Look: A Practical Guide for Improving Your Observational Skills - Hardcover

Gilmore, James H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1626342997 ISBN 13: 9781626342996

Verlag: GREENLEAF BOOK GROUP LLC, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Mastering the Way You See the World

?Inspired by Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats method, Jim Gilmore has created a unique and useful tool to help our ability to perceive. In his latest book, Look: A Practical Guide for Improving Your Observational Skills, Gilmore introduces the metaphor of “six looking glasses.” Each looking glass represents a particular skill to master in order to enhance the way we look at the world. 

The six skills include binoculars, bifocals, magnifying glass, microscope, rose-colored glasses, and blindfold looking. Each looking glass provides an observational lens through which to see the world differently. This framework will help its users to: 

• See the big picture
• Overcome personal bias
• Pinpoint significance
• Better scrutinize numerous details
• Uncover potential opportunities
• See what’s in the mind’s eye 

These varying perspectives offer myriad practical applications: They can help any executive, manager, or designer more richly observe customer behavior, philanthropists and policy makers more keenly identify human needs, and anyone else interested in innovative thinking to first ground their ideation in practical observation. 

Gilmore helps readers grasp the Six Looking Glasses by including helpful everyday examples and practice exercises throughout. Put into practice, this method of looking will help you see the world with new eyes. 

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jim Gilmore is co-founder of Strategic Horizons LLP, based in Aurora, Ohio. He is a Batten fellow and adjunct lecturer at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, where he teaches a course on the Experience Economy. Gilmore is a visiting lecturer in Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, where he teaches a course on cultural hermeneutics. He also teaches a design course at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University.

Gilmore is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an alumnus of Procter & Gamble, and, before co-founding Strategic Horizons LLP, was head of CSC Consulting's Process Innovation practice. Look is his third book. His other books include the highly influential, The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage and Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want.

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Look

A Practical Guide For Improving Your Observational Skills

By James H. Gilmore

Greenleaf Book Group Press

Copyright © 2016 Strategic Horizons LLP
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-62634-299-6

Contents

Introduction, 
LEARNING TO LOOK, 
1 Why Look?, 
2 Looking as a Skill, 
3 Wearing Glasses, 
4 The Six Looking Glasses, 
5 Where to Look, 
6 Looking Short and Slow, Long and Fast, 
BINOCULARS LOOKING, 
7 Looking Across: Surveying and Scanning, 
8 Keeping a Distance, 
9 Picking a Vantage Point, 
10 What Does Binoculars Looking Look Like?, 
11 Binoculars Exercises, 
12 Summary of Binoculars Looking, 
BIFOCALS LOOKING, 
13 Looking Between: Comparing and Contrasting, 
14 Pairing Opposites, 
15 Altering Directions, 
16 What Does Bifocals Looking Look Like?, 
17 Bifocals Exercises, 
18 Summary of Bifocals Looking, 
MAGNIFYING-GLASS LOOKING, 
19 Looking Closer: Pausing and Pinpointing, 
20 Spotting One Main Point, 
21 Finding the Significance, 
22 What Does Magnifying-Glass Looking Look Like?, 
23 Magnifying Glass Exercises, 
24 Summary of Magnifying-Glass Looking, 
MICROSCOPE LOOKING, 
25 Looking Around: Scrutinizing and Studying, 
26 Checking for More Details, 
27 Shifting the Object, 
28 What Does Microscope Looking Look Like?, 
29 Microscope Exercises, 
30 Summary of Microscope Looking, 
ROSE-COLORED-GLASSES LOOKING, 
31 Looking Past: Enhancing and Enriching, 
32 Forsaking the Flaws, 
33 Foreseeing Opportunities, 
34 What Does Rose-Colored-Glasses Looking Look Like?, 
35 Rose-Colored-Glasses Exercises, 
36 Summary of Rose-Colored-Glasses Looking, 
BLINDFOLD LOOKING, 
37 Looking Back: Looking at Looking, 
38 Assessing the Looking, 
39 Recalling the Looking, 
40 What Does Blindfold Looking Look Like?, 
41 Blindfold Exercises, 
42 Summary of Blindfold Looking, 
LOOKING TO LEARN, 
43 Everyday Looking, 
44 Looking Routines, 
45 Looking Excursions, 
46 Looking with All Five Senses, 
47 Capturing What You See, 
48 Look Here, 
APPENDICES, 
A Looking at Yourself: A Self-Assessment, 
B Construction of the Six Looking Glasses, 
Acknowledgments, 
About the Author, 

CHAPTER 1

WHY LOOK?

