This is an absolutely fabulous book by former Global Strategist and Chief Growth Officer for Publicis Groupe - Rishad Tobaccowala.
A few of my favorite moments:
From Chapter 3: when Rishad quotes (the recently late, always great) Joan Didion on reflecting that “our story is the path to meaning”: “we tel ourselves sotries in order to live and our biggest story is our interior narrative.”
The entirety of Chapter 6 - but particularly the notions that “art facilitates business innovation.” Indeed, my life’s mission is to bridge the gap between art and business in service of viable, transformative experience at scale…and so this chapter rang particularly true.
The idea from Chapter 8 that “diversifying time is similar to diversifying investments; rebalancing the portfolio is essential.” I am a disciple of Joe Pine / Jim Gilmore and their “The Experience Economy” (also - Joe’s book “Infinite Possibility” - which explores “experience” across three axes - time, space and matter - also a fabulous read), which states that value to be gleaned from an experience is “time well spent” or “time well saved.”
Thanks Annie @Anne_CMU and Alex @alexgruhin for the book and video links.
I did take a few notes and especially focused on my two take aways from the video- changing mindsets- which he calls upgrading your mental operating system- which I’m fond of. Rishad mentions restoring the soul- people, meaning and culture of an organization too. What is impressive is how he connects the dots between personal and business wellbeing skillsets, both being important to the culture of an organization. He talks about doing one thing a day that’s different, and also committing one hour a day to doing something too. It definitely sound wonderful and maybe easy, but for most of us it isn’t. That’s where mindfulness skill training can be helpful- not as a bandaid, but a skillset that helps with a huge amount of what is most often needed in the business environment- emotional intelligence, compassion, empathy, focus, attention, concentration, reducing stress and anxiety. As he mentions AI will be able to handle most of the data analysis etc., the need to connect as human beings skillfully is incredibly important to the success of a business. I identified mostly with the micromanager type of leader. My past thought leader surprising embraced a change mindset for everyone but herself. Lacking most of the essential skills, she was eventually gracefully retired. I often think about how she would have been more effective if she had the essential mindfulness skills- the emotional intelligence and mindfulness training, because she had everything else.
Rishad makes meaningful suggestions. I look forward to reading his book! Thank you!
Next week - MARCH 16 - the Book Club Session with Rishad Tobaccowala
at 2 PM ET//11 AM PT
This is the first author in this book club series, and all events require registration.
If you haven’t done so already, register here for the live event here..
Discussion can after before, during, and after in this space on the LX!