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Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society
"Gardner's is not a 'how-to-do-it' book for the conduct of modern society. It is something rarer these days and more a 'why-to-do-it' book. Its impact on many readers is bound to be challenging and stimulating and even inspirational."―Clark Kerr, Science
170 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
April 29, 2019
It was comforting to read this book and uplifting to discover how progress and creativity are closely linked to a constant process of self-renewal and why we should constantly seek for this kind of self-renewal, and not only for ourselves as individuals but for our families, teams, companies, and societies overall.
We came to the world as a model of openness to new experiences — curious, receptive, eager, unafraid and willing to try anything, to fall and get up to move on. Over time, we tend to acquire new habits, attitudes, and opinions that make us less receptive to alternative ways of thinking and acting.
As we become more adaptable to function in our environment, we become less adaptable to changes — and this is, in fact, the process of maturing that reduce the initial flexibility and adaptiveness of societies and individuals.
J. Gardner does not suggest that we should seek to stop the process of maturing and stay forever young (“babies are charming, but no one would wish to keep them forever at that stage of growth”) but pay more attention to how this maturing takes place.
As our thinking about growth and decay is mostly of a single life-span, animal or vegetable, for an ever-renewing individual or society, the appropriate image is "a total garden, a balanced aquarium or other ecological system: some things are being born, other things are flourishing, still other things are dying—but the system lives on.”
A book that I want to get back whenever I'm feeling down and need to remind me that this is a necessary condition that I need to go through to be able to move forward.
"The only stability possible is stability in motion. "— John William Gardner
April 11, 2010
NOT SELF-HELP DUMB-ASS POP PSYCHOLOGY. This is timeless, eloquent, IMPORTANT writing about how a society can innovate in a way that doesn't destroy its own framework for meaningful interactions.
Please look at the Table of Contents for a sense of the scope (and depth) of what he covers. This book has been more helpful for thinking about the BIG picture of self-renewal of healthcare and education.
John Gardner was Secretary of Health Education and Welfare (now Health & Human Services) in the 60's. He founded Common Cause.
Please look at the Table of Contents for a sense of the scope (and depth) of what he covers. This book has been more helpful for thinking about the BIG picture of self-renewal of healthcare and education.
John Gardner was Secretary of Health Education and Welfare (now Health & Human Services) in the 60's. He founded Common Cause.
August 18, 2022
This is a book about the importance of renewal for both societies and individuals – and the interdependence between the two to accomplish it.
Tell me more . . .
Societal renewal (think government, education, race relations, international affairs), hinges on a creative society, which itself hinges on the capability of individuals to move from apathy to self-renewal. What sounds simple is complicated by entropy, the slowing pace that invariably occurs in societies, organizations, and individuals as they age. Gardner writes, “[V]itality diminishes, flexibility gives way to rigidity, creativity fades and there is a loss of capacity to meet challenges from unexpected directions” (5). Shocks to the system (think wars, disasters, pandemics, loss of a job) often unlock “new resources of vitality.” How to continually initiate renewal apart from these external prompts is the secret and subject of this book.
About the authors:
John W. Gardner (1912-2002) held many high-level leadership posts, including Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon B. Johnson. His book, On Leadership, is one of the finest I have ever read on that subject. Gardner was an academic, activist, WWII veteran, and an astute reflective practitioner.
My take on Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society
Gardner is the master of reflective analysis. Self-Renewal is insightful, challenging, and so applicable to me, especially as it relates to academic leadership. While the book is fifty-years old, I think it is as fresh and applicable as the day he wrote it. I appreciate the way Gardner demonstrates the inter-relatedness of personal and societal renewal. In a day of the preoccupation with the self, Gardner point higher than just “self-leadership.” Pick it up. Take your time. Get ready to make a few notations . . . and probably some life adjustments.
My favorite quote:
“The renewal of societies and organizations can go forward only if someone cares. Apathy and low motivations are the most widely noted characteristics of a downward path. Apathetic men accomplish nothing. Men who believe in nothing change nothing for the better. They renew nothing and heal no one, least of all themselves. Anyone who understands our situation at all knows that we are in little danger of failing though lack of material strength. If we falter, it will be a failure of heart and spirit.” xv
Overview: Self-Renewal
Gardner divides his thoughts his thoughts into twelve brief chapters. He examines the cycle of “growth, decay and renewal” as well as the factors that contribute to or diminish from societal and personal renewal. Chapters include: “Innovation,” “Obstacles To Renewal,” “Tyranny Without A Tyrant,” “Individuality And Its Limits,” “Commitment And Meaning,” and “Moral Decay And Renewal.” My book is highlighted and underlined. I have notes for personal application scrawled throughout this work. I found his words about innovation and organizations especially helpful.
