This is a fascinating and delightful little book by Theodore Zeldin - a fellow of St Anthony's College, Oxford.
Basically the book is about the importance of conversation in our lives. It explains how conversation is at the root of creativity; how it is better than laws in helping to change our mind-sets and how it can make life more interesting, friendly or passionate.
Its real aim seems to be to stimulate conversation itself and our thinking about how and why we talk. As he points out - we often think more about what we will wear to a social gathering than what we will talk about. It is a stimulating book though it does tend to focus on extolling the virtues of good conversation and is rather light on explaining how to hold better conversations.
What has conversation got to do with Knowledge Management and Learning?
Well, Zeldin discusses how conversation can penetrate the intellectual barriers that are often associated with specialized professions. And he comments that "The really big scientific revolutions have been the invention not of some new machine, but of new ways of talking about things."
To my mind, it is in conversations that we start to create new knowledge and begin to really learn about the world - both from a business and personal perspective.
Video: Theodore Zeldin discusses the results of the Courage Beer Conversations Survey.
Philosopher and historian Theodore Zeldin discusses the results of the Courage Beer Conversations Survey.
Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits.
When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, and engage in new trains of thought.
Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.
If you are interested in Knowledge Management, the
Knowledge Café
or the role of conversation in organizational life then you my be interested in this online book I am writing on
Conversational Leadership
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