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ivyficFor reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture, I picked up Thrive: The Facilitator’s Guide to Radically Inclusive Meetings by Dr. Mark Smutny.
I used to work for an editor that published business books, so I know that how a lot of these books work is that someone with a speaking or consulting circuit will write a book that they sell at their engagements and often doesn’t sell anywhere else. When we were looking to publish these, it was strictly a numbers deal—if the author put in the contract that they would buy back a certain number of copies that they would then be responsible for selling, sure, we’d publish that book. They get our imprimatur, we get a guaranteed return. There are so many organizations looking for advice on how to improve everything from culture to leadership to strategy that there is an infinite number of these books.
So on first looking at this book, there are a couple of warning signs. It’s very thin, and though it has a table of contents, the chapters don’t have numbers. The author appears to have no qualifications other than having founded a consulting company that facilitates meetings. He’s a doctor, but of divinity. This tells me (a) he’s identified there’s a market for meeting facilitation but not that he’s any good at it and (b) he’s never actually worked at the types of organizations he’s attempting to advise. Also, not for nothing, he’s a white guy writing a book on inclusion—we’ll come back to that. There’s no publisher mark on the cover—looking at the copyright page, it appears to be self-published.
So clearly this is a book this guy wrote just to sell at his own engagements. That’s not prohibitive, but certainly not encouraging. There’s also the title, Thrive, which seems designed to be mistaken for a couple of best-selling business books—like Thrive by Arianna Huffington or Drive by Daniel H. Pink. Both of those got a lot of publicity. So you look at this book and go—oh yeah, I think I’ve heard of that. No you haven’t. This is a nobody book, and “thrive” doesn’t have much to do with the content.
On to the content.
At first I thought, well, this should be a pamphlet or something and not a book. It’s been fluffed to try to meet a book page count (which at 150 pages it only barely does). This is true of a whole lot of business books. Often because the author wrote an article or has a lecture that a publisher reached out and asked them to make into a book, because a book is a marketable unit of writing. With books like this, though, often there’s a useful kernel, you just have to skim past all the filler.
So we’ve got a prologue that just summarizes all the chapters in the book, and an intro that starts out by saying the author’s first experience facilitating was captaining a basketball team, but then talks a lot about that team and none about facilitation. Okay.
Next chapter, Disastrous Meetings. I was hoping this would be a demonstration of the types of behaviors that make meetings go off the rails. Instead it's a two-page bulleted list of things like “Meetings where half the participants are checking their smartphones.” Yeah, sure. No insight is given into why this might happen. Then at the end of the list, he writes, “My wife says the list is long enough, so I’ll stop.” It’s hard to articulate why this gets my back up, but male speakers that use their wife as a featureless foil keeping them in line tick me off immensely. They are meant to humanize the speaker because we all have nagging wives, right?
Then there’s a chapter called Cultural Mindfulness and Radical Inclusion. Right—okay, here’s the heart of the book. And as far as I can tell, this chapter contains…no content. Here’s a quote: “The word ‘radical’ has in its beginnings the word ‘root,’ meaning what is foundational. I believe the commitment to radical equality is the root, or foundation, of inclusive meeting practices and fair facilitation.” Okay, but HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT??? The only discernible piece of advice is to write down a list of your attributes (white/male/straight/etc) and exchange with your coworkers. He has examples of these lists then says, “In the hierarchy of privilege, I score somewhere between the stratosphere and outer space.” Then he lists out a black straight man and says, “He is neither at the top or bottom of the cultural hierarchy.”
What? What?
That is not how you do this! This is a terrible idea. This is like someone who has had a book on intersectionality thrown past his head and has only absorbed the idea that identities exist.
Then. Then we get to the chapter on active listening. I thought—okay, clearly someone told him if he tacked on inclusivity he could sell more books (and he’s right), and the listening and meeting running part of it is where he’s going to have actual content.
Hoo boy.
He starts by suggesting the technique of paraphrasing. Sure—that’s a common enough recommendation for active listening, to show that you have understood the other person correctly. This is his example dialogue:
Are you an alien? No one talks like that.
THEN. We get to the section titled “Fogging.” This he describes as “a listening skill used when facing criticism. … Fogging is called fogging because it is like hitting a fog bank. There is no rebound from striking a hard surface. A bank of thin vapor swallows the harsh fist of criticism.”
Here is his example. And keep in mind, HE IS RECOMMENDING THIS TECHNIQUE.
OMG WAS THIS BOOK WRITTEN BY A TROLL. NEVER DO THIS. Any manager who handles criticisms this way should be fired.
And somehow this book has mostly five-star ratings (that I’m betting the author paid for). I do not usually leave any kind of book reviews, but dear god, the people need to be warned.
