I want to share on the record that Book Revisions is, thus far, the hardest and the most rewarding part of this process. I have felt nervous that I am going to ruin the book or chapter as I revise it. I did, in fact, break a couple of chapters and did major reconstructive surgery. The chapters are healthy and fine now, thank you. Now, I can’t believe that I didn’t see all the flaws before this! Turns out, I am not alone. All authors go through this experience. Atleast the first timers do.
In other news, the book has been in out and about! A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by Sloan Miller of Medium.com who published this piece. I also spoke with a group of leaders at Birlasoft, a major tech company, about insights from the book.
It’s down to the wire from here. The month of October will be about finalizing the book design, all illustrations, copy editing and layout editing. The book’s amazon.com launch is in mid-December.
Book Excerpt
Today’s excerpt is a section from a revised chapter titled “Breaking through the Paradox of Goal Setting”
Winning A Fight Without Fighting The Fight
Broadening goals to include noble objectives aside, sometimes it just feels natural to go after a goal with all you’ve got. That is the case with forest fires. They are harmful. Untold lives and property have been destroyed in forest fires over the decades and centuries. It is natural to set a goal to eliminate or suppress fires and throw everything at it.Starting in 1910, the Natural Park Service (NPS) of the United States did just that. They adopted a policy of suppression, which meant controlling fires by fighting them and putting them out. An endless supply of resources was thrown at the problem. It wasn’t until 1950, after decades of research and a growing vocal minority, did the NPS wake up to the fact that fighting fires was not only expensive but counter to the ultimate goal of controlling damage from fires. Nature has its own way of house-cleaning to maintain an ecological balance. Interfering with that balance by suppressing all wildfires was causing an unnatural build-up of fuel, leading to more severe breakouts. It also created an unintended side effect; NPS’ attempt to eliminate forest fires led to an expert to observe that “some national park areas look more like managed landscapes rather than vestiges of a natural past”. Counterintuitively, this same research revealed, the best way to fight fires was not to fight them, but through selective inaction. Eventually NPS reversed their approach and adopted policies on leaving fires caused by natural events such as lightning alone, thereby acknowledging their overall positive impact on the ecosystem. Moreover, they also adopted a strategy of initiating controlled fires which helped in house-cleaning to prevent build up of fuel. When the NPS was bold and ambitious about directly fighting and eliminating fires as a goal, it caused unintended side effects on the ecosystem, which needed fires to keep its balance. Today, NPS’s goals and policies are far more comprehensive. Their website acknowledges that ”Wildland fire will be... allowed to function in it’s natural ecological role.“Sometimes the better way of achieving a goal is to flip the goal on its head, or broaden it to make it more inclusive and purposeful. By giving us a wider base of things we want to accomplish, we won’t miss the forest for the trees. A direct action toward the stated goal can sometimes be counterproductive and push the desired results away. Oftentimes strategically choosing a counter intuitive approach is the faster and more efficient way to achieving the goal. This is the paradox in goal setting. And yet, awareness of it can be the very tool that helps us master the process of goal setting and create a path to achieving goals faster.