My takeaways from Self-Renewal:
1. Self-renewal hinges on continual self-assessment: “Exploration of the full range of his own potentialities is not something that the self-renewing man leaves to the chances of life. It is something he pursues systematically, or at least avidly, to the end of his days.” 11
2. Educators must develop life-long learners: The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else. . . . The world is an incomparable classroom, and life is a memorable teacher for those who aren’t afraid of her.” 12
3. Have the courage to fail: “We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. . . . There is no learning with some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure—all your life. It’s as simple as that. When Max Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize he said:
5. Cultivate fresh thinking: "We tend to think of innovators as those who contribute to a new way of doing things. But many far-reaching changes have been touched off by those who contributed to a new way of thinking about things." 30 I read this against the backdrop of an educational partnership that was on the verge of collapsing. Collaborative “fresh thinking” is part of what God used to re-build it. Today it is flourishing.
6. Creativity is a path to innovation. Recognize it. Foster it: Gardner highlights four “traits of creatives.” I list them here, with a few additional notes, but the pages (32-39) are a good read. Creatives exhibit: (1) Openness: A receptivity to current experiences; (2) Independence: Creatives are “independent but not adrift.” They see the gap between what is and what could be, which requires a certain level of detachment. While such independent detachment may garner criticism, the creative ignore that type of criticism; (3) Flexibility: Creatives with “play with an idea,” “try it on for size.” Related to flexibility, creatives have a tolerance for ambiguity. The creative “is not uncomfortable in the presence of unanswered questions or unresolved differences.” 38 (4) Capacity to Find Order in Experience: Creatives impose order on their experience. I found this sentence fascinating: “Every great creative performance since the initial one has been in some measure a bringing of order out of chaos.” (39). Zeal, hard work, and arduous application is what it takes and what creatives give.
7. Identify signs of self-interest that form an obstacle to renewal: “In colleges and universities many of the regulations regarding required courses which are defended on highly intellectual grounds are also powerfully buttressed by the career interests of the faculty members involved in those courses. Vested interests can lead to rigidity, rigidity to defensiveness, and defensiveness to resistance and diminished capacity for change. 52-53
8. The importance of fostering a free society: But it is by means of the free society that men keep themselves free. If men wish to remain free, they had better look to the health, the vigor, the viability of their free society—and to its capacity for renewal. 66
9. The necessity of order for freedom: These words stood in sharp contrast to vandalism, looting, and riots in protest to the killing of George Floyd: “[C]onceptions of freedom that are not linked to conceptions of order are extremely disintegrative of the social fabric. There can be order without freedom, but no freedom without some measure of order.” 70-71
10. Educational administrators must apply the same rules of innovation toward their own university structure that they guarantee their professors: “ Much innovation goes on at any first-rate university—but it is almost never conscious innovation in the structure or practices of the university itself. University people love to innovate away from home .” 76
Conclusion:
As noted at the outset, I appreciate the insights of John Gardner. His observations are those of the informed reflective practitioner. Gardner recognizes the capacity (tendency?) of SELF-renewal to slide toward egocentricity. Even as he encourages the self-renewing man to do “something about which he cares deeply,” he recognizes such SELF-renewal can lead to self-centeredness.
He writes, “And if he is to escape the prison of the self, it must be something not essentially egocentric in nature.” 17 One must be intentional about this work of self-renewal: “Exploration of the full range of his own personalities is not something that the self-renewing man leaves to the chances of life. It is something he pursues systematically, or at least avidly, to the end of his days. 11 He continues that them in chapter 9, “Individuality and Its Limits.
In his concluding chapter, Gardner urges his readers to charge students not to stand watch over ancient values, but to continuously re-create those values in their own day. 126 As with the rest of his work, he is urging conscientious action over inaction; advancement as the antidote to entropy.
