By Lito U. Gagni
Oct 3, 20222 min
When you are stumped for a particular idea, a thought, a gnawing insight that refuses to leave you, there is a book that could clear your mind for a minute of poring over its contents and be rewarded for it.
Photo Insert: "Executive Read," by Dante M. Velasco, Ph.D.
This is what “Executive Read,” a book authored by Dante M. Velasco, Ph.D., has been doing to me ever since I got a copy in August.
The book’s cover says it is about “Leadership, Public Speech and Writing” and it contains key points of notable books on the said subjects written in a breezy style, delivering the major takeaways that our busy selves can benefit from – in a jiffy.
But more than the discussions on leadership, public speech, and writing, Executive Read, which delivers a worthy summing-up of 57 top-notch books is much more than that.
Reading the bite-sized morsels of wisdom distilled in the pages of the books would bring forth a fresh perspective on an idea that seems to stump you, nudge you into that eureka moment of discernment, or simply immerse you in a fresh environment of wonderment.
In a four-page review of Charles Kenney’s John F. Kennedy: The Presidential Portfolio, where he shepherded the reader to a ringside account of the Cuban crisis and an intimate view of an angry Kennedy bristling at an unauthorized add-on to JFK’s statement, Velasco wrote: “In a country bereft of substance and style, where speeches sound like interoffice memoranda; in an age where a head of state loses his temper—and we’ll call it ‘forthright’ – and berates his subordinates- and call it ‘strong’—we need (Kennedy’s) kind of book to remind top leaders that they owe the presidential office some breeding and style.”
Within the pages of the book, one can be mesmerized by a Heraclitus quote of 2,500 years ago that “knowing many things does not teach insight,” highlighted in the book “Expect the unexpected” by Roger von Oech, or be jolted by the art form that leaders evince in the book, “Every Leader is an Artist by Michael Malley, Ph. D. and William Baker, Ph. D.
Readers are also sure to be regaled by the metamorphosis of a social enterprise, Center for Community Transformation, which had P1.7 billion in assets six years ago, that was written by Ruth Callanta in “A question of the HEART,” and be acquainted anew with the power of the pause detailed in James Humes’ “Speak like Churchill, Stand like Lincoln.”