Behind my goals of 3 books per month already… here’s what I read in January:

• The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen NOTES: visited his statue in Oslo a year or so ago and somehow this ended up on my list of books to read. Fun read if you’re into exploration, adventure, planning, leadership and history.
• Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety NOTES: Great story telling, lots to think about wrt systems, safety, human error and design.

All books are on the reading page.

Part 1 is here.

August 15th: Kind of lost track of what we did on the 15th. Pretty sure (definitely was one of the days we were there) that we ended up throwing the kayak and SUP near Morro Rock, which turned out to be incredible. We saw sand dollar beds, seals, otters, pelicans and jelly fish. It’s a great place to paddle if you have a boat / SUP.

August 16th: went back into San Luis Obispo to see a couple sites. Stopped at Mitchell Park, which was unremarkable. Walked into downtown, stopped at Phoenix Books, which I could have spent hours at but wasn’t fantastic for the rowdies in our crowd. Immediately after we hit Powell’s Sweet Shoppe because we apparently didn’t have enough wiggle energy, then got lunch, took pictures at Bubblegum Alley

and picked up Mo’s Smokehouse BBQ to go for dinner.

August 17th: another relaxing day, didn’t do much. Did do lunch at
Taco Temple, which was epic. Highly recommended.

August 18th: back on the road. We picked up the trailer and followed my parents (who were going north before heading back to Mammoth) to Elephant Seal Vista Point

which wasn’t spectacular but apparently was at the low point for the season. Still fun to get out and walk around on our way back up the coast. Our ultimate destination for the day was Sunset State Beach Campground, up near Monterey. We camped next to a father / son combo, both of who were shoeless but wearing socks (?) in the campground that was 100% dirt. We were 10 feet for the other campers, this was probably the second dirtiest / unappealing places we stayed on the trip, but was cheap relative to the hotels we would stayed at around Monterey.

August 19th: Epic day. We bought tickets for the Monterey Bay Aquarium online and skipped what little of line there was when it opened at 9 or 10am. Beck and I got a special behind the scenes tour of the facility, which was actually really cool and resulted in Beck deciding that he wanted to be a marine biologist. Karen and I different opinions of what should happen next, both of us wanting to something in the water: she wanted to go to Elkhorn Slough, which apparently is a great place to kayak and see wildlife. I really really wanted to drop the kayak and SUP into the actual bay and tool around in the ocean because it seemed daring and fun. I won but I’ll never live it down. We ended up putting in at San Carlos Beach, paddled out a couple hundred yards with Beck and Reed and Karen in the kayak and me and Kai on the SUP. We saw some kelp and another pair of mommy and baby otters and after about 10 minutes being around the kelp… BOOM, a shiny black dorsal fin popped out of the water. I’ll be honest: I had had my reservations on the way out about paddling with the Kai (only 5 at the time) on the SUP with me as the waves were pretty big but we were doing ok. Karen, with Beck and Reed, was decidedly less enthusiastic and at the sight of the fin, almost immediately turned around the kayak and said very seriously that she was headed back to the shore, thinking that it was an orca or something dangerous. I somehow convinced her to stick around (99% sure that it was just a dolphin) and we then proceeded to observe numerous humpback whales breaching, which was amazing. I vividly remember telling Kai (5) that he’d likely never be this close to a whale again. Pretty sure that Karen was ready to kill me after this, we headed back and took this picture:

which is a combined “OMG, we’re alive!” and “OMG, we kayaked with whales!” view of the world.

Dinner at Pelican Pizza on the strip there by the aquarium and then sleep.

August 20th: Lots of driving, then the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, then a lot more driving, then finally arrived at Manzanita Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park, a really nice campground.

August 21st: There’s a fun ring road around Lassen where you can see all sorts of interesting geological features. We drove to the visitors center, stopped at some great bouldering boulders, hiked the loop to Bumpass Hell

and back and then retired for the night.

August 22nd: back on the road, this time aiming for Crater Lake. On the way we stopped off at the Lava Bed National Monument, hiking up and down into a number of the caves (lots of fun for the boys) and then on the way out driving to Petroglyph Point, which was slightly underwhelming but still interesting to see. Many hours later we finally pulled into Crater Lake for our stay at Mazama Village Campground. Campfire and then a really great ranger program by a ranger named Chris

whose parents had driven in to hear him give a talk. Boys had a great time.

