…is Nancy Kline’s Time To Think: Listening To Ignite The Human Mind. A couple of weeks ago I went along to an Agile Leadership Community talk by the engaging and very smart Geoff Watts on Servant Leadership (of which more another time), and the moment he started to talk about Kline the busy busy busy chimes started jangling in my head, because what she writes about is very much along the lines of what I talked about at #dareconf last week, only she does it from a position of wisdom, experience and erudition that outstrips mine by a mile. I’m only halfway through but would heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to be better at listening (and it’s harder than it sounds).

I find my tastes veering towards the pastoral side of management when it comes to professional reading material, and sometimes I wonder whether that’s because the people stuff is the stuff I’m best at, and all I’m doing is reinforcing the walls of my comfort zone. But the best writing articulates a truth, or a set of truths, that you already knew deep down, and Kline does that here better than almost anyone.