The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams

by Seth Godin Narrated by Seth Godin

Overview

A soulful re-envisioning of what work and leadership can be, from the visionary mind of renowned author and thought leader, Seth Godin

The Song of Significance is a rousing contemplation on work: why it is the way it is, why it's gotten so bad, what all of us-especially leaders-can do to make it better.

Economic instability and the rise of remote work have left us disconnected and disengaged. Alarmed managers are responding with harsh top-down edicts, layoffs, surveillance and mandatory meetings. Workers are responding by quiet quitting and working their wage. But it doesn't have to be this way.

Through 144 provocative stanzas, legendary business author Seth Godin gets to the heart of what ails us; he shows what's really at the root of these trends, and challenges us to do better in ways that matter.

The choice is simple. We can endure the hangover of industrial capitalism, keep treating people as disposable, and join in the AI-fueled race to the bottom. Or we come together to build a significant organization that enrolls, empowers, and trusts everyone to deliver their best work, no matter where they are.

This is a book to share with bosses and co-workers, to discuss and put to action. No matter what our role, it's within our power to change. Because, as Godin writes, “Humans aren't a resource. They are the point.”

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

2023-04-24
Offbeat business leadership manifesto that often morphs into a prose poem.

Godin, author of many bestsellers, including Tribes, Poke the Box, and This Is Marketing, begins with a provocation: “If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you already know: work isn’t working.” Bosses are burned out, workers too, and everyone hates being evaluated as if a machine. “Humans are not a resource,” he writes. “We are not a tool.” If you’re running a fast-food outlet or making widgets, notes the author, you may be inclined to keep things as they are since the objective is to produce and sell as much as you can at the lowest possible cost. But burgers and widgets do not innovations make, and in the longer view, they don’t materially add to the advancement of human civilization or constitute anything approaching “significant work.” Nor, in the end, do most Zoom meetings, metrics of how many hits an article gets online, or time-motion studies that include how many minutes an employee spends in the bathroom each day. If you want to get to the significant stuff—in Godin’s repeated but nicely alliterative mantra “Mozart, not Muzak”—then a boss must stop being merely a boss and be a leader. That involves an entirely different way of thinking and being, a mindset that measures how healthy and happy the people inside an organization are and, in turn, how healthy and happy the organization is. Godin’s staccato, sententious style (“Until our existential needs are met, it’s difficult to produce the emotional labor needed for progress and possibility”) may be a little jarring to readers accustomed to graphs and charts and other business-book appurtenances, but there’s a lot of substance underlying the piece on better employer-employee relations and arriving at common, humane goals.

Think of Godin as an anti–Elon Musk and this seemingly lightweight book suddenly acquires a lot of heft.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178312759
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	05/30/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

You Don't Need Me to Tell You This

If you've been paying any attention at all, you already know: work isn't working.

If you're a boss, you're probably frustrated, confused, and under a lot of pressure. You see missed opportunities and broken promises.

And if you're working for a boss, my guess is that you're feeling the very same thing.

The problem lies with us.

It's due to decisions we unknowingly made years ago, to the indoctrination we force on each other, and to our terrible reflex to double down when things get hard. We're getting better and better at making it worse.

This is a short book about a fork in the road, about a decision we all get to make. Each of us can show up in our own way, but the choice is the same: to lead, to create work that matters, and to find the magic that happens when we are lucky enough to cocreate with people who care.

We can do well and do better at the same time. In fact, it's the only useful way forward. We can create the best job someone ever had, the best experience any customer can imagine-and build organizations that are regenerative, resilient, and powerful.

We've lived with the grind for so long that it's easy to imagine that we're stuck with it, but better is within our reach.

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