I have a tendency to avoid hyped books. Sapiens and its sequel, Homo Deus, were definitely part of this category, having been praised by presidents or thought leaders (whatever that means). But an article about the meditative practice of the author, who’s also a jewish gay historian, spiked my interest. So.... I finally read both of them.
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Armchair Strategising, Marx and Entrepreneurship
Marx reminds me of something that I call “armchair strategising”: felling in love with my own thoughts and starting to believe that my grand theory of the world is somehow an accurate representation of it. Rather than the distorted, myopic interpretation that it really is.
Like Marx, there is a large group of workers who are very susceptible to be caught in this narrative fallacy. I am part of this group: Entrepreneurs, product managers, executives. Knowledge workers in general, people working with abstract concepts and shipping equally abstract outputs: plans, strategies, models etc. Like Marx the theories we put forward are not just a hedonistic compressions that we use to entertain ourselves during otherwise boring cocktail parties. Our beliefs are tools in our daily work.
Read MoreWinning in an Uncertain World by Thinking like the Mongols
“Shields up!” Thousands of ironclad legionnaires heed the call, raising their guard in unison. Nobody panics. Calmly, they wait for the coming clash with the barbarian horde like we wait for the ice-cream truck. The Barbarians’ deafening roars reverberate off this wall of iron moments before the horde’s bulky weapons collide with the well-rehearsed, synchronized counter-offensive of the legionnaires.
You can find scenes like this in countless movies. Russell Crowe’s portrayal of General Maximus in Gladiator comes immediately to my mind, but you may have your own fixation. The Roman army represents every manager’s wet dream and is the foundation of corporate structure today. It was, arguably, the greatest army in the history of the world. Legionnaires, after all, exemplify strength and honor, qualities that most companies aspire to emulate:
“If you think of your company as an army, fighting for the hearts and pockets of the consumers, wouldn’t you want to be like the Romans?”
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