I'm a strong proponent of the over-used cliché that Readers are Leaders. As a voracious learner, I observe people operating at different levels of learning as a tool for leadership growth. You should assess where you and your team are and opportunities to level up. Although I sequenced this article in a crawl-walk-run format, I recommend reading this article from the bottom up. The point of this article is to learn the mechanics of organizational transformation but you need to meet the people (and yourself) where you are to become the transformational leader you can be to your organization.
Level 0 | Devoted Learning Time - Reading lots of content gives you new perspectives on old challenges, keeps you current on new techniques, makes you smarter, expands your toolset, gives you a broader scope at dinner parties, has health benefits, etc etc., and on and on. You know this already and if you don't, now you do. Read or listen and learn as often as you can. As a growth hack, I listen to my Audibles on 2x speed. Of course, I worked up to it but I find that, like speed reading, the faster you listen, the more your brain has to devote energy to processing the content and it drives focus on learning.
Level 1 | Job Performance Assessment - When I hire a position that involves technical knowledge or strategic planning, I always ask, what were the last three books you read. What did you learn? And how did it improve what you do daily? If they can't come up with at least one book, I know they are not Level 0 and I pass on the candidate. You don't have to read to learn. We continue the interview process if they can name the last podcast series, audiobook, video, etc., that they learned, indicating that they have a curious and learning mindset.
Level 2 | Mentoring & Curation - Mentoring through books is very efficient because someone else devoted significant time to creating content that advances a skill or mindset that you can share with others. If you see a skill or will gap, having a bookshelf of ready-made teachers to provide to your staff is essential. Part of being a Reading Leader is to have a bookshelf of books that you've thoughtfully curated for your team. An essential part of creating. And don't just assign a book and move on. Be a responsible mentor/leader. Follow up and hold accountability on what they learned from the book and what they are going to do differently or take action based on the learning.
Looping full circle to performance management, I like to observe if the person takes the cue to read the book(s) I assigned to them. It tells you a lot about the future performance of the person if they blow it off or if they don't proactively come back to you. Second, if you do loop-back together, do they take action, or do they keep doing what they were doing before.
Level 3 | Codification & Operationalizing - Coming back to curation. One of the best ways to build a repeatable, scalable business is to curate your bookshelf and share it with your teams. Properly curated, you can rapidly build an operational model that will imbue the organization with a pre-made set of knowledge as a way of operating the business. A special thanks to Scott Beck for catalyzing that mindset in my leadership style.
However, most business owners miss the essential finishing touch and probably because it requires the most time, codification. Reading a book, being inspired, and sharing it with others are all great and wonderful. However, as an operations person over HR and PeopleOps, I've realized that staff, CEOs, and boards rarely know how to take the idea from inspiration to execution or operationalize the mindset. Change management, especially with people, teams, organizations, and incumbent cultures is where great ideas go to die or where top leaders can stand apart from the rest.
So how do you do this well? It's surprisingly easy and it takes time. First, read the book 1-3 times. I read a book fast for the first time to see if the ideas are worth further investment. The second time, I highlight, take notes, and absorb them at a deeper level. At this point, ask yourself what does this mean for my growth, the company's future success, and improving the industry? The third time through the book is to create a PowerPoint or some other summarizing method with the intent to share and contextualize it for my team.
Last comes the road tour. By that, I mean companywide presentations, departmental tours, individual coaching, and the overall campaign, project plans, and communications plan to roll it out one bite-sized chunk at a time. For example, I needed to change the customer lifecycle experience for an entire company from sales to finance to account management to support. Nick Mehta and Allison Pickens from Gainsight wrote "The Customer Success Economy", which I highly recommend. I created an 80-page manifesto custom-tailored to the business by function and department that I used to transform the customer lifecycle across the organization over the next two years. The transformation resulted in improving Net Revenue Retention by 2x within the business unit.
The long arduous task of washing, rinsing, improving, and repeating until the company culture embraces it as new normal is where the rubber meets the road. This process sets the leaders apart from just the readers. If you need help or advice on creating powerful business transformation in your business, email me at ray@emailray.com and I'm happy to help jumpstart your process.
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