Connoisseur's Guide To The Mind

In the midst of some fall cleaning this weekend, I dropped off two big boxes of cd's and dvd's at Rasputin Music.

They gave me $311. I spent $215.

Clearly a symbiotic relationship...

It was a good haul, with used copies of

• Jeff Corwin Experience - Season 1
• Jet Li's Fist of Legend
• Dororo
• Bullshit - Season Three
• Paprika
• Ki-duk Kim's The Bow
• Funky Forest
• The Forbidden Kingdom

I also did some sorting in my bookshelf.
While doing so, I came across "The Connoisseur's Guide To The Mind" by Roger C. Schank.

Schank, an artificial intelligence expert and major foodie, explains how we think and remember, by telling us stories about his most memorable meals.

My favorite quote:

"Learning about food means eating it, thinking about what you ate, eating things like what you have already eaten in order to contrast one experience with another, and asking questions to determine other information that may help you make sense of your experiences.
This is how learning works. "

I lead management workshops, so I applied Shanks' theory to management.

"Learning about management means managing people, thinking about the results of managing people, managing people using other tools (or other people) like what you have already used in order to contrast one experience with another, and asking questions to determine other information that may help you make sense of your experiences.
This is how learning works. "

Interestingly, most of us never use this process with eating. We just eat without learning.
Similarly, most of us never use this process with management.

We manage as if it were a mechanical action like eating or sleeping.
And wonder why we don't learn...