When you can’t travel … read (Part 1 of 2)
Reflections on my favourite books of 2021
2021 is nearly over. I’m sure many of us share that universal feeling of “What? So fast?!”. In nearly two years of not setting a foot into those flying things called aeroplanes (remember those?), one source of life experiences has come to a grinding halt. Travel, they say, is a great learning experience. Meeting different people, seeing different ways of life, food and culture build perspective and a sense of humility. While digital opened new virtual doors at astonishing speeds, many of us re-connected with another enduring source of learning over the years — the humble “book”.
I’ve always been a reader. Not a great one by any standards as I can neither read with the speed nor the depth of comprehension and recall that many do. Plus, all those constant distractions! However, I’m at an age and stage of life now where quality matters more than quantity. A good book that leaves me with an aha feeling is a much more meaningful prospect than doing check-box reading. Rather than following books lists of influencers (not that there’s anything wrong with that), I am more happy to go where my interest leads me and meander through a relaxed path chancing upon gems in unexpected places.
2021 was a gratifying year on that front. As each year winds down, I like to pause and look back. Like every year, this one too had many different experiences but it was the books that stood out. They made for an enriching and inspiring journey covering diverse topics and writing styles. Below are short reflections on my favourite books of the year. I hope you will find a couple of recommendations to add to your own reading list. And I would LOVE it if you would share your favourites in the comments below.
RANGE — David Epstein
Have you ever agreed with a book from the moment you read its title? It was like that for me with this book. I’ve always felt that dot connectors are under-rated in corporations. While it’s easy to spot specialists, it’s way harder to nurture generalists. And yet, in today’s world, as we sit at the confluence of major fields of human knowledge, progress relies on the ability to connect dots across a range of different fields. For example, it took just about a year for the Covid-19 vaccines to get rolled out . While we may take this for granted, it actually was the result of decades of research and development in many different fields for the vaccines to go from getting developed, tested, distributed and administered around the world at record speeds.
In this book, David Epstein makes a strong case for pursuing generalism from multiple angles — when to start, how far to go, when to give up and how to fail. It’s a good parenting framework too — in this world of “tiger” parenting, we don’t allow our kids to dabble and dawdle, preferring instead to fill their days with structured and repetitive learning. We may be missing an opportunity for them.
This doesn’t mean that specialism is redundant — just that it’s not the only path to excellence. Think T-shaped rather than linear. Knowing a little bit about a lot of things can be a significant advantage in the world of the future.
Consider also: 10000 hours (for a counter view), Outliers.
Tags: #excellence #leadership #selfhelp #parenting
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MONEY — Morgan Housel
Women tend to invest less on financial literacy. Unfortunately, this is a truism and, until recently, I was guilty of neglecting this vital aspect of wellbeing too. It is one of those things you wish you knew in your twenties or that you were taught in college. How does our education system miss out on teaching people such a basic life skill?!
Well, it’s never too late to start. This book was recommended on a women’s alumni network and I instantly ordered it. There’s a big idea about money and wealth and most people don’t realise it — the power of compounding. If you start with small sums of money and play a long game, the end result can be staggeringly bigger than what you might have imagined at the start line. A longer time-horizon can make a material difference — so, girls and boys, start young!
In this un-put-down-able book, Morgan Housel takes us through a myriad of important topics money-wise —luck & risk, getting wealthy vs. staying wealthy, wealth being what you don’t see and being OK with things going wrong . I loved this quote: “Manage your money in a way that helps you sleep at night”. Just following this one principle can help with making spend, save and invest decisions that work for you. Another one: “Use money to gain control over your time”. Time is the biggest dividend out there — not having control over one’s finite time on this planet is a big drag on happiness.
Consider also: Own It, Rich Dad Poor Dad. Also this article on Time Millionaires.
Tags: #money #wealth #financialliteracy #women #time #happiness
THE CULTURE MAP — Erin Meyer
Cultural competence is an important skill. In today’s globalised world we meet people who come from different cultures and bring their unique understanding and approach to a topic. Being able to understand this context and flex one’s style in order to connect more deeply with people is key to success and productivity. While it’s not possible to be as fluent as a native to each cultural nuance, wouldn’t it be helpful to have a reference handbook?
