Do Design: Why Beauty Is Key to Everything. (Design Theory Book, Inspirational Gift for Designers and Artists)

I just read this book, after meeting Alan. He is a visionary and it seems his career has consistently seen him be out ahead of conventional wisdom in business, only to see the world catch up with his thought years later.His focus on beauty as the key to everything is exactly right, and again he finds himself out in front of the business zeitgeist. We are human beings, not human doings. Sentio ergo sum, rather than simply cogito ergo sum.Our business world still largely exists in the paradigms of post WWII command and control organisational paradigms, full of rationality, process, control. In recent years we have seen growing movements towards purpose, meanings, values, yet again and again we've seen this fail to truly take hold and connect into truly different ways to operate businesses and organisations.Likewise, Leadership Development is a big trend, yet empirically course, programmes, workshops that teach this as a method don't shift leaders and shift leadership.I believe that Alan Moore is onto something powerful for leaders and organisations. His elevation of our focus beyond the prosaic, the rational, the "how to" can and will support the sorts of paradigm shifts that can truly transform.Lift yourself up to focus on beauty. Read this book. Switch off your rational mind. Seek nothing other than to feel what you feel through it. This is beautiful writing on a pure subject. Beauty. My own key takeaway from it was a feeling of clarity. From such a space we can elevate our own thoughts and actions.(As a note on my own place in the world, my passion is on helping leaders see beyond their vision. Over the decades I have learned from first-hand experience that elevating context to such subjects is the path to transformation. More wisdom, less knowledge. This little book is one of the most powerful leadership books I've read in many a year!)

I've lost count of how many 'transform the world through design' type books I've read over the last 35 years, yet Alan's short, sweet text still managed to surprise, delight and refresh me. He has the ability to unearth insights from unexpected sources and re-express them as stories of zen-like wisdom. Somehow, I suspect that Alan - like me - has had moments in a restless career when his constantly exploring curiosity created a sense of fragmentation or dislocation (a feeling neatly summed up in the mock poster sentiment "I took the road less travelled...and now I don't know where the f*&k I am"). Yet here the disparate experiences come together harmoniously in a beautifully coherent way of looking at pretty much everything. I find so many people I encounter now in my work have a lamentable lack of curiosity, of wonder, of the need to find meaning. Alan restores these things to their rightful place at the heart of any and every kind of human enterprise.

We are all creators and designers of our own lives and in the hour or so it will take you to read this gem of a book, you will subtly yet profoundly see, dream, believe, design and live more beautifully. Carry it with you, re-read it, highlight what resonates, fold down the pages, apply the wisdom to whatever you do and share it with your people.

Starts slow, but by half way I was hooked and enjoying immensely.

Inspiring, well written, concise, light hearted read, I really love this book.