Gardner is no Pollyanna, he advocates neither “uncritical optimism” (“The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in” A. E. Housman) or “corrosive melancholy.” But . . . a certain buoyancy is absolutely essential. 113 Why? Because society is not a wind-up machine sustained with a few twists, but one continuously re-created “for good or ill, by it’s members.” 127 Gardner wants us to lock arms with the cohort bent on continuous renewal.
Quotes worth examining:
1. On intractable people: The most stubborn protector of his own vested interest is the man who has lost the capacity for self-renewal. 10.
2. On educating for renewal: “All too often we are giving our young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. We are stuffing their heads with the products of earlier innovation rather than teaching them to innovate.” Are we approaching their minds as storehouses to fill or instruments to be used? 21-22
3. On change: So stubborn are the defenses of a mature society against change that shock treatment is often required to bring about renewal. . . . Someone has said that the last act of a dying organization is to get out a new and enlarged edition of the rule book. 44-45 The new thing will usually look barbarous compared to the old. 49
4. On creativity: "Creative minds are seldom tidy." 49
5. On tyranny and renewal: A state which dwarfs its men . . . will find that with small men no great thing can be accomplished. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. Gardner adds: “We need only add that no new thing can be accomplished, no renewing thing, no revitalizing thing.” 54
6. On peer conformity: The Image Managers encourage the individual to fashion himself into a smooth coin, negotiable in any market. 58
7. On freedom and renewal:
We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free. Cicero, The Speeches of Cicero,
Men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions forge their fetters. Edmund Burke
8. On protecting dissenters as a condition of renewal: Emerson said of the scholar: “Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, through the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm that it be a crack of doom.” Ralph W. Emerson, "The American Scholar," An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, 1837 (page 74 in the book)
9. On individuality: “. . . if I were to desire an inscription for my tombstone, I should desire none other than “That individual.” S. Kierkegaard, “That Individual”: Two “Notes” Concerning My Work as an Author, 1859. (In Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View, Walter Lowrie (trans) [Oxford University Press, 1939], p. 115.)
10. On happiness, virtue and hard work: The storybook conception tells of desires fulfilled; the truer version involves striving toward meaningful goals—goals that relate the individual to the larger context of purposes. Storybook happiness involves a bland idleness; the truer conception involves seeking and purposeful effort. About that effort he quotes Montaigne: “Virtue will have naught to do with ease. It seeks a rough and thorny path.”
11. On calling: Every calling is great when greatly pursued.” Oliver Wendell Holmes. About this Gardner writes, "One my not quite accept Holmes’ dictum – but the grain of truth is there." 104
The author piqued my curiosity about these books:
Escape from Freedom, by Erich Fromm. Fromm examined why Nazi and Fascist movements of the 1930’s found it so easy to win adherents. He noted that the person who submits willingly to an authoritarian regime relieves himself of the anxieties and responsibilities of individual autonomy. 91-92
True Believer, by Eric Hoffer explored the same thesis.
The American Scholar, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tell me more . . .
Societal renewal (think government, education, race relations, international affairs), hinges on a creative society, which itself hinges on the capability of individuals to move from apathy to self-renewal. What sounds simple is complicated by entropy, the slowing pace that invariably occurs in societies, organizations, and individuals as they age. Gardner writes, “[V]itality diminishes, flexibility gives way to rigidity, creativity fades and there is a loss of capacity to meet challenges from unexpected directions” (5). Shocks to the system (think wars, disasters, pandemics, loss of a job) often unlock “new resources of vitality.” How to continually initiate renewal apart from these external prompts is the secret and subject of this book.
About the authors:
John W. Gardner (1912-2002) held many high-level leadership posts, including Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon B. Johnson. His book, On Leadership, is one of the finest I have ever read on that subject. Gardner was an academic, activist, WWII veteran, and an astute reflective practitioner.
My take on Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society
Gardner is the master of reflective analysis. Self-Renewal is insightful, challenging, and so applicable to me, especially as it relates to academic leadership. While the book is fifty-years old, I think it is as fresh and applicable as the day he wrote it. I appreciate the way Gardner demonstrates the inter-relatedness of personal and societal renewal. In a day of the preoccupation with the self, Gardner point higher than just “self-leadership.” Pick it up. Take your time. Get ready to make a few notations . . . and probably some life adjustments.
