Finding - The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything - Book Review

Ken Robinson is one smart and funny guy. Before you read this review you have to watch this TED video - he has gotten millions of views on the web. It was this video that inspired me to read his book.



In The Element Sir Ken Robinson explores how to find your Element. He draws on many sources and some extremely interesting interviews and research. This includes the fact that Paul McCartney did not even like music classes in school, although he loved making music. Can you even imagine what it must feel like to know you had Paul McCartney in your Music Class and you could not inspire him. He uses stories like this one to pull the reader in to his book and make a compelling discussion on how institutions like our school systems are leading our minds away from our own element and replacing it with conformity.

As a TEDalcoholic I must confess I enjoyed the book - I found many references to the TED talks that I have watched or listen to over the years. As well as many authors on the subject of creativity, flow and mind mapping like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi or Tony Buzan. He both explores the micro and macro nature of learning the element as it relates to you and to the world. Do yourself a favor a find The Element first at the store then in yourself.

Listening - A different way to actively listen

For years we have heard about how communications works with a sender and a receiver. What this model does not help people understand is what is happening for both the sender and receiver cognitive processes. What is happening is a process of connecting new information or input with past information or input. By doing this those connections create meaning for each party. Often the receiver is finishing the senders message by predicting what he or she is going to say. Based on the beginning of the connection process. Jeff Hawkins author of On Intelligence describe the way the process the brain works in an effort to invent a new way of computing.



We see this notion of connection in how the brain works to how technology is trying to mesh-up the way we work with computers. Shiftables are at the very beginning of this trend. Shiftables were developed by David Merrill at the MIT Labs.



In Just Ask Leadership you learn that asking questions is a powerful way to help your employees engage, align and connect. This happens best when you as the leader help co-workers find those connections by asking the right questions to find those connections. This is similar the meaning making that Jeff Hawkins is studying in brain research at the Redwood Neuroscience Institute, and David Merrill is doing research on Shiftables at the MIT Media Lab. It is trying to facilitate the connections to the brain to expedite and enhance the cognitive resources available to each of us.