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Book Review Monday Morning Musings Architecture, Architects by Allan Kehrt

Do you ever think about just what you are doing?  Really think about it?  As we race through our business daze in which swift decisions gain appreciation over thoughtful ones, data chokes out cogitation, devices are leaned on as lifelines, and action above all is heralded as The Answer, the art of gaining a stand-back, overall understanding grows increasingly elusive.

In 2003, twenty years after co-founding KSS Architects in Princeton, New Jersey, Allan Kehrt penned his first short essay inviting his partners and staff members to begin “thinking about why they were working so hard and why they were so passionate about their careers.”  For the next nine years, every week Allan would climb the 300-foot ladder of perspective, gain insight, and distill that piece of wisdom into a succinct Monday Morning Musing.  He’d then place a copy in each KSS team member’s mailbox.  (Don’t you wish you had a CEO like that?)

Now Allan has collected 100 of these Musings for your benefit.

Each of these roughly 200-word essaylets is introduced with a one word title: Waste – Influence – Water – Sunlight – Personality – Wood – Roles – Clarity.   Each, with elegant simplicity serves as a short fuse that leads to an explosion of personal pondering, and perhaps discovery.  Allan’s Craft reminds us: “We need to know that it takes time to do things well…to empathize with those trying to solve problems created by others’ lack of attention…and to learn what it takes to make something of value.”

All of us, after all are architects – only our choice of designs and creations differ.  And each reader will doubtless find a little delight and a hand-up in our search for purpose from the Musings of Allan Kehrt.

To get your copy, write info@bartsbooks.com