August 23rd: we really wanted to do one of the boat tours around the lake but the only one that was available was the 8am(IIRC?) departure, which required us to be up relatively early since it was a 30 minute drive and a 30 minute hike down to the boats but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise since the lake was untouched and perfectly still at that time of the morning:

A smooth boat ride later, we hiked up to the top of Wizard Island, had some snacks

and then hiked back down and the boys decided it’d be great to jump in the freezing cold water

and then have me pull them out, which was fun to watch. 🙂

We stopped for lunch at the lodge and then headed back to the campground for our last night in the trailer before heading back home.

August 24th: lots of driving… back home and then at 6:30pm, soccer practice had already started.

Super late to write this up but better late than never. At Jive (where I worked for almost 10 years) they put a policy in place similar to Intel where if you’ve been around for 7 years, you’re given the opportunity to take an extended leave, which because they have an unlimited vacation policy, most people equated to about 2 months / 8 weeks of time off in one big block. I took advantage of that policy this past July and during my time off I decided that it’d be fun to do a long camping trip. We were kind of late to get planning (policy was relatively new) and figured then that most of places (Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, etc.) that are typical West Coast summer road trips would be completely booked and so instead opted to drive down the Oregon and California coastline, spend a couple days with my parents and brother and his family in Morro Bay and then proceed back up the middle of California & Oregon to visit Lassen and Crater Lake. Here’s how it all went down.

August 1st: I’ve got a 3 year old, a 5 year old and a 10 year old boy. I figure we could tent camp for the next 5-10 years or we could go slightly more glamorous and get a small trailer. I fell in love with the Cricket trailers for a variety of reasons (weight, size, the fact that the purpose isn’t to recreate your house which forces you outdoors more) and found a dealer in California that was significantly cheaper than the dealer here in Oregon. We arranged for the trailer to be delivered to Medford, got up at 4am and met the delivery truck at 9am five hours later at a Walmart in Medford.

Took us an hour or so to get everything worked out, we got breakfast and then headed back up the same way we had just come but did a side trip to the Wildlife Safari outside of Eugene, which Karen had been angling to visit for years. We escaped without getting mauled by rhinos or lions or elephants and eventually made it home. Trying to back the trailer up the driveway into the side yard took me about 30 minutes and involved the neighbors. I eventually got better at this.

August 6th: One of the options on the trailer was a refrigerator that runs off of the battery. The trailer dealer didn’t have one in stock so I figured I’d order one online but then shipping it quickly cost almost as much as the refrigerator did so we did ground shipping, which meant that the refrigerator was going to arrive the same day we were supposed to leave. We waited… and waited.. and waited and then finally at about 1pm the refrigerator arrived and a couple hours later we finally rolled out of the driveway with bikes, kayak, trailer, small children and refrigerator. Things were looking good:

August 7th: no one really sleeps in, we're up early

and proceed to get the dutch oven going to make blueberry cinnamon roll coffee cake and eggs. We took a walk along the beach:

played in the sand and in the big grassy park and then later in the afternoon made our way down to Gold Beach where we hopped on a jet boat tour (Jerry's Rogue Jets) for the afternoon. We saw a bunch of wildlife (bald eagles, deer, river otters and osprey), got to swim in the river and had a great lunch at the half way point. Fun trip and then back to the campground where everyone crashed after being in the sun all day long. We watched stars again.

August 8th: Up and at'em early again, the menu was supposed to include eggs and potatoes for breakfast but I think at this point we had already started to tire of making big breakfasts and meals and started to fall back to cereal and simpler items. First stop was the Prehistoric Gardens

which was just 10 minutes or so south of Humbug Mountain. I had read about this place a couple times previously and it was alright for the little guys but definitely wouldn't be somewhere that I'd visit twice. It's no more than a 15 minute walk around the grounds, some pictures and then the gift shop. Love the idea, not a huge fan of the implementation but if you're on vacation and already bleeding money, stop on by.

