Update on the sixth edition. Mental Models. Agency.
I hope your summer is going well, despite the COVID variant complicating attempts to resume some kind of normalcy in our lives. The variant certainly is making the job of arts managers trying to reconnect their organizations with the public much more difficult.
This month I thought I would highlight two articles that focus on how we think and act.
But first, let me give you an update on the sixth edition of Management and the Arts. After two years of work, I uploaded all the revised chapters and illustrations at the end of July so my publisher could start the review and editing/correction process. If all goes well, the book and a new companion website should be available in January 2022. I’ll give you a progress report next month.
Getting Smarter
The mental models shown in Michael Simmons’ infographic on the Visual Capitalist website are excellent tools for instructors, students and arts managers to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills. (NOTE: It will be easier to read if you enlarge the infographic to 125%.) For example, mastering the concepts listed in Learning How To Learn, Goal Setting, Cause & Effect, and Prioritization can expand your capacity to achieve more in your life and work. In fact, all 12 of these mental models can be drawn upon depending on your circumstance. The models also connect to the longer article I found on the 3 Quarks Daily website.
Free Will and Agency
When putting these mental models to use, we must consider how our brain works and our understanding of free will. How do we decide which mix of mental models we want to use? Robyn Waller’s posting on the 3 Quarks Daily website walks us through a summary of how neurological studies of free will have been oversimplified. Our agency (i.e., capability to act to produce a particular result) as human beings and the choices we make are connected to the mental models we develop and align with our values and biases. We will have lots of choices to ponder as we navigate a world in which COVID-19 has reshaped all kinds of conversations we are having about society and shared (or not) values.
Enjoy your August, and I’ll be back with an update next month.
Bill Byrnes
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12 Ways to Get Smarter in One Infographic
Visual Capitalist, July 28, 2021, by Jeff Desjardins
The level of a person’s raw intelligence, as measured by aptitude tests such as IQ scores, is generally stable for most people during the course of their adulthood.
While it’s true that there are things you can do to fine tune your natural capabilities, such as doing brain exercises, solving puzzles, and getting optimal sleep—the amount of raw brainpower you have is difficult to increase in any meaningful or permanent way.
The good news is that while raw cognitive abilities matter, it’s how you use and harness those abilities that really makes the difference.
Link to Infographic and article: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/12-ways-smarter-mental-models/
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Optimism About Agents: How Neuroscience Illuminates, Not Threatens, Conscious and Free Agency
3 Quarks Daily, July 5, 2021, by Robyn Repki Waller
The case for the illusion of conscious agency from neuroscience is far from a straightforward conclusion.
I’ve elaborated frequently in this column about the sense of agency and free will that most of us believe we enjoy. I’ll rehearse those important notions again here. The narrative of human agency is not simply that we act in goal-directed ways, actively affecting change beyond the impinging of happenings to us. Humans (and perhaps other complex animals) don’t just forage about locating resources or evading predators, or so we contend. It seems we exercise a much more meaningful kind of agency. That is, free will is not just that I control my bodily movements, but that I exercise meaningful control over what I decide to do.
Link to full posting: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2021/07/optimism-about-agents-how-neuroscience-illuminates-not-threatens-conscious-and-free-agency.html