Everything you need to know about reading for work

Great leaders tend to read books. It will probably help your career if you do so as well – but only if you read effectively. And while you have been reading since childhood, you may not be all that effective. What follows are some wide-ranging, helpful tips.

Consultant Wally Bock set up an "intentional reading panel" to share the practices of some avid readers. It begins with having a process. "Our panel members don't just pick up a book and start reading. Instead, they have a particular way they go about making sure they get value," he writes on his blog.

Stephen Lynch, head of strategy for results.com, is careful of what he selects; he reviews samples of e-books before he buys them from Amazon. Consultant Art Petty reads the preface and intro and then the first and last chapters before he works his way through a book. Kevin Eikenberry suggests that you identify your purpose for reading the book so that can guide your attention.

They take notes and review those. "I thought it was interesting that the panel members all did both," Mr. Bock says. "They took notes and they reviewed their notes. I know lots of people who highlight their books and make notes in the margin, but never go back to review those notes. Doing both gets you exceptional value." Note-taking was with highlighters or marginal annotations, although one panel member uses Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-recognition software.

Consultant Mike Figliuolo tries to put what he's read to work right away. If it's a single idea, he attempts to implement it immediately. If it's an entire process, he will adopt it for a single project and if successful broaden the usage.

One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to others. Members of the panel did that as well, sharing with friends and on their blog if they had one.

"Kevin Eikenberry reminded us that you don't have to finish a book. If you're not getting value, including a good experience, from your reading, there's no law that says you must continue. Close the book and move on to something else that will be more helpful," Mr. Bock adds.

Cal Newport, an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University and author of Deep Work, notes that as a writer he is required to read lots of books, especially when working on new projects. It's not a romantic endeavour, like immersing himself in a novel, but "requires the ruthlessly efficient extraction of key ideas and citations" he writes on his Study Hacks blog.

Here's his approach:

• He reads with pencil in hand – not just any pencil, but a Ticonderoga #2 soft lead pencil, as its footprint on the page is gentle. But he admits the writing implement doesn’t really matter, and he’ll even use “a brutish ballpoint Bic” if that’s all he finds available.
   
• When he finds a passage, allusion or citation he wants to remember, he marks it in the margin.
   
• Sometimes he scribbles a few notes to clarify an observation or insight about what he’s marking that may not be obvious when he returns to the notes.
   
• Then – and he stresses this is key – he crosses the corner of the page with a clear, thin line to emphasize he should stop at the page when he comes back to the book.

I usually leave the ideas in this column to others. But after reviewing more than 1,000 business books for The Globe and Mail, perhaps I should share my own approach, which ironically starts by picking books of interest to others, not necessarily myself.

I plunge in, being impatient, rather than scouting around for clues about what I'm reading, although often the first chapter will offer a solid summary. At the same time, that summary might only be of real value when I reread it at the end.

I underline. Like crazy. And wobbly, often over the words. In brutish pen, I must admit, and far more than is needed, being a nervous type, worried I'll miss something essential. At the back of the book, if there are some blank pages, I write a guide to what I'm underlining – the most important points, thinning it down a bit. If there's no white page, just dark black or brown ones, I use a steno pad and curse the publisher.

It helps to then have notes on those notes for when I return. I use a star system – three to five stars – for more potent stuff. The word "lede" identifies elements that might lead off my column and "nuggets" are pungent ideas or quotes that back possible opening ideas. You may not need to identify such items, but if you plan to write a report it could help and, even if not, it does crystallize where to start your thinking when you return. "Int" is for interesting stuff, "chpt summary" is for when something summarizes a chapter and "po," taken from Edward De Bono's work, stands for provocation, which he uses for lateral thinking and I apply to ideas that will stimulate readers. "End" is for something that might conclude my writing. I also will use arrows and lines to connect points that follow or buttress one another.

All these suggestions point to a system for remembering what we read, since we worry – and feel guilty – that some or a lot of it will be forgotten. But essayist Charles Chu argues it's okay to forget what you read. At worst (or is it at best?) you'll read it with fresh eyes the next time.

In a Medium post sharing the ideas of start-up incubator Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, Mr Chu says: "What we get from books is not just a collection of names, dates and events stored in our minds like files in a computer. Books also change, via our mental models, the very reality that we perceive. You can think of mental models as psychological lenses that color and shape what we see. Some of this is genetic or cultural (Americans focus on very different parts of a picture than the Japanese do), but much of our perception is also shaped by experience – and experience includes the books we read."

That leads to his specific suggestions:

• Read for the models: Look for notable phrases, concepts and ideas that stand out. Trust your intuition; when something leaps out at you, make a marginal note. “This is an act of conversation with the author, and the very act of doing so creates a connection in my mind which, in turn, updates the models in my head,” he says.
   
• Read it again: Author and intellectual provocateur Nassim Taleb has said: “A good book gets better at the second reading. A great book at the third. Any book not worth rereading isn’t worth reading.” Mr. Chu says if our brain is constantly “upgrading” its own mental models, then it makes sense that it never sees reality in quite the same way. This also means no book is quite the same when you read it again.

Now get started. And to help, on Dec. 8, I'll be presenting my annual list of noteworthy books.

Quick hits

• When you park your car in the morning at work, don’t rush to your desk. Take a few minutes to sit quietly, pushing away the stressors from yesterday and the morning so far, and focus on how you will create success with each single encounter in the coming workday, advises consultant Art Petty.
   
• When asked in a job interview whether you have any questions, try this savvy one recommended on Inc. by entrepreneur J.T. O’Donnell: “What’s the company’s biggest threat to success this year, and how will I be able to help overcome it in this role?”
   
• If you have gone back and forth with your supervisor about an upcoming meeting, don’t add a few lines in your last note about a separate issue. That’s called jumping the thread and can lead to confusion and disorganization later.
   
• Most decisions lead to unintended consequences – sometimes huge, destructive ones. Bryant University Professor Michael Roberto says consider the “law of unintended consequences” when you establish policies, metrics and procedures, notably whether you are encouraging the opposite of what you intend.
   
• Try to organize a “What’s your beef?” day in your office in which everyone wears a name tag with their pet peeve on it. Consultant Mike Kerr says it’s a simple, fun way to raise some issues and encourage frank conversations.

Harvey Schachter is a Kingston, Ont.-based writer specializing in management issues. He writes Monday Morning Manager and management book reviews for the print edition of Report on Business and an online column, Power Points. E-mail Harvey Schachter.