Back on the road, 30 minutes later the lunch grumbles started and we came across Myers Creek Beach, which had a couple of geocaches, lots of sand, some cool rocks and made for a great lunch / get your wiggles out stop:

but then we had to buckle down for a couple hours. Next step was at the Trees Of Mystery, otherwise known as the giant statue of Paul Bunyan and his ox Babe. Great place to take pictures and walk around. We didn't do the Trees Of Mystery tour (don't remember what it cost but it didn't seem worth it at the time) but the statue was great. They've got some guy hooked up with a microphone that can hear everything that little kids ask of Paul and he gives great answers.

Our little dudes got a kick out of climbing on the statue, eating ice cream and running around but then quickly, we hit the road again. We stopped for groceries a couple hours later in Arcata at a great co-op (North Coast Co-op) and then finally a couple of hours later made it to our campground (Hidden Springs Campground in the Avenue of the Giants / Humboldt Redwoods) for the next 2 days. We got a great spot probably 20 yards away from anyone else in the campground and it was relatively empty, especially since it was the weekend. Pretty sure at this point that we had thrown out the complicated menu that we had planned on and were just winging it with fresh veggies, hummus and bread for dinner instead of making relatively complicated dutch oven dinners.

August 9th: Karen is up early (as is everyone else) and has to complete (I think) a 15 mile run as part of the marathon training she's doing. I make breakfast and then take the boys to go find fun stuff to look at. We quickly hit the Drive Through Tree, which we couldn't actually drive through with the kayak on top but it was a fun hour with some climbing and running around. I piled the dudes back in the car and we headed over to the visitor center to get a couple ideas of what to see. Karen was done with her run and needed a shower so we headed back and found a really great nature area around the ranger talk area with all kinds of giant logs and stumps that were great for climbing or pretending that you're a king in a castle. We finally headed out and did a couple small hikes around the various sights, finding the albino trees and Giant Tree:

August 10th: only so many trees you can look at when you have a 3 year old in tow. We decided to make our way up north to Eureka, which has a really cute little zoo. We did the zoo and then went into downtown and tried to find a place where we could throw in our kayak and SUP in the harbor. After a bit of hassling around with parking around Eureka Boardwalk, we got both the kayak and the SUP into the harbor and went for a short spin around the harbor. We saw a couple seals, paddled by some big boats, put our feet in the mud and then celebrated our first in the water encounter with ice cream at Living the Dream Ice Cream.

August 11th: lots of driving. We eventually made it down to Samuel P. Taylor State Park (our campground for a single night) with a stop off at Bear Valley Visitor Center (Point Reyes), where we got a little hike in, seeing how the Native Americans lived on the land hundreds of years ago. I have fond memories of Palace Market somewhere around Point Reyes where we stopped and got cheese and bread and fruit and other goodies for a super simple dinner at our campground. Everyone hit the hay early that night, not noticing the giant raccoons

roaming around the campground that tried to break into our coolers, unsuccessfully.

August 12th: Karen did another long run, this one multiple laps around the campground. The boys played with some other small friends that were camping next to us and after a shower for Karen, we packed up and headed south again, passing over the Golden Gate Bridge (and hoping that we might be able to stop, park and walk on it but that proved impossible with a trailer) and then eventually making it to our campground for the night (Henry Cowell State Park Campground). This campground looked relatively nice on the web but turned out to be one of the dirtiest and worst kept up places that we stayed. Most of the national parks were really nice, this particular state park seemed like it's funding had been cut in half. Dusty, dirty and tired, we headed into Santa Cruz, visited a bookstore (for Beck, he was out of books), had dinner at Pono Hawaiian Grill (really good) and then walked the boardwalk

before heading back to our campsite for the night.

August 13th: breakfast, got packed up and headed out to New Brighton State Beach, where we got to throw in the kayak and the SUP again. We paddled out for a couple hundred yards and came upon a kelp bed that turned out to be home to a mommy otter and her baby. We paddled around the otters for awhile, talking with some other folks that were out in boats that day and then headed back to shore, where Reed and Kai played in the sand for 45 minutes while we packed up the kayak and SUP on to the car. After grabbing lunch somewhere, we drove the rest of the way to Morro Bay (our destination for the next 5 days) and finally arrived later in the afternoon, meeting up with my parents and my brother (much later that day) to stay at the Morro Bay Beach Bungalows, which were available on VRBO and for the 3 families turned out to be a really great place to stay. I dropped off the trailer at Morro Dunes RV Park & Campground (who were kind enough to store the trailer for 5 days and even accepted the trailer after they were officially closed for the day, thank you!) and the headed out to San Luis Obispo to catch the Farmer's Market, which was one of Karen's favorite things to do in college (her brother went to Cal Poly SLO). I have fond memories of a street performer who was playing the banjo and was requesting songs. I had the boys ask him to play "This Land Is Your Land", which attracted a bit of a crowd, probably because I had 2 small boys dancing in circles while he was playing.

