Browsing through a bookshop on the weekend, I came across this title which I hadn't heard of before, nor could I find any reference of it on the forum. After skimming through it a bit, while I could see that it's unlikely to have any new "core" information, it did seem that might be a worthwhile as a complementary and/or introductory read to neuro- and cognitive science. It could also be valuable as a recommendation in specific cases, or for certain "types", like many others in the optional reading list on the recommended thread. Furthermore, there is the possibility that he has refined and updated some his concepts and how he puts them across (chapter 10 is "The Empathy Triad", discussed in "Social Intelligence", for example).
I haven't read the book cover to cover yet, so these are just my preliminary comments. Since I tend to look for useful information and aspects of a book first, my comments will be mostly positive and thus somewhat biased, so don't take this a value-gauge for the book in it's entirety.
In this book, as is pretty clear by the title, Goleman explicates on the importance of focused and mindful attention as well as our susceptibility to distractions. Here's the description from Amazon:
The immediate thing I liked about this book was the structure. It's laid out quite logically, starting naturally with attention itself, then self-awareness, other-awareness (effectively a primer for "Social Intelligence") folllowed by the "The Bigger Context" (with chapter names "Patterns, Systems and Messes", "System Blindness", and "Distant Threats", which sound a little more interesting). Part 5 and 6 then switch to the context of application with "Smart Practice" and "The Well Focused Leader", and finishes of with a single-chapter part called "The Big Picture" where he uses some of terrible examples of "effective leadership", including the Bloomberg smoking ban (describing a clear example of ponerization) to and Unilever sourcing from small farms all around the world. It's a pity that he only seems to see effective long term leadership in the context of corporate success, though hardly surprising. There's a bit of an undertone that society's problems can and will only be solved by "good leaders", if only they made the "best choices for everyone".
Overall, so far, I think the plus-side of this book is that it's written with simple language while not losing out on insight. For example, in Chapter 1, the way he breaks down distractions into two easy categories:
[quote author=Focus]
There are two main varieties of distractions: sensory and emotional. The sensory distractions are easy: as you read these words you're tuning out of the blank margins surrounding this text. Or notice for a moment the feeling of your tongue against your upper palate - just one of an endless wave of incoming stimuli your brain weeds out from the continuous wash of background sounds, shapes and colors, tastes, smells, sensations and so and on.
More daunting is the second variety of lures: emotionally loaded signals. While you might find it easy to concentrate on answering your email in the hubbub of your local coffee shop, if you should overhear someone mention your name (potent emotional bait, that) it's almost impossible to tune out the voice that carries it - your attention reflexivity alerts to hear what's being said about you. Forget that email.
The biggest challenge for even the most focused, though, comes from the emotional turmoil of our lives, like a recent blowup in a close relationship that keeps intruding into your thoughts. Such thoughts barge in for a good reason: to get us to think about what to do about what's upsetting us. The dividing line between fruitless rumination and productive reflection lies in whether or not we come up with some tentative solution or insight and then can let those distressing thoughts go - or if, on the other hand, we just keep obsessing over the same thought loop of worry
[/quote]
I'll post some chapter summaries with excerpts as I find the more interesting ones (like with a fresh angle, for example). The chapters are mostly quite short, so I wouldn't mind taking on requests to do quick overviews of some of them (you can see them at "look inside" on Amazon, link below)
_http://www.amazon.com/Focus-Hidden-Excellence-Daniel-Goleman-ebook/dp/B00EQZN930/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392232694&sr=1-1&keywords=focus+the+hidden+driver+of+excellence
I haven't read the book cover to cover yet, so these are just my preliminary comments. Since I tend to look for useful information and aspects of a book first, my comments will be mostly positive and thus somewhat biased, so don't take this a value-gauge for the book in it's entirety.
In this book, as is pretty clear by the title, Goleman explicates on the importance of focused and mindful attention as well as our susceptibility to distractions. Here's the description from Amazon:
The immediate thing I liked about this book was the structure. It's laid out quite logically, starting naturally with attention itself, then self-awareness, other-awareness (effectively a primer for "Social Intelligence") folllowed by the "The Bigger Context" (with chapter names "Patterns, Systems and Messes", "System Blindness", and "Distant Threats", which sound a little more interesting). Part 5 and 6 then switch to the context of application with "Smart Practice" and "The Well Focused Leader", and finishes of with a single-chapter part called "The Big Picture" where he uses some of terrible examples of "effective leadership", including the Bloomberg smoking ban (describing a clear example of ponerization) to and Unilever sourcing from small farms all around the world. It's a pity that he only seems to see effective long term leadership in the context of corporate success, though hardly surprising. There's a bit of an undertone that society's problems can and will only be solved by "good leaders", if only they made the "best choices for everyone".
Overall, so far, I think the plus-side of this book is that it's written with simple language while not losing out on insight. For example, in Chapter 1, the way he breaks down distractions into two easy categories:
[quote author=Focus]
There are two main varieties of distractions: sensory and emotional. The sensory distractions are easy: as you read these words you're tuning out of the blank margins surrounding this text. Or notice for a moment the feeling of your tongue against your upper palate - just one of an endless wave of incoming stimuli your brain weeds out from the continuous wash of background sounds, shapes and colors, tastes, smells, sensations and so and on.
More daunting is the second variety of lures: emotionally loaded signals. While you might find it easy to concentrate on answering your email in the hubbub of your local coffee shop, if you should overhear someone mention your name (potent emotional bait, that) it's almost impossible to tune out the voice that carries it - your attention reflexivity alerts to hear what's being said about you. Forget that email.
The biggest challenge for even the most focused, though, comes from the emotional turmoil of our lives, like a recent blowup in a close relationship that keeps intruding into your thoughts. Such thoughts barge in for a good reason: to get us to think about what to do about what's upsetting us. The dividing line between fruitless rumination and productive reflection lies in whether or not we come up with some tentative solution or insight and then can let those distressing thoughts go - or if, on the other hand, we just keep obsessing over the same thought loop of worry
[/quote]
I'll post some chapter summaries with excerpts as I find the more interesting ones (like with a fresh angle, for example). The chapters are mostly quite short, so I wouldn't mind taking on requests to do quick overviews of some of them (you can see them at "look inside" on Amazon, link below)
_http://www.amazon.com/Focus-Hidden-Excellence-Daniel-Goleman-ebook/dp/B00EQZN930/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392232694&sr=1-1&keywords=focus+the+hidden+driver+of+excellence
