True learning is not confined to 140 characters
When I heard that the UAE’s theme for 2016 is the ‘Year of Reading’, I was thrilled. It reminded me of the advice that one of my university professors continually challenged his students with: “The people you meet and books you read will determine where you are in five years.”
There is no progress without reading. The operative word related to reading is “the books” you read. Obviously he gave this advice long before social media distracted society from taking the time to read anything longer than 140 characters. But books are what the 2016 theme is referring to.
The desire is to create a generation of book lovers and consolidate the UAE’s position as a global capital for culture and knowledge. To create a generation of book lovers, books need to be broadly available and affordable. Personally, I’m going to reduce the prices of my books to make them available for all.
I’ve already started by making ‘Leadership Dubai Style’ available for $0.99 for the e-book version on Kindle and iBooks. What can you do to promote reading?
A scan of leaders around the world shows they are readers. This past year, the king of social media, Mark Zuckerberg’s challenge was to read a new book every other week — with an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies.
Telling the world that he was excited about his reading challenge, Zuckerberg said, “I’ve found reading books very intellectually fulfilling. Books allow you to fully explore a topic and immerse yourself in a deeper way than most media today.
“I’m looking forward to shifting more of my media diet towards reading books.”
Reading sits at the foundation of the ‘Buffett Formula’, which is that smartness comes from a high volume of reading. Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway’s vicechairman, credit their success to the fact they are learning machines.
We all know they are smart and yet they keep on getting smarter. According to Buffett and Munger, the secret to getting smarter is evidenced in their day-to-day habit — read a lot. Buffett says: “I just sit in my office and read all day.”
He reads 500 or more pages per day. This constant intake is how knowledge builds up over time. The more you put in, the greater the value it brings. It is like compounded interest.
It’s rumoured that Bill Gates reads a book per week, which I think may be an understatement of how much he reads given the breadth and depth of his coveted reading list. He’s another example of the long list of leaders who are readers.
Become a great reader, it’ll make you a better leader. A common theme among most of the world’s top leaders is that almost everything they read becomes useful to them — science, poetry, politics, novels.
Hard work
Become a great reader, it’ll make you a better leader. A common theme among most of the world’s top leaders is that almost everything they read becomes useful to them — science, poetry, politics, novels. They have a lifelong interest in learning. The books you read will help you develop a way of thinking critically in business.
Reading isn’t easy; it takes hard work. It’s much easier to come home from work to retire in front of the TV watching the latest episode of your favourite show or pick up your iPhone and waste hours surfing — wasting the evening away until bedtime rolls around.
It is equally easy to trick yourself into substituting reading tweets and Facebook posts for actually learning. Buffett and like-minded leaders, who are serious about their growth, know it takes more than 140 characters to learn.
In reality, those bite-sized doses of information are someone else’s synthesis.
Rather than reading someone else’s opinion on a topic, summary of a book or the cliff notes, learning is not limited to scanning information, it also involves the act of making sense of what you are acquiring.
It is too easy to make excuses or try to take shortcuts. I cringe when I hear a leader say: “I hired someone else to read and synthesise information so all I have to do is decide”.
To me it seems really risky to let others do your thinking for you. Let’s set down our devices and pick up books instead. And when you do pick up your device, use it to share what you’re reading and encourage others to read along with you.
Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway’s vicechairman, credit their success to the fact they are learning machines. We all know they are smart and yet they keep on getting smarter.