Are you Becoming Obsolete?
You’ve heard it a zillion times: “Leaders are Readers.” My friend Charlie “Tremendous” Jones said “5 years from today you’ll be the same person you are today except for two things: the people meet and the books you read”. One of my favorite quotes. He passed on a few months ago, and my job is to keep you reading.
But who has time to read? A study by Bersin & Associates found that while 74.9% of all managers understand the correlation between reading and competitive advantage, they simply “don’t have the time”.
Did you know that business people who read at least seven business books a year earn over 2.3 times more than those who read only one book per year? (US Dept of Labor Survey)
Here are some ideas for those of you who “don’t have time”:
1. Carry a book in your car always. When you are stuck waiting for the doctor, dentist, in traffic, whastever, you have something to read.
2. Keep a book everywhere you sit for more than 2 minutes. Each bathroom in your house, any couch or chair you ever sit in, the bathroom of your office, your desk, your bed end-table, you get the idea. A couple of pages here and there add up. A pearl you can use is always hiding in a good book. (I make the assumption you are choosing good books)
3. Get a “Kindle”. That way you will have all the periodicals and books you read in one place, so depending on your mood, you can read whichever one you want. When you finish one, you can start another. You can read the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, and part of the latest book you’re working on. version 2 is available and it is well worth the $400 or so.
4. Download an audiobook on your Ipod or Iphone. You can listen to it while you are working out, taking a walk, riding in the limo, cab, public transit or airplane.
5. Get executive summaries or other book summaries on CD so you can listen in the car during your commute.
6. Join a Mastermind Group and have everyone in the Group read one book each month and write a report on it. Once a month, share your reports with eachother. If there are 6 of you in the group, you will have “read” 5 more books a month. You can choose whether or not to buy the book based on the report. At the least, you have the “gyst”.
There is no excuse not to read. You’re the leader. You need to keep up, and that means being a perpetual student of your trade. Changes happen so fast, depending on your industry, you can be out of the loop in a matter of days.
Here is a You Tube piece you’ve probably already seen. If you haven’t, you’re behind. It’s already obsolete, too, but you need to start somewhere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
What are your thoughts?
Coach Julia
Tags: Add new tag, change, Change Management, Executive Coach, executive coaching, Executive pERFORMANCE cOACHING, Leadership, management consultant, Reading