Erin Meyer does just that in this book. Leveraging an eight-scale model and reasonable generalisations, she offers a way to navigate cultural differences in real-life situations. The eight scales include: communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing and scheduling. I wouldn’t bother trying to remember all — but I do know where to look the next time I’m in a situation that requires application of cultural context.
Not every generalisation works, of course. Amusingly, many of the “Indian” generalisations didn’t apply to me. There will always be a need to use your own judgement. But a good starting point is to understand that these differences exist and that one can navigate them with some of the tips from this book. Oh, and also, that it’s a good idea to actively seek opportunities to work cross-culturally — it’ll make for a richer experience.
Tags: #diversity #inclusion #crosscultural #business
INVISIBLE WOMEN — Caroline Criado Perez
The damsel in distress is rescued by Prince Charming. Ugh! Fairy tales are now getting passé, thankfully. We live in a world where there’s greater awareness of gender representation issues and a lot is being done to fix that. That made me curious about why this book, which is about “exposing data bias in a world designed for men”, needed to be written at all, that too in 2019. Why did it win FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year award?Don’t we already know that the world is designed for a default male? Why do we need 300+ pages of data-centric evidence? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on solutions?
All valid questions, I suppose, so I was unprepared for how eye-opening this book turned out to be. The exclusion of women in the design of the world has been so systemic and is so deep-rooted that we don’t even notice it unless someone points it out. The “default male” is ingrained into our behaviours, systems and processes- this makes women’s needs to become almost an exception or an afterthought.
For example, why do women need to routinely bundle up with shawls and jackets in offices? Why are there longer lines outside female urinals? Why is it so hard to hold a phone in your hands if you are a woman? From everyday inconveniences such as these to more material things like testing seat-belts for safety, drug tests, disease diagnosis and employment opportunities: there are key aspects of the life and context of 50% of the population that are routinely forgotten.
That’s why this book is needed. Overt bias is easier to uproot. It’s the other kind — the unconscious one- that is harder to both spot and fix . It needs a reminder and a nudge. As leaders and professionals, we are making implicit assumptions everyday that miss the unique needs and context of women in wide-ranging aspects of life and work. Changing that will require deliberate inclusion but the pay-offs will be worth it.
Consider also: Hidden Figures (movie)
Tags: #feminism #bias #equality #inclusion #50:50
THE CODE BREAKER —Walter Isaacson
From a book about how women are ignored, to a book about how two women won the Nobel Prize in 2020 for their ground-breaking work on CRISPR, a gene editing technology.
An aside first: if you haven’t read one of Walter Isaacson’s biographies yet, please quickly get your hands on one. You are missing an experience because he always does a masterful job of going deep into the life and mind of his protagonist leaving you inspired. Check out the recommendations below.
Back to this one: essentially, it traces the advancements from the days of Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel and Alfred Wallace when the “gene” as a unit of heredity was first conceived, through to the 20th century when the shape and structure of DNA was cracked (Crick, Watson and the uncredited Rosalind Franklin) and into the 21st century when a fierce race to work out how to edit genes resulted in a Nobel Prize for the winning team.
There are many ethical and moral questions here: should humans play God? Are we interfering with natural evolution and what could the resultant implications be? The science itself is fascinating — I never realised that it was the literal shape of DNA and RNA molecules (the “twists and folds”) that cause chemical reactions in our body to do what they do.
This book is also very relevant to the pandemic times because it tells the story of the millenia-long arms race going on between bacteria and viruses. Learning how bacteria have developed techniques to fight off viruses has played a big role in the development of vaccines, including the ones for Covid-19.
Lastly, unlike his other works, this one feels incomplete which makes sense because the science of gene editing is very much in its infancy and there’s lots to be scripted ahead. It’s going to take many smart brains to work through the scientific, moral and social issues. So, if you are a parent, do pay attention to the biotech field — it’s going to revolutionalise the world.
Consider also: Other Walter Isaacson biographies: Steve Jobs, Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci. The Gene. The Double Helix. Homo Deus.
Tags: #lifesciences #biotechnology #genes #CRISPR #women #science
