I recently finished this book and it was a profoundly enlightening experience. This book delves deep into the significance of our work—a subject many of us relate to but lack the language or framework to properly explore. It provides a practical approach to identifying your core values and reexamining the concept of meaningful work.
The book raises significant questions: What is the purpose of business, and how should success be measured? The author presents a contrarian view, arguing that popular metrics focus on output but fail to shed light on what fosters great work.
One memorable metaphor from the book is the comparison of growing a business to tending a garden. It highlights the folly in believing we can control every variable in cultivation, just as it's misguided to equate the skill of measuring a garden's yield with the skill of being an adept gardener.
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to approach their work more intentionally. It's not just about the 'what' and 'how' of work but also understanding and aligning with the deeper 'why' behind it.
Value of metrics is not to measure value but to drive value creating behavior!
I loved the book and the message that book gives. How to achieve clarity on our personal values and integrate them consciously in everyday decisions and actions is the theme that is addressed and it is done through excellent framework, stories, questions and at the end of my reading, I sat quietly for two hours and reflected on myself and my own values and behavior. What he said is not only consistent with Decision models that are effective in silicon valley but also ancient wisdom. I highly recommend it. I am buying 10 copies to give away to my friends and family.
As a long time decision maker, analyst and consultant, I want to spread the word about Somik Raha's recently published book, "Invaluable". This is one of the most eye-opening books that I have read in a long time. The book focuses on values in an amazingly original way. It has been an entertaining, as well as informative, read for me and I highly recommend it. If you know Somik, then I expect you are already part way through his book, if not finished. If you have not met Somik, then you are about to encounter, through his book, a profound thought leader in the field of decision clarity and one of the best individuals that I have ever met. He has a remarkable style of integrating story-telling, personal examples and thought provoking questions. I rarely thought of Hindu philosophy in the context of good decision making; but I will now. Order this book and pay for expedited shipping so you won't have to wait as long to dig into "Invaluable".
I am a student of Decision Analysis and was thinking a lot about the "Value" part of decision-making. The "Value" now became much clearer to me. Somik took the discussion about "Value" to a more spiritual and philosophical level, which seems odd, but as he pointed out, it is the only way businesses/individuals feel a sense of "aliveness".
On the flow of the book, this book is not something you can read it quickly (like a newspaper) and let go of. There are so many detailed stories in the book, that require proper attention to absorb the main idea of the book. Sometimes I got "lost" in the flow of the book when I was deep into the stories in the book. What worked for me was I read this book two times, the first easy one, the second one taking notes from each chapter. Then I felt I was able to absorb the essence of the book more in depth. Maybe Somik one day can have a Ted talk, and condense the book into 10 min talk, that would be very useful.
In the end, I would say this book changed my whole perspective about purpose and life. I became much more aware of myself, what are my core values and what I should do in my life. I am forever grateful to Somik for this book and I would highly recommend it to all people I know.
This is a remarkable book that warrants reading by everyone. And especially by every business or community leader. It truly is invaluable.
Somik brings together the fields of business strategy and philosophy. But not in terms of integrating. He opposes them to look at the space in between. And from that tension he constructs a way to bring clarity on deep core values. Once you accept that notion, a whole new way to look at value emerges, a whole new way to look at the purpose of your business. You cannot simply put a metric on core values, fundamentally you cannot count them. But here is a way to take them robustly into account.
The book is not an easy read. It makes you think hard, work hard, reflect hard about values. But it guides you along through a wonderful collection of case examples from business, decision analysis, and Indian philosophy. Time and again Somik Raha pushes you towards and beyond the boundary of your rational mental frameworks, and then takes you back and grounds you again in solid business application.
Somik Raha has written an invaluable book for any decision maker, in business or otherwise, who cares deeply about “getting more of what you want” by doing what makes sense, and feels right. It has the power to make transparent, clarify and perhaps even transform the purpose of your business. Highly recommended.
Invaluable: Achieving Clarity on Value, by Somik Raha, is a very good and most welcome extension of the general theory of value developed by Robert S. Hartman. Hartman distinguished between intrinsic values, final ends in themselves, which are conscious individuals like ourselves and others, extrinsic values, means to ends, are useful sensory objects and processes, including our own bodily activities, and systemic values, which are ideas, beliefs, doctrines, systems, knowledge, truth, etc. Intrinsic values have the highest worth of the three and should always be given priority over the others. Raha devotes one chapter of his book to explaining Hartman’s views and refers to him throughout the book.
Raha, a professional Decision Analyst, says that he realized that “there was a story in me that was beyond Decision Analysis, beyond Hartman’s contributions, and beyond anything I had seen written in business or philosophical books.” He tells this story in several ways. He applies value theory to both businesses and individuals. He asks, “What is the purpose of a business?” “To make money” is the wrong answer, he thinks. “To be of service” is the right answer. If that is done properly, all else will likely follow. To be convinced, read his book! Raha provides many significant applications and illustrations throughout the book to substantiate all of his important points. He strongly emphasizes knowing, valuing, and fulfilling yourself in your business or professional situation as well as in all of your personal life. The values you live by are normative for your life, not just descriptive, Raha says. It is not enough just to know what your present preferences are. You must decide who you want to be or become in the future. Through his own counseling experiences and informative examples, the author shows how we can better know, appreciate, and fulfill our own intrinsic worth and purpose in life through clarifying and then living by our heart, habit, and head values. Heart values are feelings and emotions, habit values are practices, what individuals usually do, head values are the intellectual distinctions they make and use. I found the book fascinating to read and highly recommend it!
