<\/p>\n
Before recalling five moments in this book that make it the best read of the semester, let’s deal with the author’s introduction.<\/p>\n
I am writing this blog on a long-haul flight and notice that the airline does not boast about its quality, service and experience, it lets the current flight and personnel try to convince it to you with its behaviour. An author (and publisher) can only convince you of a book’s worthiness by price point, cover design, title (and subtitle), foreword by a renowned individual, and the author’s preface. Each of them is a signpost of what is to come. Apart from being a prescribed text for the doctoral program, why should anyone spend their most precious commodity, time\u00a0[1]<\/a>\u00a0in this book?<\/p>\n I may be tired or misread the tone, but it seemed arrogant. While Parrish holds eye-watering credentials, I felt (highly subjective, I know), initially repelled by his audacious statements of greatness, some may say “self-importance.” He makes big statements and assertions. They include, “This is a practical guide to mastering clear thinking.”\u00a0[2]<\/a>\u00a0Not attempting or striving for it but mastering it. Surely one cannot master clear thinking in 248 pages of double-spaced, size 14 font? His persistent use of the first-person pronoun, arriving with the statement, “Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out,” saw me double down on the idea that the author (formerly a CIA operative) ticked the box of the do or die, daredevil, James Bond (ish), bravado type personality. We probably need our Secret Service personnel to exhibit traits of this nature, but does it work in a book? While I knew it would succeed from a storytelling perspective (and it does), how would this “arrogant” author support his statements? And then Parrish pulls the rug out from under my feet. He writes, “It is safe to assume that anything useful in this book is someone else’s idea and that my main contribution is to put the mosaic of what I learned from others who came before me out there for the world.”\u00a0[3]<\/a>\u00a0His humility or self-awareness won me over. Now for the five moments that make this book a joy to read.<\/p>\n Firstly, in dealing with the inertia default, Parrish, in quoting Leonard Mlodinow, helps us to understand why it is so difficult to change our minds but also equips an intelligent leader to understand that, used wisely, “outside forces”\u00a0[4]<\/a>\u00a0can be used to alter follower’s minds. In the book, Parrish is writing about “us the reader,” but it is equally valid as a tool in the leader’s belt for helping to change the minds of the “laggards”\u00a0[5]<\/a>\u00a0that we lead. I had never actively thought of this before, it was a threshold concept.<\/p>\n Next, the author’s brazen attack on the excuse mentality was blunt and refreshing. That could be because it feeds my abhorrence of excuses, both my own and from those I lead. Parrish writes, “No one cares about your excuses as much as you do. In fact, no one cares about your excuses at all except you.”\u00a0[6]<\/a>\u00a0It’s brutal but accurate. That he aligns excuse culture with self-accountability and ego may indicate why we live in an excuse-laden culture with a surprising lack of apology. As a leader, I much prefer an apology without excuse. Excuses from my team put me on the back foot. Apologies open the door to empathy and sympathy.<\/p>\n Thirdly, Parrish’s discourse with the heading “You are not a victim”\u00a0[7]<\/a>\u00a0is some of the best reading this semester. While intersecting beautifully with “The Identity Trap,”\u00a0[8]<\/a>\u00a0the timeliness of his three pages will not get him cancelled but fuels those of us vehemently repelled by the constant claims of victimhood by those who really are not. Listen to these words, “They (the assumed victims) realise the story they’re telling themselves isn’t quite true.”\u00a0[9]<\/a>\u00a0That statement alone (and his subsequent theorising about it) is so refreshing in a world where truth is shunned because of “feeling.”\u00a0[10]<\/a><\/p>\n The fourth aspect of the book that makes it compelling is the author’s thoughts on “Second-level thinking.”\u00a0[11]<\/a>\u00a0It’s not that it is an entirely new idea, rather, it is an articulation of the way many effective leaders think anyway. It was encouraging to read about what is intuitive for so many. That Second level thinking, however, takes the decision-making process one step further as it pursues options as well as explores worst-case scenarios and is a practical, more applicable tool for better thinking and decision-making for leaders. It is an immediate solution for better decision-making in ALL situations. It’s difficult to see a downside.<\/p>\n Fifthly, Parrish’s types of decisions[12]<\/a>, how to prioritise them as ASAP or ALAP, and their consequences are brilliant. Empowering the reader to categorise the decisions and therefore not waste time, energy and emotion on the wrong type of decisions and resulting decision fatigue is a novel, practical way to ensure focus on the right things. In labelling them with “Consequentiality and Reversibility,”\u00a0[13]<\/a>\u00a0the author has given the reader clear language to define a compelling action that is potentially life-changing if understood and embraced.<\/p>\n Parrish’s conclusion holds a drop-the-mic moment. “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.”\u00a0[14]<\/a>\u00a0Selah.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a0Parrish, Shane. 2023.\u00a0Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results:<\/em>\u00a0London: Cornerstone Press. 248.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid, x.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid, xii.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid, 30.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a>\u00a0Rogers, Everett. 2005.\u00a0Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition:<\/em>\u00a05th ed. New York: Free Press.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a>\u00a0Parrish, 47.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid, 52-55.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a>\u00a0Mounk, Yascha. 2023.\u00a0The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time<\/em>. New York: Penguin Press.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a>\u00a0Parrish, 53.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid, 141.<\/p>\n [12]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid, 185 and 189.<\/p>\n\n