My favorite quote:
“The renewal of societies and organizations can go forward only if someone cares. Apathy and low motivations are the most widely noted characteristics of a downward path. Apathetic men accomplish nothing. Men who believe in nothing change nothing for the better. They renew nothing and heal no one, least of all themselves. Anyone who understands our situation at all knows that we are in little danger of failing though lack of material strength. If we falter, it will be a failure of heart and spirit.” xv
Overview: Self-Renewal
Gardner divides his thoughts his thoughts into twelve brief chapters. He examines the cycle of “growth, decay and renewal” as well as the factors that contribute to or diminish from societal and personal renewal. Chapters include: “Innovation,” “Obstacles To Renewal,” “Tyranny Without A Tyrant,” “Individuality And Its Limits,” “Commitment And Meaning,” and “Moral Decay And Renewal.” My book is highlighted and underlined. I have notes for personal application scrawled throughout this work. I found his words about innovation and organizations especially helpful.
My takeaways from Self-Renewal:
1. Self-renewal hinges on continual self-assessment: “Exploration of the full range of his own potentialities is not something that the self-renewing man leaves to the chances of life. It is something he pursues systematically, or at least avidly, to the end of his days.” 11
2. Educators must develop life-long learners: The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else. . . . The world is an incomparable classroom, and life is a memorable teacher for those who aren’t afraid of her.” 12
3. Have the courage to fail: “We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. . . . There is no learning with some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure—all your life. It’s as simple as that. When Max Planck was awarded the Nobel Prize he said:
Looking back . . . over the long and labyrinthine path which finally led to the discover [of the quantum theory], I am vividly reminded of Goethe’s saying that men will always be making mistakes as long as they are striving after something. 154. Live in generalist/specialist tension: Societal growth necessitates specialists who help us achieve what we could not on our own (transportation, medicine, engineering, etc), which in turn fosters compartmentalism, which can diminish individual versatility. “Note, it is not a question of doing away with the specialist. It is a question of retaining some capacity to function as a generalist, and the capacity to shift to new specialties as circumstances require.” Individual versatility is a priceless asset in a world of change. 24-25
5. Cultivate fresh thinking: "We tend to think of innovators as those who contribute to a new way of doing things. But many far-reaching changes have been touched off by those who contributed to a new way of thinking about things." 30 I read this against the backdrop of an educational partnership that was on the verge of collapsing. Collaborative “fresh thinking” is part of what God used to re-build it. Today it is flourishing.
6. Creativity is a path to innovation. Recognize it. Foster it: Gardner highlights four “traits of creatives.” I list them here, with a few additional notes, but the pages (32-39) are a good read. Creatives exhibit: (1) Openness: A receptivity to current experiences; (2) Independence: Creatives are “independent but not adrift.” They see the gap between what is and what could be, which requires a certain level of detachment. While such independent detachment may garner criticism, the creative ignore that type of criticism; (3) Flexibility: Creatives with “play with an idea,” “try it on for size.” Related to flexibility, creatives have a tolerance for ambiguity. The creative “is not uncomfortable in the presence of unanswered questions or unresolved differences.” 38 (4) Capacity to Find Order in Experience: Creatives impose order on their experience. I found this sentence fascinating: “Every great creative performance since the initial one has been in some measure a bringing of order out of chaos.” (39). Zeal, hard work, and arduous application is what it takes and what creatives give.
7. Identify signs of self-interest that form an obstacle to renewal: “In colleges and universities many of the regulations regarding required courses which are defended on highly intellectual grounds are also powerfully buttressed by the career interests of the faculty members involved in those courses. Vested interests can lead to rigidity, rigidity to defensiveness, and defensiveness to resistance and diminished capacity for change. 52-53
8. The importance of fostering a free society: But it is by means of the free society that men keep themselves free. If men wish to remain free, they had better look to the health, the vigor, the viability of their free society—and to its capacity for renewal. 66
9. The necessity of order for freedom: These words stood in sharp contrast to vandalism, looting, and riots in protest to the killing of George Floyd: “[C]onceptions of freedom that are not linked to conceptions of order are extremely disintegrative of the social fabric. There can be order without freedom, but no freedom without some measure of order.” 70-71
10. Educational administrators must apply the same rules of innovation toward their own university structure that they guarantee their professors: “ Much innovation goes on at any first-rate university—but it is almost never conscious innovation in the structure or practices of the university itself. University people love to innovate away from home .” 76
Conclusion:
As noted at the outset, I appreciate the insights of John Gardner. His observations are those of the informed reflective practitioner. Gardner recognizes the capacity (tendency?) of SELF-renewal to slide toward egocentricity. Even as he encourages the self-renewing man to do “something about which he cares deeply,” he recognizes such SELF-renewal can lead to self-centeredness.