August 14th: everyone up early, Boppa got coffee for the girls across the street and we had to run the dogs so we headed over to Tidelands Park
which is also known as Pirate Ship Playground. A relaxing walk back to the cottages.. then some "rest time" for the little boys, a treat in the afternoon at Grandma's Frozen Yogurt & Waffle Shop (2 doors down from where we were staying) and then we did family pictures on the beach.

Part II coming soon.

• Reduce Passive-Aggressive Behavior on Your Team
  Part passive-aggressive, part just asking good questions.
  (categories: communication management meetings conversation )

• The 7 things I learned about business from Guitar Center
  Lots of advice that applies to companies that are successful… and not so successful. Quote: "When you owe the bank a million, it’s your problem, but if you owe them $100 million, it’s the bank’s problem."
  (categories: strategy productmanagement culture finance )

• Culture Eats Strategy: Nucor’s Ken Iverson on Building a Different Kind of Company
  Interesting article, another great quote from the Good Strategy / Bad Strategy book that I read a couple months ago, don’t think I captured this on my reading list, but it’s a great quote: "The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action. The guiding policy specifies the approach to dealing with the obstacles called out in the diagnosis. It is like a signpost, marking the direction forward but not defining the details of the trip. Coherent act…
  (categories: business strategy culture decision-making )

• 20 Product Prioritization Techniques: A Map and Guided Tour
  Great list of strategies for doing product / feature prioritization.
  (categories: prioritization priorities strategy productmanagement decision-making )

As usual, a little bit late typing everything up but here’s what I read in December. All books are on the reading page.

