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Dr. Lengel offers a thought provoking twist on Aesop's Hare-Tortoise fable reframing it as a Human Race pitting our Hare-brained heads against our Tortoise-inspired hearts. As we run faster and faster in our Hare-like pursuits of wealth, power and status, we are leaving no place for the slow and steady Tortoise to speak for our humanity. As a result, the author poses the possibility we are creating a world with our intellects and technology that we can't relate to emotionally and spiritually. We might be outrunning our humanity and setting the stage for the Hare to win this human race by default. Our inability to engage each other in civil and respectful conversations, the hate and violence infecting our culture and leadership failures in organizations might be evidence this sinister end is fast approaching.
This book is a hard hitting and at times poetic invitation to step back from our busy lives, sit with the author on his front porch, and question our lives and work. It is an inspirational reminder of Mahatma Gandhi's warning that "there is more to life than simply increasing its speed." In a conversational format, Dr. Lengel guides us down a hopeful path forward - a path illuminated by what he calls divergent thinking. His words are a 'siren call' to wake up and realize we can't afford Hare- brained progress at the cost of our souls.
We need A Place for T in our lives 'now', to account for the unaccountable while we still have time!
About the author
Robert H. Lengel was a tenured associate professor at the University of Texas in San Antonio when he founded the Center for Professional Excellence (CPE) in 1987. His groundbreaking work at the CPE in the decades that followed has informed the writing of this book. In 1998, he co-authored Fusion Leadership: Unlocking the Subtle Forces That Change People and Organizations with Richard L. Daft. Today, after retiring from university life, Dr. Lengel continues
to work with individuals and organizations through LeaderWork Inc, a company he founded to develop capacities necessary to accomplish what he calls "leader work". He lives in San Antonio with his wife Sandy - though even after forty years thinks of Pennsylvania and New England as home.
