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Review: The Highest Goal: The Secret That Sustains You in Every Moment
By Michael Ray (Berrett-Koehler, 2004)
Those expecting a how-to guide on becoming more creative - after all, the author taught the celebrated creativity-in-business course at Stanford University - are probably going to be disappointed, perhaps even enraged by this book. But those who buy into the author's central tenet that "creativity is what happens between your thoughts" will discover an exhilarating and liberating business book. Stories abound of successful business types who took Ray's creativity course and discovered their "calling," leading many to completely different destinations from the executive suite. Particularly useful is the application of mythologist Joseph Campbell's "hero's journey" to the business world, offering a semblance of solace to harried workers juggling dozens of crises each day.
BACKSTORY After teaching creativity for nearly 25 years, Ray heard from former students who told him how his course had changed their lives in profound, unexpected ways. In organizations, "people who hadn't contributed much beyond their job descriptions started to blossom," he writes. Ray decided to explore the "secret" - the highest goal - that centers people and makes their lives fulfilling.
TAKEAWAY Material wealth isn't the only measure of success. Sound familiar? Of course: It's the softer side of every business book. But Ray revisits it with a new set of tools. Telling people to reexamine their values is one thing. Showing them how - by tuning out their inner voice of judgment - is Ray's gift.
WHAT WE LIKED Lessons from Carl Jung, Mahatma Gandhi, and NASA - what's not to like? Perhaps most useful are the positive mantras ("live-withs") woven throughout the text. Keepers such as "Amplify Positive Deviance" jostle readers out of the humdrum biz-school thinking that hampers genuine, "natural" creativity.
WHAT WE DIDN'T Many will find Ray a cloying cubicle Confucius. Also, the path to enlightenment could use a shortcut here and there; vague suggestions and redundancies ("Yes or No?"; "Ask Yourself if it's a yes or a no"; "Everything in life is either a yes or no") undermine the book's simple message and wear down the average grasshopper.
WHAT TO SAY TO SOUND LIKE YOU'VE READ IT Discovering your "highest goal" means finding the intersection between what you love to do and getting paid. The first step? Freeing your mind to allow the "creation of creativity."
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