The one-sentence summary

We will not survive unless we actively respond to the radical way our world is changing.

WHAT THE BOOK SAYSAGE OF UNREASON

  • The world is changing fast, and we need to change with it. The numbers prove it, and companies and governments need to acknowledge this and think differently.
  • Words are heralds of social change –by watching the way language changes, we can spot the linguistic signposts of change.
  • We work for 100,000 hours in our lives, but there are many different ways to divide this up.
  • Negative capability is the ability to make mistakes and learn from them.
  • Upside down thinking can make you view work as the best of the four-letter words. It doesn’t have to be as it currently is.
  • Portfolio man has five types of work:

1.     Wage work: money paid for time given

2.    Fee work: money paid for results delivered

3.    Homework: all the tasks that make a home function

4.    Gift work: work done for free outside home, such as charity work

5.     Study work: training and reading

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

“Work is much more fun than fun.” Noel Coward

  • Upside down thinking forces the reader to look at things differently.
  • There are many different types of intelligence, and all have value:

~ Analytical: the sort we measure in IQ tests

~ Pattern: musicians, mathematicians and computer programmers see these

~ Musical: can earn more money than conventional office skills

~ Physical: sportsmen

~ Practical: able to dismantle a television without naming the parts

~ Intra-personal: people who are in tune with others’ feelings

~ Inter-personal: the ability to get on with others

  • He pushes hard against “endemic group-think”, where everyone agrees with each other without thinking properly.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • The book is now 20 years old so certain ideas have been overtaken by events.