I’ve just finished putting together The Extraordinary Business Book Club ‘best bits’ podcast episode, which I do every 10 episodes. It’s always fascinating to see the common threads that weave through these very different conversations with very different people.
One theme that emerged over the last few episodes – not surprisingly, since this is a podcast for both readers and writers of extraordinary business books – was reading: reading for its own sake, reading for competitive advantage, writing for the reader, reading as a writer, and what reading does for us in an increasingly digital world.
What’s that, you say? Reading for competitive advantage?
Well, yes.
Back in episode 27, I spoke to Barbara Grey, author of the forthcoming book Ubernomics (which she’s published herself using the Reedsy platform). On her site BradyCap, Barbara has a ‘library’ of books she describes as ‘the foundation of our intellectual asset base’. She also credits many books as resources at the back of her own. I asked about why she sees books as so important to her business and her writing.
Barbara: I’m sort of a book groupie. You know, people like rock stars and stuff, I like business strategy authors.
Alison: I hear you. Do you think it’s even more important if you’re planning to write a book to have that kind of… garbage in, garbage out, what’s the corollary of that? Good books in, good book out?
Barbara: I think so, because I think authors, at least most of them, seem to build their ideas upon other people’s ideas. I mean if you look at the footnotes/endnotes of most business strategy books they’ve referenced so many people and I’m the same way. I just actually finished doing all my endnotes and I think I’ve got 75 endnotes, most of them being business books.
Alison: I thought you were very transparent and very generous in the way that you cited not just books, but even talks, and people who sort of planted seeds that then you took off in a different direction. I really like that. Often I find especially first-time authors nervous about reading too much and being seen to take ideas from other people, as though somehow that devalues them. Actually it’s standing on the shoulders of giants isn’t it? It’s taking something and combining it with something else and adding something of your own and creating something new and fresh.
Barbara: Yeah, exactly. What’s interesting if you think about it from the perspective of an analyst is that’s called Mosaic Theory. Really taking unrelated pieces of information, putting them together, and coming up with a thesis that will give you insight into whether to buy or sell stock.
I love the idea of Mosaic Theory. We only make good decisions when we have good information, which makes reading good books not just a pleasure, but a business obligation. You’re not ‘just reading’, you’re making one of the smartest investments ever.
Want some inspiration as to what to read?
Well, you can start with The Extraordinary Business Book Club, of course, and also have a look at these Birds on the Blog posts:
The Confident Mother’s summer reading
http://birdsontheblog.co.uk/reading-books-for-self-education-ted-talks/
