Update: The GSB library web page for the bibliography has been taken down, and I'm hoping to recreate it here when I get some free time.
One of my most rewarding experiences this year was participating on a team assembled by Prof. Carole Robin to design classes on "Fulfillment and Meaning," "Failure and Resilience," and "Transitions and Renewal" for Stanford's Synthesis Seminar, a new course for second-year students at the Business School. The rationale for addressing these topics--in this order--was our team's belief in an underlying cycle of personal development:
- Finding more fulfillment and meaning in life increases our resilience and prepares us to handle failure more effectively.
- Greater resilience and an enhanced ability to handle failure prepares us to manage transitions more effectively.
- Greater comfort with transition allows us to regularly engage in self-renewal.
- A commitment to continued renewal allows us to find fulfillment and meaning in new ways over time.
And one of the greatest resources to come out of the Synthesis Seminar is the class's extensive bibliography, created by GSB librarians Daphne Chang and Nora Richardson, which compiles all the resources we used in the course (and more) on a single web page, with book synopses, author notes, and videos. (Unfortunately, most of article links go to Stanford databases that require a university affiliation to access, but I assume most of them are available elsewhere.)
I continue to use this bibliography as a resource in my coaching practice, and I find something new and useful there on a regular basis. Thanks to Carole and my colleagues on the design team, and thanks to Daphne and Nora!
Photo by Kris Cohen. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
