If you spend much time around Andrew Jenkins it is virtually impossible not to find yourself lifted by his infectious enthusiasm for life. His own story is one where recognising and overcoming challenges have played a significant role in bringing him to where he is today. He has a knack of being able to combine intuitive experience he has gained along the way with objective knowledge from extensive studies to inform, train and develop strategies to help people improve how they function individually and with each other.
This comprehensive book follows Andrew’s journey to satisfy his curiosity and sense of wonder about what makes himself and the fellow humans around him tick, to be happy, healthy and successful, or not in many cases. His background as an engineer gives the story a shape which has some strong similarities to a workshop manual for a complex machine. He lifts the bonnet on the physical systems and how they have evolved, and also takes a hard look at the relationship with the characteristics that make us what we see and feel such as consciousness and culture, behaviours and belief systems and of the spoken and unspoken languages that we use.
Like any good manual, it follows a logical format to promote building blocks of understanding, which enable both good maintenance practices and suggested repair procedures to be developed and applied where required. Throughout the chapters, Andrew offers his own views and makes good use of practical examples to illustrate a wide range of methods and tools, some rooted in convention and others that will undoubtedly challenge some received wisdom.
It is difficult to define one target audience for this work. It would be as comfortable complementing research at a professional level for management coaches, mentors and change consultants as it would be to an individual seeking some assistance in making sense of how they might find a positive path through the world of feelings and tough choices that life and work regularly offer up.