Everything Connects: How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation, and Sustainability Hardcover – February 19, 2014

The caterpillar grows 100 times its size from birth to the point at which it enters the cocoon. It does this by focusing on only one thing, eating everything it can. When it emerges from the darkness of the cocoon as a beautiful butterfly, it flies around looking after its own comparatively modest needs. In the process, the butterfly pollinates other flowers and creates abundant growth.This is a metaphor used by John Mackay founder of Whole Foods Market, in his book on “Conscious Capitalism,” (reviewed in this column,) business at its most moral, and most profitable. This is a fitting introduction to this book, “Everything Connects,” which complements Mackay’s work by focusing on how you achieve this “consciousness.” How you do well in business, by doing good.Much of how we talk about business is unfortunate. Business is a “rat-race,” where there is only one winner, but he is still a rat. Business is “dog eat dog,” where people will do anything to be successful, even if they do harm to others.If this were necessarily true, successful business people should be ashamed for being successful. It is not true. Superb books such as Mackay’s and this book, “Everything Connects,” tell a decidedly different story.The idea that everything connects is referring to the four principle spheres of business. These are the leader, the people in the organization, the ecosystem that encompasses the business, and the customers that it serves. The performance of any of these spheres has a profound effect on all the others.For example, leaders who focus singularly on output might well find that scaring staff can be useful for short -term productivity. However, if you require staff to make better products or offer a better service you have to manage them with the awareness that your “human resource” is a sentient resource. People are complex and acutely sensitive. All staff bring their personalities, histories, aspirations and fears to work. Everything is connected.The Stanford Project on Emerging Companies, a longitudinal study, showed the correlation between of the employment practices of nearly 200 young Silicon Valley firms and their subsequent performance. Qualitative factors such as culture and the way people within an organization relate to one another predicted the quantitative. The qualitative factors correlated to the company’s chance of being listed on a stock exchange, and once listed, being able to grow. Everything is connected.The profit a company makes is tangible, and can be represented on a spreadsheet. What causes profit creation is not tangible. Profit is invariably the results of the subtle, private, personal experiences, and choices of the people participating in that process.Think of times you have chosen to work from home, (or would have if you could have,) rather than in the office. You made this choice because the environment at home was more conducive to deep thought than the office.“Your environment is a tool; just as you need the right tool for the job, you’d do well to find the right environment for the job,” say the authors. This is just one example of the myriad of factors that affects productivity and creativity and that requires managerial attention. Everything is connected.“Work for the long term,” is a recurring theme in the book and an indispensable component of an effective worldview.The demands of shareholders to meet growth expectations, too often leads to a short-termism that profoundly damages the company for the long-term. Last week a friend told me that her company was offering early retirement to many senior people. I presume that they will be replaced by less expensive, but far less experienced younger people. This will certainly benefit the results in the short-term, but severely prejudice it in the long term. Short-term fixes such as curtailing training, cancelling marketing, and postponing research will produce the same long-term damage.“Any transaction has short-term and long-term consequences… Short-term consequences will often be quantitative, and long-term ones will be qualitative. A sustaining, holistic organization is conscious of both.” Everything is connected.The skill that goes into producing a product or service is experienced directly by the user. To achieve a superb output, the performance must masterful. It is for this reason that leaders need to “curate” talent. Curating involves gathering the right people, at the right time in their lives, in the right combination of talents required to produce. The client’s experience is a function of the leader’s ability to “curate” talent.The author argues cogently that most sustainable way to create value is to invest in your own and your people’s capabilities, as individuals, and as parts of organizations. The investment they talk of is more than taking a course and learning theories and practices. It extends to our own mental experiences, our social interactions, and our philosophy of life. Doing exceptional work requires a holistic, long-term view, and engaging with “mindfulness and authenticity.”At the heart of the insight of this book, is you, the individual, in your role as leader. Your beliefs, thoughts, behaviour, and values will undoubtable affect the decisions you take, and the willingness and ability of your staff to give of their best.One of the primary forms of the self-investment proposed by the authors is “mindfulness meditation.” A Wake Forest University study indicated that this religion-neutral activity improved cognition after only four days of training. A University of California - Santa Barbara study found that meditation increased working memory and reduced mental wandering.To achieve a higher level of consciousness is to see the role of business as a force for good in the world. For the betterment of all - leaders, the people in the organization, the ecosystem that encompasses the business, and the customers that it serves, changes are required. What this practical book describes is how to effect those changes.Phil Libin, the CEO of Evernote, makes the point that humanizing our working lives is a “sufficiently epic quest” to make it worthy of our total dedication.Readability Light -+--- SeriousInsights High -+--- LowPractical High -+--- Low

