I just finished reading “Outswim the Sharks” on the weekend a good learning opportunity and a great read. Will start with the story on how I obtained my copy of the book. I had written a post regarding Piero Ferrucci’s book “the power of kindness” another great read. Anyway, Reut Schwartz-Hebron author of “Outswim the Sharks” had left a comment on that post (you can check it out here) and after exchanging a few emails and a phone call she was kind enough to send me a copy of her book. “Outswim the Sharks” is certainly blogmatic recommended reading.

The key concepts of the book are; Real Knowledge, Simplicity and Systemic Thinking. Wrap around all of these concepts a kind management style and you have the basis for the book “Outswim the Sharks”. I am a huge believer in kind management as the best way to create a positive results oriented culture.  My favorite quote from the book is “Unlike any other “material” the only way you can get human beings to co-operate in recruiting their desire and skills to excel is if they chose to share it with you.” What I particularly liked about “Outswim the Sharks” is that it provides a framework for implementing a kind management style. While the book focuses on large enterprise organizations and their managers there are certainly some very valuable lessons for start-ups too.

The quotes and examples used in the book are first rate, actually I think just reading the quotes was more than worth the price of admission, they are carefully chosen and highly relevant to the subsequent chapter. The quotes used in the book are truly amazing.

The greatest challenge for me was wrapping my head around two concepts; focusing on process rather than results and the idea of systemic thinking.

Reut postulates that real knowledge is more readily acquired when you focus on training and process rather than results. If you focus on process results will be the natural outcome. While I understand the concept I still struggle to internalize the lesson. My personal view is that process is an enabler of results which I believe is consistent with the premise outlined in “Outswim the Sharks”.

The second and more significant enlightenment for me comes from the chapters on systemic thinking. To paraphrase, systemic thinking is all about identifying repetitions and contradictions between functional bodies rather than focusing on the functional areas. Said another way you can identify and resolve more issues by examining the linkages rather than the objects. This is a very powerful concept and I will be rereading the systemic thinking chapters another time or two before fully grasping the concept.

All in all a very good read and I would recommend “Outswim the Sharks” to anyone considering how to implement kind management.

Cheers,
Ian Graham