The one-sentence summary
We will not survive unless we actively respond to the radical way our world is changing.
WHAT THE BOOK SAYS
- 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.