“Work in the 21st century is fast, often remote, continuously changing, technology-driven, and involves working with stakeholders who you most likely do not know. It is the requirement for autonomous work and decision making that makes your mindset so important. This mindset, including your goals, values, beliefs, and mode of work, controls how you think, what you think, and, therefore, what you decide,” writes Jane Frankel, in her new book entitled The Intentional Mindset. “Mindset components define what, when, and how you learn—the basis of your autonomous decisions. Your decisions control your destiny and legacy. Your mindset and thinking cannot be left to chance. Exploring your mindset and how it impacts your thinking and decisions is urgent, important, and feasible.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-frankel-5967027
Frankel writes in a straightforward, left-brain manner. It’s effective because she’s able to make multiple components work simultaneously, in the process setting Intentional Mindset apart from other leadership and business advice books of a similar nature. You have a fairly intangible set of concepts, which Frankel is able to concurrently explain in thorough and vivid detail, along with congruent, real-world examples seamlessly embedded in the text.
The result is something that toasts often maligned ideological concepts, putting left-brain spins on content often unexplored in nonfiction fare. Frankel has this considerable heft she’s able to put into even the most translucent aspects of the concepts, keeping things grounded in statistics and observation – rather than settling for generalities. “Autonomy, independent and dependent work, depends on your mindset. You act independently based on your goals, values, beliefs, and mode of work. They guide your decisions while working. When trying to sort through a great success or a dismal failure, mindset is the place to start your analysis,” she writes. “Considering the mindset that drove actions, decisions, and outcomes is very insightful for redirecting work and/or tackling the next project. This analysis requires a continuous dependence on learning, which is at the heart of autonomy.”
I liked Frankel’s style, in addition to her philosophy. There’s never the sense of high-handedness, or a sense of excess pretension. She writes in a candid, straightforward manner, never providing roundabout statements or allowing lapses in narrative tightness for the sake of slickness or faux-narrative cohesion.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Intentional-Mindset-Data-Decisions-Destiny/dp/1637424892
“To clarify mindset components, goals set the targets; values set the core principles of your life; beliefs shape your biases, opinions, and assumptions; and mode of work is how you work that reflects the other components,” she writes. “Aligning these components to support each other is of utmost importance. If they do not align, you are working against yourself and will derail your efforts toward your goals… When working within a community, you need an awareness of the community mindset as well as the members’ mindsets to guide collaborative actions and decisions toward a common goal and work. Do all members of the community have the same goal for the work that you are doing together? Do members’ community values, beliefs, and modes of work support that goal?”
Cyrus Rhodes
