A few years ago, I came across a gem of a book.
C.S. Lewis’ Little Book of Wisdom is a compilation by Andrea Kirk Assaf and Kelly Anne Leahy.
It’s not a business book, far from it.
Its subtitle, “Meditations on Faith, Life, Love and Literature, ” tells you what the short extracts inside are about.
C. S. Lewis was a committed Christian, but whether you are of deep faith or none, this book offers excellent insights for work and life.
Like this one from one of my favourite books, The Screwtape Letters;
“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”
Our concern for the longer-term future, what might be and what could happen, often blinds us to the here and now.
Future thinking can also cause fear and foreboding about things that haven’t happened and may never happen.
Yet, it’s what we do in the next sixty minutes and the sixty minutes after that, which determines outcomes in the medium and long-term future.
Which brings me to another related extract from this book;
“Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.”The Magician’s Nephew
The fear of what might happen can stop us from taking action.
It’s when we choose not “to bide the danger.”
Some years back, I joined a successful business where blame culture stifled decision making across middle management.
It was staggeringly rife in the team I was appointed to manage.
People were so scared of being seen to have made a “mistake” that their first thought, whenever a new project or way of working was proposed, was to think about who could be blamed outside of the team if things went wrong.
If you ever wonder why people hate their jobs and dread Sunday afternoons and evenings, working conditions like these are the cause.
The story had a happy ending, but it took determined work and robust discussions to root this thinking out.
Hopefully, that’s far from the case in your business, but if there are things on the people front that are getting in the way of harmony and achievement, The Team Management Issue of The Quietly Good Newsletter can help.
And if you act now, you can get it for just £19.95 instead of the usual £39.
Click this link for content details and to order.
Very best,
David