December 2015

• Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time NOTES: The title scared me a little bit, I thought I’d be reading yet another business book with a bunch of shallow cliches but this book has a bunch of really great viewpoints and thinking. For right or wrong, I started using some of the ideas almost immediately, both at home and at work. Quotes:
  • To start, listen to yourself, quote: “Being to hear yourself avoiding the topic, changing the subject, holding back, telling little lies (and big ones), being imprecise in your language, being uninteresting even to yourself. And at least once today, when something inside of you says, ‘This is an opportunity to be fierce,’ stop for a moment, take a deep breath, then come out from behind yourself into the conversation and make it real. Say something that is true for you… example: ‘What I just said isn’t quite right. Let me see if I can get closer to what I really want to say.’
  • Great chapter on “interrogating reality”. Questions that you can ask to make sure that reality is continually being analyzed: “What are my goals when I convene with people? What kinds of things do I usually discuss? Are there other topics that would be more interesting? How often do I find myself – just to be polite, saying things I don’t mean? How many meetings have I sat in where I knew the real issues were not being discussed? What about the conversations in my marriage? What issues are we avoiding? If I were guaranteed honest response to any three questions, whom would I question and what would I ask? What has been the economical, emotional and intellectual cost to the company of not identifying and tackling the real issues? What has been the cost to my marriage?” Lots more on page 20. Great list.
  • Quote: “… when someone takes you up on your invitation to challenge your strongly held opinion, resist the temptation to defend your idea immediately…. Instead of trying to strengthen your own case, inquire into someone’s position. ‘Tell us more, help us understand your thinking.'” I think I’ve read / seen this idea somewhere else recently, ie: before immediately defending your turf (or someone else defending their turf, take a bit of time to listen to the other side before replying.
  • Another great concept / phrase to remember, “Mineral Rights”. Quotes: “If you’re drilling for water, it’s better to drill one hundred foot well than one hundred one foot wells.” Similar concept but different angle, the US military slang uses “ground truth” to describe the reality of a tactical situation – as opposed to intelligence reports and mission plans. The appendix has some steps you can go through when thinking about / talking about mineral rights: 1) Identify the most pressing issue. 2) Clarify the issue. 3) Determine the current impact. 4) Determine the future implications. 5) Examine your personal contribution to the issue. 6) Describe the ideal outcome. 7) Commit to action. Other quotes:
    • Regularly interrogate reality in your workplace and personal life. What has changed? Does the plan still make sense? If not, what is required of you? of others?
    • Since everyone owns a piece of truth about reality, consider whose realities should be explored before important decisions are made?
    • Avoid blame by modifying your language. Replace the word “but” with “and”.
    • Ensure that your personal and corporate immune systems are healthy by conducting an integrity scan and correcting any outages.
  • On being you, have a personal stump speech that answers the following questions: Where am I going? Why am I going there? Who is going with me? How will I get there?
  • On being engaged / mentally invested in a question / conversation, quote: “Think for a moment about the kind of attention you bring to your conversations. While someone is talking, where are your thoughts? When you are face to face, do you look at the individual in front of you or do your eyes roam the room in some sort of perpetual surveilliance? While you’re talking with someone on the telephone, do you scan your email? And can you tell when someone else is scanning his?
  • On 1:1’s and having your direct report set the agenda by asking them to bring up the most important thing that needs to be talked about. Quote: “When we meet tomorrow, I want to explore with you whatever you feel most deserves our attention, so I will begin our conversation by asking, ‘What is the most important thing you and I should be talking about?‘ I will rely on you to tell me. If the thought of bringing up an issue makes you anxious, that’s a signal you need to bring it up. I am not going to preempt your agenda with my own. If I need to talk with you about something else, I’ll tag it on to the end or plan another conversation with you.”
  • How to have a mineral rights conversation: What is the most important thing we should be talking about? Describe the issue, what’s going on relative to …? How is this currently impacting you? Who or what else is being impacted? If nothing changes, what are the implications? How have you helped create this issue or situation? What is the ideal outcome? When this is resolved, what difference will that make? What’s the most potent step you can take to resolve this issue? What exactly are you committed to do and when? As part of this conversation, questions only. No leading questions, no declarative statements. Get all of the information out.
  • Decision Tree for helping direct reports figure out how to work on something: Leaf Decisions: Make the decision. Act on it. Do not report the action you took.
    Branch Decisions: Make the decisions. Act on it. Report the action you took daily, weekly or monthly. Trunk Decisions: Make the decision. Report your decisions before you take action.
    Root Decisions: Make the decision jointly, with input from other people. These are the decisions that, if poorly made and implemented, could cause major harm to the project or company.
  • On tackling the toughest challenges: Ongoing problems in an organization often stem from root issues. Moles are a nuisance and they proliferate because they eat the grubs in the ground. Go for the root cause. “Make it your job as a leader to give up mole whacking and take up grub hunting.”
  • On talking about / presenting bigger issues to a group, an outline: 1) The issue is… 2) It is significant because… 3) My ideal outcome in … 4) Relevant background information includes… 5) What I have done up to this point 6) The help I want from the group is.. (page 129-130 and page 133 has some good facilitator guidelines)
  • Principle 6 / page 187: An emotional wake is what you remember after I’m gone. What you feel. The aftermath, aftertaste, or afterglow.
  • Principle / chapter 7: be more comfortable with silence, it’s ok to pause and let people reflect or even just to be quiet.
  • Last, in the Appendix and already used this week, the Confrontation Model, which givees you tools for confronting tough issues with courage, compassion and skill. Page 254.
• Sidetracked: Volume 5: NOTES: Like Bike Magazine except for all outdoors, picked up a subscription on a whim a couple weeks ago, lots of amazing photography and outdoor inspiration.
• Homage to Catalonia NOTES: Had a work trip to Barcelona to visit with the New Relic team there. Bought a couple books about Spain and Barcelona, this was highly recommended on an ask.metafilter.com thread. Can’t say that I felt a learned a ton about either through the book but apparently it’s supposed to be one of George Orwell’s best books, 3 stars out of 5 from me.

• Robert Waldinger: What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness | TED Talk | TED.com
  Quote: "The good life is built with good relationships."
  (categories: life culture relationships friendship values )

• (7) Mark Zuckerberg – Every year, I take on a personal challenge to…
  Quote: "My challenges in recent years have been to read two books every month, learn Mandarin and meet a new person every day." I’ve one upped him with 3 books a month but he’s got me with a new language and meeting new people.
  (categories: life values goals )

• www.cascadeadventures.net/images/climb_school/texas_prusik.pdf
  Trying to build a little climbing rope gym in the garage for my little dudes, very helpful guy @ REI mentioned the Texas Prusik, which I hadn’t heard of before. This was also one of the only places I found on the internets that had sizing for Prusik slings.
  (categories: climbing prusik knots )

Took me awhile to type up all my notes but here’s what I read last month. All books are on the reading page.