I've always been a firm believer in "good values lead to value creation." Reading "Everything Connects" helped me ground my personal ideology with a strong theoretical and practical foundation and then some.The writing style is easy-to-read and approachable. Both authors, Hoque and Baer, present the material with humor, thoughtfulness, and humility. I am a slow reader and started reading the book on my commute to work. I was surprised when I got off at my destination that I had read 60 pages in a single sitting. My compliments about the writing style are only eclipsed by my response to the content.While it is established early on that target audience is entrepreneurs, the book redefines and recontextualized the term to mean "anyone who takes ownership of their economic well-being." And in that sense, the ideas and values expressed by the authors are applicable to any discipline, any industry, and any profession. One particularly memorable example is the discussion of Molly Crabapple, a painter-illustrator-entrepreneur-activist, who leveraged her network, current technology, and business acumen to be an artist making six-figures.Another notable feature of the book is the sensitivity and humility of the authors towards race and culture. It reaffirms the core message that positive connections and humanism reinforce long-term gain and shape a better company. Both authors draw from a deep well of knowledge, from meditation practices to interviews with contemporary CEOs, to ancient proverbs. As the title suggests, "Everything Connects" investigates the contexts that currently exist to form meaningful bridges. On a personal note, it was refreshing to read about shifting capitalism away from efficiency to humanism.I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed "Flow" and anyone who yearns to integrate of technology and humanism in both their personal and professional lives.

I loved this book for being so readable while not dumbing down all of complexity that faces different types of organization. One of the most useful sections for me was the organizational model types (STAR, Commitment, etc.)--this framework was really helpful in recognizing some of my own biases in employee recruitment and management. After finishing it, I bought copied for my entire team; I'm finding having a shared literacy around the concepts explored to be immeasurably helpful for our working relationships.I also love the opening section about innovation and efficiency not being opposites but potentially having opposing structures to optimize for each.To get to the review's, title, however, the most compelling piece was the use of such a variety of case studies and stories, from Hindu myths to Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction to Da Vinci to new startups. I felt the authors struck a great balance of the timeless/timely in their choices.

I ordered EVERYTHING CONNECTS because I have followed the writings of Faisal Hoque and Drake Baer and appreciate their point of view. I was also a bit apprehensive – what, another book about innovation? I was, however, instantly won over by the book’s humanist core. Yes, it offers some terrific practices that will foster an innovation culture anywhere. But EVERYTHING CONNECTS is anchored by a clear focus on us humans, the incubators of innovation. It shares keen insights into the nature of curiosity and dynamic collaboration. Most importantly, it celebrates the richness of the human spirit – the deepest level at which everything, eventually, will connect. I strongly recommend this book for anyone who desires a more holistic take on how innovation unfolds!

Good book but bad quality! Pages keep falling off. Feels funny when I read it. But it's a required book for my class, so I can't return it back. Haha

Relatively easy to read. I am not sure how much I got out of it.

I like the way they describe the new way of leading and inspiring works, it is not any more about holding information but about sharing it, the more it is shared the more you get back.Sharing is leading, sharing is transforming, sharing is crating connections,