He writes, “And if he is to escape the prison of the self, it must be something not essentially egocentric in nature.” 17 One must be intentional about this work of self-renewal: “Exploration of the full range of his own personalities is not something that the self-renewing man leaves to the chances of life. It is something he pursues systematically, or at least avidly, to the end of his days. 11 He continues that them in chapter 9, “Individuality and Its Limits.
We must combat those aspects of modern society that threaten the individual’s integrity as a free and moral responsible being. But at the same time we must help the individual to re-establish a meaningful relationship with a larger context of purposes.It is just this kind of level-headedness, the kind born of years and reflective experience, that makes Self-Renewal an important book for his generation and ours.
In the process of growing up the young person frees himself from utter dependence on others. As the process of maturing continues he must also for him himself from prison of other self-preoccupation. To do so he need not surrender his individuality. But he must place it in the voluntary service objectives. If something prevents this outcome, then individual autonomy will soar into alienation or egocentrism.
Unfortunately, we have virtually no tradition of helping the individual achieve such commitment. We now have a fairly strong tradition of helping him detach himself from the embeddedness of childhood…. Just as we help him in this way to achieve independence, we must later help him to relate himself to his fellow man and to the best in his social, moral and intellectual tradition.
In his concluding chapter, Gardner urges his readers to charge students not to stand watch over ancient values, but to continuously re-create those values in their own day. 126 As with the rest of his work, he is urging conscientious action over inaction; advancement as the antidote to entropy.
Gardner is no Pollyanna, he advocates neither “uncritical optimism” (“The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in” A. E. Housman) or “corrosive melancholy.” But . . . a certain buoyancy is absolutely essential. 113 Why? Because society is not a wind-up machine sustained with a few twists, but one continuously re-created “for good or ill, by it’s members.” 127 Gardner wants us to lock arms with the cohort bent on continuous renewal.
Quotes worth examining:
1. On intractable people: The most stubborn protector of his own vested interest is the man who has lost the capacity for self-renewal. 10.
2. On educating for renewal: “All too often we are giving our young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. We are stuffing their heads with the products of earlier innovation rather than teaching them to innovate.” Are we approaching their minds as storehouses to fill or instruments to be used? 21-22
3. On change: So stubborn are the defenses of a mature society against change that shock treatment is often required to bring about renewal. . . . Someone has said that the last act of a dying organization is to get out a new and enlarged edition of the rule book. 44-45 The new thing will usually look barbarous compared to the old. 49
4. On creativity: "Creative minds are seldom tidy." 49
5. On tyranny and renewal: A state which dwarfs its men . . . will find that with small men no great thing can be accomplished. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. Gardner adds: “We need only add that no new thing can be accomplished, no renewing thing, no revitalizing thing.” 54
6. On peer conformity: The Image Managers encourage the individual to fashion himself into a smooth coin, negotiable in any market. 58
7. On freedom and renewal:
We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free. Cicero, The Speeches of Cicero,
Men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions forge their fetters. Edmund Burke
8. On protecting dissenters as a condition of renewal: Emerson said of the scholar: “Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, through the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm that it be a crack of doom.” Ralph W. Emerson, "The American Scholar," An Oration Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, 1837 (page 74 in the book)
9. On individuality: “. . . if I were to desire an inscription for my tombstone, I should desire none other than “That individual.” S. Kierkegaard, “That Individual”: Two “Notes” Concerning My Work as an Author, 1859. (In Soren Kierkegaard, The Point of View, Walter Lowrie (trans) [Oxford University Press, 1939], p. 115.)
10. On happiness, virtue and hard work: The storybook conception tells of desires fulfilled; the truer version involves striving toward meaningful goals—goals that relate the individual to the larger context of purposes. Storybook happiness involves a bland idleness; the truer conception involves seeking and purposeful effort. About that effort he quotes Montaigne: “Virtue will have naught to do with ease. It seeks a rough and thorny path.”
