I rarely re-read books. Exceptions are Joseph Campbell, Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens and Lao Tzu.  I’ve  added two more authors to my re-read list.

I’ve just finished re-reading Mlodinow’s “The Drunkard’s Walk” and am now re-reading Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow.”

To understand your thinking and decision-making process, and that of others, these two books come highly recommended by moi. Of course, I’m biased.

Related articles

• You Know Less Than You Think You Do(thedailybeast.com)

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• Employee Performance and The Drunkard’s Walk(incentive-intelligence.typepad.com)

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• “Thinking, Fast & Slow” – Wondering about implications for schools(theconstructionzone.wordpress.com)

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• Thinking, Fast and Slow (neurosciencemarketing.com)

It hasn’t worked so well, other than saving $40 a month for the land-line telephone cost.

Dr. Who will be happy that landlines are still around for time travel purposes. Neo, as well. The Matrix needs land line phones. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The main problem is that Cheryl and I, plus other family members, have had beaucoup  troubles (read “frustrations”) getting hold of each other with our cell phones. Here are some typical issues that caused us to return to the sanity of an “old fashioned” land line: My phone get’s discharged, so it’s dead. Cheryl’s phone gets discharged, so it’s dead. Ergo, if either mobile phone is dead, we’re both in the dead zone. What we have here is a failure to communicate. Not infrequently.

Issues, continued: The mobile phone get’s left in Cheryl’s handbag, which is in turn left in her car. Can’t hear it from the garage, in the car, in the handbag! My phone get’s shoved in a cupboard for the weekend – can’t hear it. The cell phone is in another room and we can’t hear it while watching Tinker, Tailor, Solder, Spy or Mad Men or Game of Thrones.  The list goes on and  on. And so do the frustrations.

Thus, the land line is back. Setting up the land line could not have been simpler. It only required an automated call to CenturyLink  and I was able to select our  new number. CenturyLink came to the house and switched on the phone. We didn’t have to be home, it was done at the street box.  I went on Amazon and bought  an inexpensive VTech phone system with two portable phones. One handset  can be in the kitchen, the other in the bedroom or den.

So the “at home” problem has been solved.

We still have our mobile phones when we are, well, mobile.

Now I just can’t wait for the robocalls to begin ringing on the land line.

Our readings this week:

Texts

• Argyris, C., Drucker, P. F., Hammond, J. S., Hayashi, A. M., Raiffa, H., Etzioni, A., … Stryker, P. (2001). Harvard business review on decision making. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

• Chapter 1, “The Effective Decision”
• Chapter 3, “Humble Decision Making”
• Chapter 8, “When to Trust Your Gut”

• Chapter 1, “Thinking and Deciding”
• Chapter 2, “What is Decision Making?”

Articles

• Foote, N., Weiss, L., Matson, E., & Wenger, E. (2002). Leveraging group knowledge for high-performance decision-making. Organizational Dynamics, 31(3), 280–295. doi:10.1016/S0090-2616(02)00114-6

Plus the weekly video and an additional reading:

Goll, I., & Rasheed, A. A. (2005). The relationships between top management demographic characteristics, rational decision making, environmental munificence, and firm performance. Organization Studies, 26(7), 854–883. doi:10.1177/0170840605053538

Hours spent in calls Walden University MGMT-8020 Organizational Systems and Complexity

I have successfully completed Walden University’s MGMT-8020 Organizational Systems and Complexity, PhD management program. My professor, Dr. Branford McAllister was a tremendously engaged educator, someone I would call a “one percenter.” He really cares about his students and the profession of education and it shows in his tough love approach to his profession. He’s also an Air Force academy graduate and former Eagle fighter pilot, so strap yourself in. You’re signed up for quite a ride. And it’s worth it on the other side. You can take that to the bank.

This image gives you a sense of the time it takes over three months to put in the work required. This does not include reading, writing

Image via Wikipedia

and research, do double it. That works out to about 33 hours a week. Since I work at a 50 hour a week job, that means tremendous time management. The PhD work occurs on weekends, late nights and vacation days. Sound like fun? Let me tell you that the learning you acquire has incredible usefulness in your workplace. Taylor your papers and readings to your chosen career and the work flows much easier. Always think of your dissertation as you perform assignments large and small. It will help at dissertation time (I hope !)

A fun part of the class (can you call a class fun? Sure!) was re-reading Senge’s “The Fifth Discipline” -  a lot of good stuff in there. Personal Mastery is my favorite theme. The Meadows book, “Thinking in Systems: A Primer” was ok, but not cited much during the class. I’d replace it with something by Duncan Watts.

“Enjoy the trip. You may not have tomorrow.”

Ph.D. programs do not have an honors system. As one professor put it, no one asks a Ph.D. about his/her grade point average. No summa, cumma, magna honors. That’s paraphrasing a bit. What it means is that there is really no difference between a 3.0 and a 4.0 other than in your head and maybe how you are viewed by profs during your academic sojourn, but certainly not after. After getting your degree, it’s all about your C.V. and publishing.

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