Tips
The Crystal Ball: Language and Leadership 2001 & Beyond
Today's TIPS column gives you my view from the crystal ball
about where language is going in 2001, what that implies for work
and for leadership, and how Well-Read prepares those who work and
lead.
Where Language is Going
If we believe Ray Kurzweil, we won't carry laptops any more:
we'll have little neural implants in our brains. In Business
2.0, he predicts that ...neural implants will... improve our
perception, memory, and logical thinking..." We'll be able to
check any fact, any research, any work of literature by just
clicking on our neural implants. Even if that's not perfectly
accurate, we already know that we have more data available in our
computers than we could have imagined even twenty years ago. So
what does that tell us about language? Does that mean we don't
have to think about old-fashioned techniques like reading,
writing, speaking, listening?
Ask yourself: has the computer lessened your reading load? Your
writing load? Your need to communicate? Not at all: we all spend
an increasing proportion of our work time reading, writing,
speaking, and, most important of all, thinking,
Language lives. It changes. It adapts to social, economic, and
physical realities. Try reading Dickens: you may find his very
long sentences a bit hard to take. And the ready availability of
books has certainly reduced our ability to remember strings of
facts or long stories.
So we welcome language change. Here are some ways I predict our
language will change at work: we will continue to read and
expand our reading, but the emphasis will be on filtering:
how to slog through the web and find exactly what we're looking
for, how to look critically at the now unmediated information that
appears on our screens, how to choose where to invest our
intellects for maximum return. Next, we will have to cultivate our
critical reading and synthesis abilities, to make sense of
and apply all that knowledge wisely.
In writing, new forms will continue to emerge, throw us into
chaos (as email has), stabilize into predictable structures, force
us to craft new ways of writing to make ourselves understood all
over the world. For a while, people thought it was modern to drop
little aids like commas: no more. We will always find that
agreed-upon conventions, even as they change, enable to us
understand and be understood. Witness how web sites grow more
standard every day.
Speaking? You think you won't have to speak any more? Think
again. Speaking will grow in prominence: witness the current
presidential race, in which candidates are chosen on their
speaking styles alone. As we have global teleconferences, visual
telephones, and easy access to digital movies, we'll each have to
stand up, gain the attention of our audiences, and give voice to
our ideas.
As we think about leadership, we're pushing the limits of the
crystal ball. Changing corporate structures may change the very
nature of leadership, but one thing is sure: as through all of
history, leaders will be defined first of all by their ability to
inspire, to clarify, and to communicate their ideas clearly and
vigorously.
Kevin Kelly (New Rules for the New Economy) writes, ".
. . the new economy is about communication, deep and wide...
Communication is not just a sector of the economy. Communication
is the economy." So we can predict: whatever shape the
new economy takes in the twenty-first century, communication will
drive it. Twenty years from now, you may take all your seminars
electronically on the world wide web, but you'll still be learning
to communicate.
Tops
Well-Read Professional Speaker's Bookshelf
Axtell, Roger. Gestures: The Do's and Taboos of Body Language Around the
World. New York: Wiley, 1998.
Don't leave home without this delightful book that will keep you from putting your foot
in your mouth anywhere in the world. Lighthearted, easy to read, full of specific
suggestions about travel to many countries, this superb reference belongs on every
traveler's bookshelf.
Cook, Jeff Scott. The Elements of Speechwriting and Public Speaking. New York:
Macmillan, 1989.
Well-Read distributes Elements to all our presentation skills students. Cook's
extensive experience in the real world of speaking shines through every page. Loaded with
examples and practical suggestions, Elements gives sensible, useful answers to to
all your presentation questions. Cook is such good writer that he engages the reader on
every page.
Thomsett, Michael C. A Treasury of Business Quotations. New York:
Ballantine Books, 1990.
Kathi Albertini, Well-Read's senior consultant, recommends this handy little paperback
because it offers useful quotations from many countries. When you work with an
international customer, a great quotation from her own country helps build bridges. Carry
it in your travel kit.
Well-Read Reader's Bookshelf
Mindell, Phyllis. Power Reading. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998.
Power Reading helps business people, professionals, students, all literate
people to gain efficiency, understanding, and high level reasoning skills.
 
Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading. New York: Viking Penguin, 1996.
Written for lovers of reading by a lover of reading, A History of Reading will
charm you with its vignettes, quotations, and illustrations.
Spitz, Ellen Handler. Inside Picture Books. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1999.
This one has nothing to do with business, but every parent who reads picture books to
kids will love the user-friendly analysis of the meanings inherent in the classic picture
books we loved as children. Every new mother gets a copy from me.
More to come... Visit our site again soon. |