We spend most all of our lives with our eyes open. Yet there are different degrees to which we use our open eyes. The very phrase "eyes wide open" suggests there are many occasions when our open eyes are not completely open, when we miss perceiving some aspect of the world before us. Indeed, we are often inattentive to what exists right around us.

We look, but we don't see. And we don't see, because we're not really there, looking. This "being elsewhere" is particularly pronounced in an age of distraction, exemplified by the pedtextrian (a term someone coined for a pedestrian texting while walking), or the screenager, which includes any of us using digital devices while not walking. I have witnessed many screenagers (usually at an airport) three screens deep, with laptop, tablet, and smartphone — all turned on, commanding complete and divided attention. There is not much looking going on in such circumstances — at least not at the embodied world in which one is immediately situated. Interestingly, observing this three-screens-deep behavior triggered this thought: Screens were once things we only looked at, but then we started holding screens; then we started touching them. Now, people are starting to wear screens on their wrists, arms, heads, and even torsos. Are digital implants next?

To really look is to make an observation such as this noticeable progression. To look takes note of something as important or meaningful. It is the kind of observation that registers an "aha." It is the kind of looking that sees something anew. It is a way of noticing.

Such noticing is not easy. The inability to see something can strike us even when we are most consciously and intently looking. Most of us have had the experience of looking for some misplaced item, growing ever more frustrated by our inability to locate it, and only after we have "looked everywhere" (or so we say) does the lost item suddenly appear.

Let me share a true story of one such incident. It was the evening of my wedding. After the ceremony and reception, close friends and family gathered at my in-laws' home to spend some additional time together. At the end of the night, all the men who had worn rented tuxedos collected their garments — shoes, pants, jackets, shirts, ties, and so forth — and put them in a pile to be returned en masse the next day. As we made an accounting of all the items, one piece was missing: one last cummerbund. Everyone frantically searched the house for the wayward cummerbund. After what seemed like an eternity, we gave up the hunt, resigned to pay whatever penalty would be incurred the next day. It was then that someone noticed the cummerbund. My father was still wearing it! The cummerbund had been curled up around my dad's waist the whole time, unnoticed, under his belly.

Why look? We need to look in order to notice that which we do not normally see. We must come to recognize the value to be had in making new discoveries of people and places, products and processes, and objects and occasions that otherwise sit unnoticed, along the underbelly of everyday life.

But seriously: Why look?

First of all, take a step back and consider that the world is intrinsically worth looking at. Both nature (nurtured by mankind) and artificial environments (constructed by mankind) are wondrously created. To not see this is to not be human. We should look in order to better appreciate the circumstances in which we are situated in our work, our homes, our communities, our schools, our churches, and our recreations.

Secondly, there is so much variation in the world to be compared. In making comparisons — within any field of study — greater understanding is gained. Without looking for this kind of comparative understanding, all thought and action stagnates. We should look in order to change the context in which certain problems and issues are understood and addressed.

Thirdly, what matters does not just exist in a single field of study. There are worlds and worlds of details existing in many different disciplines. Just as value can be unlocked by making comparisons within an individual field, opportunities for new insights often only emerge when looking across multiple disciplines. Such cross-disciplinary looking is too often neglected in the present era of specialization. Some breakthroughs may only come when specialists look more richly outside their normal purview. We should look in order to alter the state of mind with which we approach any situation.

Fourthly, a surface-level understanding of the world and a superficial approach to problem-solving will not suffice to address many critical problems faced today locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. Opportunities to better address these concerns will only emerge when life is examined up close and in detail. We should look in order to be more attentive to what really matters.

Fifthly, the world can be made a better place. Beyond the world's known problems, other real troubles often exist unseen or ignored in society. These troubles need to be brought to light. And our known problems are often addressed via the same tired old paradigms. We should...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: GREENLEAF BOOK GROUP LLC
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1626342997
• ISBN 13: 9781626342996
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Greenleaf Book Group; https://www.suntory.co.jp/beer/thepremiummalts/; ; 4005-B Banister Lane; Austin; TX; 78704; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar