One of my favourite apps on my iPad is 'getAbstract'. This app provides summaries of books, condensing the whole thing into something that can be read in just a few minutes (one of the benefits of being a premium Xing.com member is that you can get a free weekly summary). For me, and I guess for many other people, this is a massive advantage. What would normally take me many hours, possibly spread over several weeks - where I forget what I have already read - can be condensed into a few minutes. So you don’t read the whole book, just the most important bits. We need to save time and do things faster - from the ‘quick wash’ cycle on your washing machine to ‘fast food’ - speed is in demand.
This week's summary on my list is 'A Beautiful Constraint' by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden. The subtitle, which seems to be obligatory these days, is 'How to transform your limitations into advantages, and why it is everyones's business.' My first impression might have been along the lines of 'oh, another self-help guru book' but the key words, especially 'business' caught my eye so I took a look.
I was glad I did. It started me thinking - which is always a good thing in my book. We all face limitations in our businesses and we are always looking to gain an advantage so to have someone come along and help you recognise the situation and think about such things - especially in a short summary - is a step in the right direction, for me anyway. If we think about the limitations that we face in our businesses, or the limitations that our clients and customers face (even better), then perhaps we can come up with some innovative ideas. This, in a nutshell, is the idea behind the book.
This brings me back to the constraint of 'time', or lack of it. How long does it take to learn a language? A lifetime? We simply don’t have time to learn the whole language. We need to focus on the important bits, like the app with the book summaries. However, what is important for you may not be important for the next person: we are all different. So each person needs to think first about their own needs, or each team leader needs to think about the needs of the team. This concept can even be expanded to a whole company as a language/communication strategy where the needs of the organisation are defined. Language schools and courses that don’t take this time constraint into account are missing the point for many people - most people learn languages to improve their work or business opportunities and performance, and time, so they say, is running out.