November 2015

• Thinking in Systems: A Primer NOTES: didn’t emotionally connect with the book but it had a bunch of things that pushed my thinking. 4 stars out of 5. Selected quotes / notes:
  • Quote: “At a time when the world is more messy, more crowded, more interconnected, more interdependent, and more rapidly changing than ever before, the more ways of seeing, the better. The systems-thinking lense allows us to reclaim our intuition about whole systems and hone our abilities to understand parts, see interconnections, ask ‘what if’ questions about possible future behaviors and be creative and courageous about system redesign.” which then continues with the story of the blind men and the matter of the elephant, which is a great analogy for understanding systems thinking.
  • Quote: “… The best way to deduce the system’s purpose is to watch for a while to see how the system behaves. If a frog turns right and catches a fly and then turns left and catches a fly, and then turns around backward and catches a fly, the purpose of the frog has to do not with turning left or turning right or backward but with catching flies. If a government proclaims an interest in protecting the environment but allocates little money or effort towards that goal, environmental protection is not, in fact, the government’s purpose. Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals.
  • Quote: “… Whenever you are confronted with a scenario (and you are, every time you hear about an economic prediction, a corporate budget, a weather forecast, future climate change, a stockbroker saying what is going to happen to a particular holding), there are questions you need to ask that will help you decide how good a representation of reality is the underlying model. a) are the driving factors likely to unfold this way? b) if they did, would the system react this way? c) what is driving the driving factors?”
  • Chapter 3 talks about resilience, which you can look up in the dictionary and is something I think have largely associated with people, not systems and I’ve adopted the resilience lense as I talk about systems at work.
  • Quote on resilience: “… I think of resilience as a plateau upon which the system can play, performing its normal functions in safety. A resilient system has a big plateau, a lot of space over which it can wander with gentle, elastic walls that will bounce it back, if it comes near a dangerous edge. As a system loses its resilience, its plateau shrinks, and its protective walls become lower and more rigid, until the system is operating on a knife edge, likely to fall off in one direction or another whenever it makes a move. Loss of resilience can come as a surprise, because the system usually is paying much more attention to its play than to its playing space.
  • On hierarchies, quote: “In hierarchical systems relationships within each subsystem are denser and stronger than relationships between subsystems. Everything is still connected to everything else, but not equally strongly. People in the same university department talk to each other more than they talk to people in other departments. The cells that constitute the liver are in closer communication with each other than they are with the cells of the heart. If these differential information links within and between each leevl of the hierarchy are designed right, feedback delays are minimized. No level is overwhelmed with information. The system works with efficiency and resilience…. systems thinkers would say, the reductionist dissection of regular science teaches us a lot. However, one should not lose sight of the important relationships that bind each subsystem to the others and to the higher levels of the hierarchy or one will be in for surprises.
  • Chapter 4 on why systems surprise us, quote: “When system thinkers encounter a problem, the first thing he or she does is look for data, time graphs, the history of the system. That’s because long-term behavior provides clues to the underlying system structure. And structure is the key to understanding not just what is happening, but why…. Simple examples like a Slinky being released down the stairs make this event-behavior-structure distinction seem obvious. In fact, much analysis in the world goes no deeper than events. Listen to every night’s explanation of why the stock market did what it did. Stock went up (down) because the U.S. dollar fell 9rose), or the prime interest rate rose (fell), or the Democrats won (lost), or one country invaded another (or didn’t). Event-event analysis. These explanations give you no ability to predict what will happen tomorrow. They give you no ability to change the behavior of the system to make the stock market less volatile or a more reliable indicator of the health of corporations or a better vehicle to encourage investment.“
  • Page 91 has a couple of great paragraphs that continue the event-event analysis discussion and how not understanding the structure can lead in some cases (like economics) to relatively good short term performance but really bad performance over the long term. Quote at the end: “… that’s one reason why systems of all kinds surprise us. We are too fascinated by the events they generate. We pay too little attention to their history. And we are insufficiently skilled at seeing in their history clues to the structures from which behavior and events flow.”
