MODERN ACHIEVEMENT

Advani and Goldsmith offer a new conception of achievement in the modern world.

Referring to such perennial bestsellers as Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich(1937), the authors write in their debut nonfiction collaboration that “classic books on achievement define it based on linear progression to accomplish a goal,” but “modern achievement is a new way of thinking about the journey to success and fulfillment that values the process of reaching your goals and objectives as much as their attainment.” Advani (CEO of an NGO that prepares youth for employment and entrepreneurship) and Goldsmith (founder of a firm that advises CEOs and management groups) have set their book in a world very different from the one in which pursuing those old-fashioned linear achievements made sense: a more uncertain modern world in which beginning any future project requires a leap of faith. In this new context, the authors urge readers to “keep putting yourself in environments that allow you to learn about yourself and look for the possibilities for designing you.” Their guidance for navigating this new world takes the form of an approach they refer to as “Fixed-Flexible-Freestyle,” a “human-centered framework for thinking differently about achievement in a rapidly changing world.” The chapters that elaborate on “Fixed-Flexible-Freestyle” are interspersed with insets of a more personal nature with attention-grabbing headlines like “Be a good mentee” (the authors remind readers that mentorship is a two-way street), “Invest in your reputation,” and “Don’t leave them wanting less.” Much of this advice is fairly cliched stuff, but Advani and Goldsmith mostly avoid rehashing familiar business-lit talking points. They speak instead, very effectively, to a leaner and more self-aware corporate world, more decentralized and hybridized, and their “Fixed-Flexible-Freestyle” approach requires an entrepreneurial mindset: “You [must] have the ability to pivot, adjust, and adapt to take advantage of and pursue those opportunities and to recover when things do not go as intended.”

A quick-reading and thought-provoking look at the new nature of succeeding.