You need the rhythm of a monthly meeting of your leadership team for the purpose of learning.
Verne Harnish, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

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You need a book club for your top leaders, and the rising leaders, in your company or organization.

But not like you think.

Okay – this is one of my Saturday posts, where I muse a bit.

America is filled with people who wish they read more books.  They think they should read more books.  They talk about the books they wish they had read.  And they occasionally claim to have read a book that they have not actually read.

They watch and listen to book programs (Oprah is bringing her book club back), and they love to hear author interviews on NPR  (Terry Gross on Fresh Air, Diane Rehm, and our local terrific Think with Krys Boyd all excel at these interview shows).

So, book-reading leaders think:  “I’ve got a great idea.  I’ll have all my top people, and those people that I identify as the next top leaders, get together once a month and discuss a book that I have assigned them to read.”

It is a great idea.  And it really works great — for the first month.  Then it almost works okay for the second month.  But, then, it starts to fizzle, it starts to fade, it starts to be a second cousin to a sham.

Why does it fade?  Because not everybody wants to read books as much as the boss does.  So they learn pretty quickly how to “fake it” in the book club gatherings…and then, ultimately, it disbands, and goes into that list of initiatives, the “graveyard,” where people will say a year or two later, “whatever happened to that book club?”

And the boss gets mad.  And the participants feel guilty.  And instead of a great once-a-month session, it turns into a guilt-producing session the folks dread.

Why does it fade?  Because not that many people actually do read books.  Even the people who wish they read more books don’t actually read many books.  If you research “how many books do people actually read a year?,” you discover that at best it averages between 1 and 4.  And that comes from “self-reporting” surveys, which are utterly unreliable.  Because in such surveys, people always over-report desired behavior.

{This is a big problem with surveys, and especially with quoting survey results.  Far fewer people actually attend church than the number that tell Gallup they did attend church in the last seven days.  Same with voting – far fewer people actually voted in the last election than the number that said they voted in the last election.}

{And, by the way, even the ones who do like to read are plenty busy doing their current job.  So even the true book lovers might, at times, be tempted to “fake it.”}

Now, one of my beliefs is that you have to accept part of reality – and then only attempt to change the parts of reality that really are changeable.

I don’t think this one is changeable. 

People either like to read, and thus they do read – or, they don’t.  Think back to your school days.  There were the students that read every word of the books they reported on.  And then there were the others who may have read part of the CliffsNotes, or these days the Wikipedia article on the book.  That was how they were then.  And that is how they are now…  You could have predicted – “That person will be a book reader, 20 years from now.  That person, well I’m pretty sure he has picked up his last book for a decade.”

But…  there are some books that every company needs to expose its best people to.  The ideas, the challenges, the reminders are critical.  People do not become good leaders, and do not stay good leaders, without working at it.  A once-a-month session to discuss “how are we developing in our job; how are we doing in our job; what could we learn to improve our work here?” can be incredibly valuable.

In other words, you need a book club.  But your people won’t actually read the books.  Really – they just won’t.  What do you do?

So, here is my suggestion for your once-a-month book club gatherings.  Still have them.  It is a great idea! to get together to discuss the ideas in a good business book.  These discussions, these conversations, can be culture changing and culture shaping, and true leader-developing sessions.  And they can really help you develop as a leader.  So, have the book club.  But you provide the key content of the book in some other way than from the action of all the participants reading the book.  And, provide that content in the session, as part of the session — at the beginning of the session.  Do not expect the participants to:  read the book, listen to a summary of the book, read some kind of printed summary of the book in advance of the session, watch a video of the author (from TED, or some other source) or the audio of an author from an interview program.  Don’t expect them to because they won’t.  They will pretend that they did, but by the second or third session, they’ll be faking it.

So, spend the first 15-20 minutes providing the content of the book to act as the conversation starter for the session.

Here is a sample format, with a current useful book title inserted:

“Today, we are going to discuss the book What Matters Now by Gary Hamel.
First, let’s take a look at the key content of the book.
Here is the content.  (15-20 minutes).
Now, here are the questions that this book raises that I think we need to discuss at this time in our organization.  Let’s discuss.
What questions do you think I missed?  Let’s discuss these too.
Now, what will we do, and what will you do, based on the insights gained from this session?
See you again next month.”

I am completely convinced that this kind of once-a-month session can be incredibly valuable to your team.  I’ve seen it work.

{Companies hire me (and my colleague, Karl Krayer) to come to leadership sessions and deliver our book synopses to serve this very purpose.  Admitting my bias, I think this is great thing to do.  I love to read.  I love to share what I read with others.  And what I do can be a great, useful, organization-shaping conversation starter.}

So, now all you need is a delivery mechanism for the key content of the book.

You could prepare it yourself.  But reading a book is not the same as preparing a good usable delivery of that key content.  No offense, but you probably don’t have the time, or the skill and expertise, to pull this off.  You’re too busy running your business.

I believe we can help.

The “best way” would be to bring us in for your monthly learning sessions.  We can do a live book synopsis, and then be there to “add” to your conversation with your leadership team.   Click on the hire us tab to start that process.

But, there is another way, and probably more affordable than bringing us in for your monthly meetings.  We record our presentations at the First Friday Book Synopsis.  None of these are longer than about 17 minutes.  Each one comes with a comprehensive handout of the key content.  You can print these out, listen to the audio while each person follows along with their printed handout! (each person follows along on the handout — this is a critical piece of the puzzle!), and then you start your discussion.

This is a book club where the participants do not have to read the book.  Thus, no “pretense,” no “faking it,” no “guilt.”  But still, content-energized discussions. Would it be better if they all read the book?  Of course it would.  But they won’t.  Only a few will.  And you need a group that can successfully include more folks than that rare few.  This approach really can work.  I know of it working. I’ve seen it work.

Give it a try.  Start now.  You will get better leaders, and make more progress with those leaders, from these sessions.  This approach really can work.

But, however you do it, don’t forget the challenge from Verne Harnish at the top of this post:

You need the rhythm of a monthly meeting of your leadership team for the purpose of learning.  – a chance for the executive team to pass its DNA down to the next level.
Verne Harnish, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

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So, how do you get the audio recordings of our presentations, and our comprehensive handouts?  Go to our companion web site, 15minutebusinessbooks.com.  You can download, and start immediately.  We have many terrific, useful, genuinely challenging books to choose from.  The most recently uploaded presentations are highlighted at the bottom of the home page.  A searchable catalogue is available in the catalogue tab.