  • Great quote that I used on my kids the other night about how long things take, by Vaclav Havel, “I realize with fright that my impatience for the re-establishment of democracy had something almost communist in it; or, more generally, something rationalist. I had wanted to make history move ahead in the same way that a child pulls on a plant to make it grow more quickly. I believe we must learn to wait as we learn to create. We have to patiently sow the seeds, assiduously water the earth where they are sown and give the plants the time that is their own. One cannot fool a plant any more than one can fool history. —Václav Havel,7 playwright, last President of Czechoslovakia and first president of the Czech Republic”. On the same page, “… We are surprised over and over again at how much time things take… when we are modeling a system.. ask everyone how long they though the delay was… and multiply by three.
  • Quote on change and views: “Change comes first from stepping outside the limited information that can be seen from any single place in the system and getting an overview. From a wider perspective, information flows, goals, incentives and disincentives can be restructured so that separate, bounded, rational actions do add up to the results that everyone desires.”
  • On goal seeking and system traps: “If the desired state is good education, measuring that goal by the amount of money spent per student will ensure money spent per student. If the quality of education is measured by performance on standardized tests, the system will product performance on standardized tests. Whether either of these measures is correlated with good education is at least worth thinking about.”
  • Chapter 6, leverage points and parameters into the system: “It’s not that parameters are not important — they can be, especially in the short term and to the individual who’s tanding directly in the flow. People care deeply about such variables as taxes and the minimum wage, and so fight fierce battles over them. But changing these variables rarely changes the behavior of the national economy system. If the system is chronically stagnant, parameter changes rarely kickstart it. If it’s wildy variable, they usually don’t stabilize it. If it’s growing out of control, they don’t slow it down.”
  • Same chapter, on goals again: “Even people within systems don’t often recognize what whole system goal they are serving. ‘To make profits’ most corporations would say, but that’s just a rule, a necessary condition to stay in the game. What is the point of the game? To grow, to increase market share, to bring the world more and more under the control of the corporation so that it’s operations become even more shielded from uncertainty. John Kenneth Galbraith recognized that corporate goal — to engulf everything, long ago. It’s the goal of a cancer too.”
  • Quote in chapter 7: “Before you disturb the system in any way, watch how it behaves. If it’s a piece of music or a whitewater rapid or a fluctuation in a commodity price, study its beat. If it’s a social system, watch it work. Learn its history.
  • Same chapter, on mental models: “You don’t have to put forth your mental model with diagrams and equations, though doing so is a good practice…. The more you do that, in any form, the clearer your thinking will become, the faster you will admit your uncertainties and correct your mistakes, and the more flexible you will learn to be.
  • Same chapter on systems and pushing information. Interesting story about the Toxic Release Inventory act, which required companies to self-publish air pollution. End result: public shaming in the news, companies voluntarily started fixing things. “Information is power.”
  • On using language with care: “A society that talks incessantly about ‘productivity’ but that hardly understands, much less uses, the word ‘resilience’ is going to become productive but not resilient. A society that doesn’t understand or use the term ‘carrying capacity’ will exceed its carrying capacity. A society that talks about ‘creating jobs’ as if that’s something only companies can do will not inspire the great majority of people to create jobs, for themselves or anyone else… The first step in respecting language is keeping it as concrete, meaningful and truthful as possible – part of the job of keeping information streams clear.”
  • Loved this quote on qualitative data: “Pretending that something doesn’t exist if it’s hard to quantify leads to faulty models. You’ve already seen the system trap that comes from setting goals around what is easily measured, rather than around what is important. So don’t fall into that trap. Human beings have been endowed not only with the ability to count, but also with the ability to assess quality. Be a quality detector. Be a walking, noisy Geiger counter that registers the presence or absence of quality.”
  • Great stuff on page 181 and 182 about how one of the most important things you can do when working in a system is to embrace failure and to keep a long view. Great quotes about how many Native American cultures talked about impacts their decisions would have on the 7th generation after them.
• Pebbles of Perception: How a Few Good Choices make All the Difference NOTES: get it at the library if it interests you, don’t buy it. Not highly recommended.