11. On calling: Every calling is great when greatly pursued.” Oliver Wendell Holmes. About this Gardner writes, "One my not quite accept Holmes’ dictum – but the grain of truth is there." 104
The author piqued my curiosity about these books:
Escape from Freedom, by Erich Fromm. Fromm examined why Nazi and Fascist movements of the 1930’s found it so easy to win adherents. He noted that the person who submits willingly to an authoritarian regime relieves himself of the anxieties and responsibilities of individual autonomy. 91-92
True Believer, by Eric Hoffer explored the same thesis.
The American Scholar, by Ralph Waldo Emerson
September 7, 2017
Highly recommend this book in context of our current political landscape. Gardner's main point is that society is a "living, changing thing, liable to decay and disintegration as well as to revitalizing and reinforcement...Men and women who understand this truth... will understand that their society is not like a machine that is created at some point in time and then maintained with a minimum effort; a society is being continuously re-created, for good or ill, by its members. This will strike some as a burdensome responsibility, but it will summon others to greatness." He discusses self-renewal in detail (self-development, self-knowledge, courage to fail, love, motivation) and connects how self-renewal in the individual relates to a culture and society that continues to renew and believe in itself. Optimistic, invigorating read.
May 12, 2023
Feels dated in that 60s way of clearly writing to a certain class of young men with shared values, but. Creativity and openness, learning balanced between innovation and continuity. Avoid the obligations of accumulation, renewal is a system property of individual social interactions to reject organizational tyranny, vested interests, and the conforming filtering of ideas and information in hierarchies.
Read
May 4, 2019DNF.
July 27, 2014
"Today the skeptic is the status quo. The one who must make the effort is the one who seeks to create a new moral order." Worth reading this book for a taste of the urge to moral seriousness - and without embarrassment - at a key moment in the 1960s. It serves as a massive reminder to societies that wish to renew themselves that they must rid themselves of what Gardner calls "corrosive melancholy". And that new things that drive out the old lack style, sophistication and rich layering - but to worry about that is to succumb to an ageing society, one inimical to unlocking "new resources of vitality". These are important things for Western democrats to remember, if we choose to renew our society in the face of the inexorable rise of the Chinese Communist Party and challenge of Putinism.
January 4, 2018
I stumbled across this book on a bookshelf at work and cracked it open at just the right time. Even though it's 50+ years old I found to be completely timely commentary on some of the things that vex the industry that I work in (healthcare): the ability for individuals to renew themselves as they face the onslaught of overregulation, the balance between the needs of the individual and the organization, and so forth. Although Gardner doesn't present very specific solutions and this reads more like a long essay, it's the kind of book that I'll probably go back and reread and mine for some of the concepts that he seems to be presenting. It's heavily quotable for some of the things that I speak publicly.
July 21, 2019
Excellent critique of our modern times as analyzed by a brilliant public servant who spent his entire life in service to the country and to the people of the United States. Unflinching but casual approach to encourage us to look at our frailties and embrace the challenges before us before our blind eye creates decay and collapse.
Many ideas from his later work "On Leadership" are contained herein; seeds and early ruminations that would come to full expression in that book are present here and you can see this is a man who has spent a lot of time leading, following, watching, learning, and growing. His is a life that we could all emulate to better purposes and outcomes for our own lives, our neighborhoods and communities, and ultimately our nation.
Many ideas from his later work "On Leadership" are contained herein; seeds and early ruminations that would come to full expression in that book are present here and you can see this is a man who has spent a lot of time leading, following, watching, learning, and growing. His is a life that we could all emulate to better purposes and outcomes for our own lives, our neighborhoods and communities, and ultimately our nation.
March 24, 2014
This book changed my view of the world, it is a must read for anyone interested in understanding the drive of the American heart.
April 26, 2015
This is a long essay on society and individuals, not particularly entertaining, but interesting.
June 17, 2021
I came to know about this book in Jim Collin's podcast, it was a quote and absolutely felt need to read the book and It didin't disappoint. Making a case for a Renewal. Renewal is something built into the nature, everything around us goes through a continuous renewal process and mostly for the better. Similarly we should make a conscious effort to renew ourselves mentally for the betterment of society. specially what we do, how we do, and also what we think and how we think in response to the changes around us ( which itself is a response to we not doing anything). A better society that has equality, inclusivity and is progressing can be possible if we make deliberate attempt to renew, break the shackles of complacency and question the old standards and replace with new ones. The book is aptly titled - Self-Renewal, the beginning of anything starts from us.
