If you know me or have read this blog for a while you probably know that I love reading stuff by Edwin Friedman. I’ve been an advocate of A Failure of Nerve as a must read leadership book for a few years now and have also loved what I’ve read from Generation to Generation and Friedman’s Fables. Friedman offers unique insights on life and leadership through the lens of his application of Bowen Family Systems Theory. The Myth of the Shiksa is another great read if you read A Failure of Nerve and liked it, but this is a bit of a different type of book. This is a collection of essays rather than a book composed of a unified theme.My team had a great discussion a couple weeks ago over one of the essays that the book is named for – “The Myth of the Shiksa.” I did a post just for that essay a few weeks back here. That essay explores the intersection of culture, ethnicity, leadership, and responsibility and maturity. Most significantly Friedman argues that culture only stains dysfunction that is anchored in family emotional processes. Dysfunction is not to be blamed on cultural backgrounds. It’s a challenging essay to read.There are several essays that go after different themes. Some are easy to read and light hearted. Some are a little more academic. All of them provide some helpful insights related to the identity formation of a person and a leader and explore the dynamics of how to promote health and change in whatever system is being discussed.There’s a great essay titled “Secrets & Systems” which explores the damage of the mere presence of secrets, regardless of their content in a system. The final essay is a longer one (60 pages) which serves as a semi-brief overview of all of Friedman and/or Bowen systems theory. It’s kind of a like a mini-version of a failure of nerve, but with a less focused application on leadership. The first essay, entitled “An Interview with the World’s First Family Therapist” is just awesome as he conducts an interview with Satan. I’ve described it as a “Screwtape Letters” for family systems theory applied to leadership. There’s also an essay entitled “The Birthday Party” which details one of his strategies to orchestrating systemic change in his own extended family – it’s fascinating.If you’re a Friedman fan, there’s plenty here to enjoy and learn from. I’ll be coming back to a few of these essays as a resource for a variety of reasons or issues, but this was a very enjoyable read though the density and depth of the book required a decent amount of time to plug through it. I continue to learn tons from reading Friedman and have yet to be disappointed from one of his books. This will likely be one of my top five books of the year I post at the end of every year.But if you’re thinking about reading this, I suggest you start with A Failure of Nerve first or even another summer that helps explain systems theory for leadership such as Peter Steinke’s How Your Church Family Works or Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times. You’ll enjoy these essays a heck of a lot more having that background.