I used to work for an editor that published business books, so I know that how a lot of these books work is that someone with a speaking or consulting circuit will write a book that they sell at their engagements and often doesn’t sell anywhere else. When we were looking to publish these, it was strictly a numbers deal—if the author put in the contract that they would buy back a certain number of copies that they would then be responsible for selling, sure, we’d publish that book. They get our imprimatur, we get a guaranteed return. There are so many organizations looking for advice on how to improve everything from culture to leadership to strategy that there is an infinite number of these books.
So on first looking at this book, there are a couple of warning signs. It’s very thin, and though it has a table of contents, the chapters don’t have numbers. The author appears to have no qualifications other than having founded a consulting company that facilitates meetings. He’s a doctor, but of divinity. This tells me (a) he’s identified there’s a market for meeting facilitation but not that he’s any good at it and (b) he’s never actually worked at the types of organizations he’s attempting to advise. Also, not for nothing, he’s a white guy writing a book on inclusion—we’ll come back to that. There’s no publisher mark on the cover—looking at the copyright page, it appears to be self-published.
So clearly this is a book this guy wrote just to sell at his own engagements. That’s not prohibitive, but certainly not encouraging. There’s also the title, Thrive, which seems designed to be mistaken for a couple of best-selling business books—like Thrive by Arianna Huffington or Drive by Daniel H. Pink. Both of those got a lot of publicity. So you look at this book and go—oh yeah, I think I’ve heard of that. No you haven’t. This is a nobody book, and “thrive” doesn’t have much to do with the content.
On to the content.
At first I thought, well, this should be a pamphlet or something and not a book. It’s been fluffed to try to meet a book page count (which at 150 pages it only barely does). This is true of a whole lot of business books. Often because the author wrote an article or has a lecture that a publisher reached out and asked them to make into a book, because a book is a marketable unit of writing. With books like this, though, often there’s a useful kernel, you just have to skim past all the filler.
So we’ve got a prologue that just summarizes all the chapters in the book, and an intro that starts out by saying the author’s first experience facilitating was captaining a basketball team, but then talks a lot about that team and none about facilitation. Okay.
Next chapter, Disastrous Meetings. I was hoping this would be a demonstration of the types of behaviors that make meetings go off the rails. Instead it's a two-page bulleted list of things like “Meetings where half the participants are checking their smartphones.” Yeah, sure. No insight is given into why this might happen. Then at the end of the list, he writes, “My wife says the list is long enough, so I’ll stop.” It’s hard to articulate why this gets my back up, but male speakers that use their wife as a featureless foil keeping them in line tick me off immensely. They are meant to humanize the speaker because we all have nagging wives, right?
Then there’s a chapter called Cultural Mindfulness and Radical Inclusion. Right—okay, here’s the heart of the book. And as far as I can tell, this chapter contains…no content. Here’s a quote: “The word ‘radical’ has in its beginnings the word ‘root,’ meaning what is foundational. I believe the commitment to radical equality is the root, or foundation, of inclusive meeting practices and fair facilitation.” Okay, but HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT??? The only discernible piece of advice is to write down a list of your attributes (white/male/straight/etc) and exchange with your coworkers. He has examples of these lists then says, “In the hierarchy of privilege, I score somewhere between the stratosphere and outer space.” Then he lists out a black straight man and says, “He is neither at the top or bottom of the cultural hierarchy.”
What? What?
That is not how you do this! This is a terrible idea. This is like someone who has had a book on intersectionality thrown past his head and has only absorbed the idea that identities exist.
Then. Then we get to the chapter on active listening. I thought—okay, clearly someone told him if he tacked on inclusivity he could sell more books (and he’s right), and the listening and meeting running part of it is where he’s going to have actual content.
Hoo boy.
He starts by suggesting the technique of paraphrasing. Sure—that’s a common enough recommendation for active listening, to show that you have understood the other person correctly. This is his example dialogue:
Speaker: I’ve been to four stores this afternoon and still haven’t found the dress shirt I want. It is frustrating. Do you have any idea how much time I have wasted looking for that blasted gift?
Listener: You’re saying you’ve been to a lot of stores and wasted a whole lot of time. You wonder whether I realize how much time it took.
Are you an alien? No one talks like that.
THEN. We get to the section titled “Fogging.” This he describes as “a listening skill used when facing criticism. … Fogging is called fogging because it is like hitting a fog bank. There is no rebound from striking a hard surface. A bank of thin vapor swallows the harsh fist of criticism.”
Here is his example. And keep in mind, HE IS RECOMMENDING THIS TECHNIQUE.
Employee: We’re not going to meet our performance metrics this month because we’re not getting sufficient direction from you. Can’t you step up? Why aren’t you giving us any guidance?
Manager: It’s true our performance metrics are down.
Employee: It’s your lack of leadership and all those irrelevant meetings you attend.
Manager: I do attend lots of meetings.
OMG WAS THIS BOOK WRITTEN BY A TROLL. NEVER DO THIS. Any manager who handles criticisms this way should be fired.
And somehow this book has mostly five-star ratings (that I’m betting the author paid for). I do not usually leave any kind of book reviews, but dear god, the people need to be warned.