Edward D. Hess

This review is based on the Blinkist version of the book...thus a summary and my review needs to be qualified as such. Presumably the original full text has much more details and research.....but it also takes much longer to read. If I like the Blinkist version, I might seek out and read the full book. Meantime here are a few nuggets that particularly struck me: We’re quickly approaching one of the modern defining eras: the Smart Machine Age, or SMA. This term describes a time when show more machines will become increasingly capable of performing complex tasks and nonroutine work–jobs that once required human labor.
What does this mean for humans?.....A 2013 study done by researchers at Oxford University found an extreme likelihood that as many as 47 percent of US jobs will be replaced by technology within the next two decades. So human success in the SMA depends on a whole new approach; we must be NewSmart.....Our options are either to complement the work of machines or do the work they can’t, which includes critical thinking, emotional engagement and creative practices. [This might just be wishful thinking....I’ve little doubt that AI will soon be doing these sorts of things]....However, in a society that’s hyperfocused on competition, aggression and individual success, we’re often too self-involved and fixed in our beliefs to be adept at such skills.......We will only excel when we learn to collaborate, an ability that enables greater critical thinking, emotional engagement and creativity. [It’s not clear to me that he’s correct in these claims and there is no evidence here anyway to back up the claims].
So what skills are key to success in the Smart Machine Age?
1. Well, the first is known as quieting ego........the ability to trim back your emotional defensiveness, directing empathy toward others by letting your guard down
2. In addition to quieting your ego, you should also focus on managing self. This means fostering a healthy and controlled approach to your thoughts and feelings. Without this skill, you’ll grow preoccupied with your fears and insecurities,
3. The third skill you need is reflective listening, which is a way to free your thoughts and perceptions of the world, and transcend your cognitive and emotional biases. Reflective listening is about taking the time to truly understand other people and their ideas.
4. And finally, to succeed in the SMA, you need to master otherness. This skill simply refers to the ability to establish strong connections with other people. In the SMA, a focus on creative thinking and emotional connection is of the utmost importance
For the vast majority of us, our worldview doesn’t sync well with the skills required by the SMA. To overcome this obstacle, you’ve got to change your mental model. The mental model is the sum total of your personal ideas, beliefs and perceptions of the world.
Our past world was all about individualism and competition, which are anathema to the skills that will benefit you in the SMA. So success means updating your mental model, and the name of the game here is humility. Humility is the foundation for the ideal SMA mental model......Humility is an attitude that lets you operate in a self-accurate, open-minded way that focuses on others, rather than on yourself. The idea isn’t to act selflessly or think less of yourself; rather, humility will help you think less about yourself......you need to quiet the ego and the best way to do so is through mindfulness.
Mindfulness is simply about paying attention; it means purposefully noticing the present moment in a nonjudgmental way. Employing this practice is simple: Get into a comfortable position.....Then, focus your attention and awareness on one thing and one thing alone. [I’ve just read another book about mindfulness and the words here are virtually identical with what is in the other book.....seems like somebody is copying here....and anyway, mindfulness is not without it’s critics. One of the criticism is that Mindfulness is really just about concentration and rather than address the work environments etc that are causing stress, mindfulness is simply saying we should just learn to cope rather than correcting the root cause]. .......From there, it’s but a hop, skip and jump to mastering self-management.
The reality is that slowing down is essential to your success in the SMA as it will allow you to act and think deliberately........slowing down makes it easier to know when to switch from autopilot to intentional thinking mode.
Use simple tools to listen to others and greet them with your full attention.....How do you become a reflective listener? Getting started is as simple as focusing on the other person, keeping an open mind and asking clarifying questions.....[This is pretty much just a re-run of what Dale Carnegie was saying 60 years ago].........But you should also prepare yourself to listen reflectively using a more pragmatic approach: a checklist. Make one for yourself by writing down every aspect that you consider key to your ability to listen reflectively. You might put down things like, “don’t interrupt immediately” or “don’t allow focus to drift.”
And of course, you’ve got to develop your ability to connect emotionally with others. To do so, indicate to other people that you’re present and listening, using both verbal and nonverbal cues.
The key message in this book: For better or for worse, a new age is dawning on humanity: an age dominated by machines. To succeed in this new time, humans need to focus on the attributes that distinguish us from machines; we’ve got to focus on emotional connection and collaboration, and on the creative thinking that these two activities give rise to.
My take on the book. Disappointing. Some fairly bold claims being made there about what’s needed for the future but no real evidence to back it up. And nothing much that’s new there in terms of the coping mechanisms: mindfulness (see my comments above) and a re-run of how to win friends and influence people. I actually Googled the author and found he is a very prolific producer of books like this. Clearly he has mastered the art of writing books that sell but if they are all rather superficial, like this (and the titles seem to indicate that they are), then I’m not impressed. One star from me. show less

In The Road to Organic Growth, Hess describes a study his team conducted on 1,000 EVA companies, which are put through six tests to isolate 22 high organic growth companies. Hess, then, identifies commonalities among these 22 companies, which he attributes their successful organic growth to. This he covers in the first 20% of his book. The remaining 80% is primarily dedicated to convincing readers that his initial assertions are true, through a painstaking process of describing how each of show more six common attributes apply to several of the organizations.

After reading this book, I'm not sure exactly where I stand, whether or not I concur with its entire (and painfully redundant) message. I do agree that organizations should focus on and support the factors Hess suggests is important to organic growth (i.e. employee engagement; servant leadership; respectful, entrepreneurial cultures; and so on). However, something about the delivery of this message made it questionable. The study Hess conducted to find organic growth companies had a number of significant limitations (i.e. EVA is not the only way to measure the value of an asset or investment), and seemed designed to corroborate his original opinion about profitable organizational growth rather than produce a more objective study on this topic.

In my opinion, the message about the factors organizations should attend to and hone seems sufficiently positive, but the study, itself, questionable. Still, though the idea seems believable, this book alone did not convince me that organic growth is more desirable than its alternative. show less