April 9, 2022
Borderline 4. A book that captured a lot of important ideas swirling in my head around change, innovation, renewal, decay over time. Some of the discussion was a bit outdated or repetitive. My main issue is that a lot of this felt hand wavy, generic, or too vague. A lot of statements that are hard to disagree with, but don't really say anything concrete at all. A lot of acknowledging the importance of context, nuance, tradeoffs without then providing specifics on what the actual takeaways should be. And not enough concrete evidence for my taste. But overall, interesting and directionally intuitive.
July 27, 2017
Good read. There are some sections where I found it rather difficult to follow but that is why we need to read a book more than once. Valuable information and what I received from this book was that "rigid and unchanging societies impact the creativity of the individual". So it is really up to the individual to be willing to step out and be authentic and look to be creative in different ways that may not at times fit societies standards. For a society to improve the individuals must be susceptible for change.
May 20, 2017
This book highlights useful reflection on the idea of renewal. An image that arose for me as I read it is the image of how a garden renews itself, through a process that includes death and decay. Organizations need to transcend their purely rational conception of themselves if they are to survive. They need to be willing to die at points, so new seeds, new ideas, can spring up. Some settings allow for this process, while others do not.
September 13, 2017
As with any book written in 1965, some of the concepts and phrasing is dated, but there is still much that is contemporary and continues to define the individual's quest for self-renewal balanced against the realities of the larger society. The forces that nurture, and those that stifle innovation are remarkably well-laid out and hold true to the present day.
May 1, 2022
Very well written: Lean sentences, related and meaningful quotations, a fine balance between length of each chapter and its conclusivity. Gardner’s work is an essential summary of not only the individual and the society but also of the relation between those. It is apparently not meant to be a data-based scientific research. Yet, it is a great read therefore :)
December 16, 2017
John Gardner has some interesting observations on society and how it must continue to change to sustain itself - and most importantly, individuals must be free to lead this change.
November 24, 2020
A very interesting book. It made me thinking about different topics like motivation, failing or even happiness
December 22, 2020
I love how relevant books can no matter the publish date. This is an extremely relevant book to our current times. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
September 27, 2015
I started reading this book at the outset of a role change to "operations analyst". Mine is the task to think and present new ways of organisation - and I thank John Gardner for providing a timeless, compelling frame with which to attack the problem. Moving beyond my context though, the topic of innovation and renewal is relevant for any one aspiring to global citizenship, and essential reading for leadership. Some quotes that will spark reflection for a long time:
The role of technology (worried your job will be automated?): "we must discover how to design organisations and technological systems in such a way that individual talents are used to the maximum and dignity preserved"... "Knowledge will be a safe weapon only if it is linked to a deeply rooted conviction that organisations are made for men and not men for organisations".
The gap between processed and raw data: "every top executive should periodically emerge from his world of abstractions and take a long unflinching look at unprocessed reality; every general should spend time on the front lines; every research administrator should spend some time in the laboratory; every sales manager should call on customers; every politician should ring doorbells".
I've only shared 2 of 5 bookmarked. Truly a mighty return from such a short book.
The role of technology (worried your job will be automated?): "we must discover how to design organisations and technological systems in such a way that individual talents are used to the maximum and dignity preserved"... "Knowledge will be a safe weapon only if it is linked to a deeply rooted conviction that organisations are made for men and not men for organisations".
The gap between processed and raw data: "every top executive should periodically emerge from his world of abstractions and take a long unflinching look at unprocessed reality; every general should spend time on the front lines; every research administrator should spend some time in the laboratory; every sales manager should call on customers; every politician should ring doorbells".
I've only shared 2 of 5 bookmarked. Truly a mighty return from such a short book.
April 29, 2015
Nice fairly quick exposition on how to be and what to do in the world to continually renew oneself and one's society. A bit dogmatic but I dig that stuff. Gardner seems like a helluva man. Really gets you thinking.
August 4, 2020
Unique and essential.
Read
December 31, 2018I have two different editions.
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