• What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People NOTES: really enjoyed this book (way better than the Marine Corp one I listed below) because so many of the tips / facts are applicable to business and family and just general life. Everyone should read this and understand how to read nonverbal. 4.5 stars out of 5. Selected quotes:
  • Quote: “Just as careful listening is critical to understanding our verbal pronouncements, so careful observation is vital to comprehending our body language.” Amazing how much starts with just paying attention.
  • Quote: “Observing in context is key to understanding nonverbal communication…. after a traffic accident, I expect people to be in shock and to walk around looking dazed…. and even for them to make poor decisions like walking into oncoming traffic. (This is why police officers tell you to stay in your car.)” Goes on to talk about how during an interview, you should expect people to be nervous initially and for that to dissipate over time.
  • Page 28-29 talks about how our limbic system forces our bodies to freeze (don’t want to get eaten by a wild animal) when confronted by a threat or when we’re feeling threatened. If someone is sitting down, they may start taking very shallow breaths, lock their legs in place beneath their chair and hold very still.
  • Couple pages later the author discusses other signs of discomfort in a social setting: turning away from the person you’re talking to, rubbing your eyes, placing an object in your lap to separate yourself from someone, turning your feet to face an exit, leaning away from the person you’re talking to. These are “distancing” behaviors.
  • Page 35 introduces the notion of a “pacifying” behavior, which is a nonverbal tick that shows that you are trying to comfort yourself because you’re feeling uncomfortable. Examples include soothing our necks with a massage (or touching anywhere around the neck which is full of nerves and helps to slow your heartbeat), stroking our faces or playing with our hair, leg cleansing (rubbing your hands down the tops of your legs, I saw this a couple weeks ago).
  • Page 60 talks about how if you’re in conversation with someone, if they *really* want to talk to you, both their feet and hips will point toward you. If either points away, the person has somewhere else to be or otherwise would rather not be in a conversation with you. *Really good tip to watch for AND to exhibit to others. Someone sitting down and clasping his / her knees is saying the same thing.
  • Leg splaying (standing spread eagle) is a way of saying “I’m trying to intimidate you”, example brought up was law enforcement, which typically is leg splayed + hands on hips, which makes them as big as possible. Crossing your legs means the complete opposite.
  • Going up to the torso, a quote: “… Couples who are pulling apart emotionally will also begin to pull apart physically. Their hands don’t touch as much, and their torsos actually avoid each other. When they sit side by side, they will lean away from each other. They create a silent space between them.” Further, “.. Colleagues who share a similar point of view will sit closer together, turn more toward each other ventrally, and will lean harmoniously nearer each other. When people disagree, they will hold their bodies firm, avoid ventral fronting and will most likely lean away from each other.”
  • My favorite word in the whole book, “turtling”, which is where your shoulders rise towards your ears, signifies weakness, insecurity and negative emotions.
  • Quote: “Putting your arms behind your back is a clear signal that means ‘Don’t get close; I don’t want to make contact with you.” Great examples here include doctors (who will walk through the halls of a hospital quickly in this form or professors.
  • Arms akimbo (on hips) is a way of saying “things aren’t good” or “I am standing my ground.” Similarly, arms behind the head (while seated) is a territorial display that says “I’m in charge.”
  • Page 138 has all kinds of interesting anecdotes about shaking and holding hands. In many cultures, men actually hold hands or hold an arm while shaking your hand. On the other hand, in many cultures, finger pointing is one of the most offensive gestures one can make. You should avoid literal (and probably figurative) finger pointing at all costs.
  • More on hands: finger preening (hands together, finger tips touching) is a sign of a high degree of confidence. Hand wringing (palms together, fingers interlaced, tight grip) is the opposite.
  • Head tilting is a sign of being very comfortable and receptive and friendly. Try to do this in an elevator with a bunch of people for the whole ride and you’ll most likely fail.
  • Squinting (for example: when you come to the place in a contract that you disagree with), is a sign of disagreement or dislike, similar to eye-blocking or eyelid compressing. Eye aversion is often a sign of deferral (when the person you’re looking at is of higher standing) but can also be a sign that you’re comfortable with someone and you need the mental space to think about what you’re saying. Interesting thing to note about the eye aversion after just having watched the “Unbroken” movie, which had an interesting subplot with Louis and the Bird.
  • Hiding your lips is a sign of low comfort.