Simple Thinking
“Colin Powell says ‘Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers’ – Richard's book Simple Thinking helps you search for ways to simplify things so you too can become a great leader.”
Nick Raphael, President of Capitol Records UK
“Success is not complicated; it doesn't have a secret formula; it is about people, behaviours and attitudes; Richard's brilliant book covers all three.”
Dave Bassett, former Football Manager
“This new book by the remarkable Richard Gerver packs in more of that rarest commodity, common sense, than most of us encounter in a lifetime. There is so much of real value here that just one reading is nothing like enough: I will be returning to it again and again, for reassurance as well as inspiration. It is a boon in waiting.”
Duke of Devonshire
“A fascinating subject, expertly addressed by a very talented author. This book will provide a very real insight into how the answers we strive for are not quite as complicated as we may think they are.”
Sam Rush, CEO and President of Derby County FC
SIMPLE THINKING
How to remove complexity from life and work
RICHARD GERVER
This edition first published 2016
© 2016 Richard Gerver
Registered office
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gerver, Richard, author.
Title: Simple Thinking: how to remove complexity from life and work / Richard Gerver.
Description: Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons,
2016. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016010577 | ISBN 9780857086877 (pbk.) |
ISBN 9780857086891 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Success. | Self-realization. | Simplicity.
Classification: LCC BF637.S8 .G424 2016 | DDC 650.1–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016010577
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-857-08687-7 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-857-08685-3 (ebk) ISBN 978-0-857-08689-1 (ebk)
Cover design: Wiley
Introduction
I was recently in Seattle for work and on my day off I visited the commercial Mecca of coffee: Starbuck's original store next to Pike Place Market. I arrived mid-afternoon and the queue was huge, spilling out of the door and at least two blocks long. Outside was an old guy picking on a banjo. The smell of the freshly roasted coffee mixed with the other smells of the market was intoxicating. As the queue moved forward and as I got closer to the store, I began to feel a growing sense of anxiety. You see, I'm not a coffee connoisseur; I love coffee but I drink it black, no sugar: simple. As I tuned into the conversations around me I heard people discussing what they were going to have from this historic shop. I had no idea what they were talking about, “Quad venti half caf breve no foam with whip two splenda stirred skinny three pump peppermint mocha.”
Seriously?
What happened to having a simple cup of…coffee?
We are born simple; we are instinctive and gloriously uncomplicated; primal. Our needs are to be nourished and nurtured. As we spring miraculously to life, we know nothing.
Yet when you imagine the complexity of those first few days, weeks and months, it is truly mind-blowing. We have to make sense of everything and most of us learn at an incredible rate; from body language to vocal intonation, facial expressions, sounds, sights, smells. Later we learn to walk and talk. Successful or what? We are amazing.
I have spent most of my adult life hanging out with children; I have two of my own and did, for over 15 years, have the privilege of teaching in schools filled with young people between the ages of three and 11.
Over the last ten years or so I have spent much of my time in the “adult world”, in some pretty huge organizations, businesses and sports teams. When I first left the world of schooling, I found them to be daunting and quite scary places. I was filled with a sense of inadequacy; an imposter syndrome I guess. I was like an infant, suddenly born into the world outside the protective womb of the classroom and playground gates. A world filled with noises and behaviours that seemed, on the surface, to be alien. For a while I worried about my own sanity and sense of perspective, wondering if I was just better off in the company of young, small people. Then I started to ask different kinds of questions. I started to explore how much of what we create around us, as adults, actually helps as we go about our lives and how much of it weighs us down. How peer pressure, the perceptions of intelligence and hierarchies influence the way we see ourselves, our potential and the world around us.
I have been fascinated by the perception of success and, more importantly, the belief that it must somehow be complex and only attainable for a rare, superhuman few.
Simplicity seems to be the catchword of the post-financial crash era. The crisis that at the start of this millennium seemed to have forced