translation rights. I’m looking forward to publication there, as well as to editions scheduled to be published in China, South Korea and Brazil. I’ve also been doing a number of author events throughout this first year. It’s difficult to single out individual ones, as they have all been fun and interesting in various ways. The podcast for my keynote at the National Press Club on April 20 for LexisNexis’ The New Face of Value breakfast for government librarians is now online. There were three events in Pennsylvania: one in Scranton, where I was born and raised; another for the Wharton Club of  Philadelphia and one for the Pittsburgh chapter of SLA. In November I did a presentation for the Drucker Society of Los Angeles, at the Drucker-Ito School, in Claremont, Ca. Later that week, during the Drucker centennial observations, there was a book signing. The week before saw an especially memorable “fireside chat” for the Drucker Society of New York City with Frances Hesselbein, who wrote the wonderful foreword to the book. There have also been a number of articles/reviews. I was particularly pleased with two interviews, one for Idea Connection, and another for CIO.com. Both got me thinking in deeper ways about why I wrote the book, and how Drucker remains so relevant. I expect year number two to be just as busy.

Recently I was interviewed by the American University alumni website for a feature in which I and several other AU alumni librarians gave our summer book recommendations. Preparing for the interview was a good exercise in thinking about the pleasures and rewards of reading, and its relationship to life as a whole. This, of course, is the season of summer book lists, which I also blogged about last year. NPR has a major section of book recommendations, 2010 Summer Books. The Los Angeles Times’ Jacket Copy blog also has a considerable summer books section, featuring Q&As with a variety of authors and editors on their summer reading. In the UK, The Guardian’s summer books page is particularly intriguing, with annotated suggestions from many top writers, including AS Byatt, Jonathan Franzen, David Lodge, David Hare, Margaret Drabble, Ian Rankin, Annie Proulx and Tom Stoppard. The Telegraph has a similar list, The Best Books Under the Sun, with some of the same people, but also Alexander McCall Smith, Tracy Chevalier and others. For a change of pace, check out Fortune’s The CEO Summer Reading List. Top executives were polled on their reading plans this season. While some will be reading business titles, others plan to read fiction, or books about politics, food and other subjects. On a similar note, The Boston Globe has a photo gallery of CEO summer reading lists, starting with the choices of Mass. Governor Deval Patrick. Summer book sections have been around for years, but have become much more elaborate in the online era. At the same time, some of the edge and novelty may have been diminished since so many websites and online booksellers concentrate heavily on lists and recommendations. But let’s hope that summer reading lists (and summer reading) never go out of fashion.

When I heard that two-time Pulitzer Prize winner W.S. Merwin had been named the new Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress, I thought of our shared roots in Scranton, Pa. I was born and raised there and Merwin lived in the city from ages 9-14. His connection was covered by the local media, including the Times-Tribune and neighboring Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre.  Last year I blogged about the city’s transformation, and I returned for the first time in a year and a half two months ago, when I was one of the featured authors for the inaugural event Jewish Authors of Northeastern Pennsylvania. On my final day in town I walked through the reshaped courthouse square area, and saw the new Piazza dell’Arte sculpture paying tribute to Merwin and others from the worlds of the arts and humanities with ties to Lackawanna County.
At the author event I discussed my book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. There is also an important Scranton connection for Drucker. Forty six years earlier, in May 1964, he delivered the commencement address for the University of Scranton, within walking distance of my event, at the Jewish Community Center. At the time, he was 54 and a longstanding bestselling author. I was 12, living a short distance from where he spoke, and unaware of who he was. Part of my talk at the event was about how our lives intersected years later.
As for Merwin, he describes his changed, more positive feelings for Scranton in this 2008 Fresh Air interview. The Times-Tribune story says took part in a poetry series in the area about 20 years ago. What a wonderful touch it would be, if in his new capacity as Poet Laureate, he would make a return visit to Scranton to complete the circle.