Business Books: Who's Reading Them?

To move forward I need to hang with more Aliens.

Do you know what happens to me when my computer breaks down?  I feel like a rehabilitating heroin addict going through withdrawal.  Do you know what happens to me when I am around people who aren't familiar with folks like Dan Pink, Chris Anderson, Malcom Gladwell, Marcus Buckingham and Jim Collins?  I feel like an Alien from another planet.  

What is the correlation you ask?  I can only satisfy my fix online.

I was having breakfast with two of my colleagues, two gentlemen that I have a world of respect for, two of the most loyal, "we got your back" cats that I've ever met.  We were sitting there talking about our various operations when I felt like asking, "have you guys read A Whole New Mind yet?"  But I couldn't.  Now they would have listened to whatever I had to say, nodding with acknowledgment and so on, but secretly think that I had lost my mind.

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to partner with a gentleman and his consulting practice.  Out of one hundred people he would work with, only one would get what he said and there was only one chance in ten that that person would implement any part of it.  This guy was brilliant, knew his stuff and delivered it with passion and clarity - so he wasn't misunderstood.  I asked him, "Tom, how can you fly 250,000 miles a year, meet with hundreds of people and have to wrestle and battle with them to get anything across?"  Tom relished the opportunity to engage with a client.  He said you had to keep hitting them over the head and be relentless in getting your message across.

I have no desire to do that.  Nor do I have a desire to inform my friends of the fallacies of business as usual and to try and convert them to plugging into the leading business thinkers of today. 

This brings me back to just who is reading business books of today?  Is it the industry that I am in?  How about the people that you interact with offline?  Do you feel like an Alien around them?

Btw: The logo used here was the signature icon for our now defunct website. 

Comments

[Lora Adrianse]

I can relate! I know a lot of people and can't name one offline person that reads business books. There's clearly something that we don't understand here.

In fact, they know I read a lot, so they're quick to ask "What are you reading?" If it's a business book (and it always is), they aren't interested.

I finally started answering the question in a new way, just to save us both some time.

Someone asks "What are you reading?" I reply, "No novels." That seems to pretty much end that topic.

What did we do before we had blogs for discussion? :)

[Lisa Wilder]

I know just what you mean. Thankfully I have such a large network of friends and colleagues online that I can always find someone with whom to discuss the latest and greatest business books.

To answer your question, "Who is reading business books of today?" It's bloggers and entrepreneurs who rely on the internet to market themselves.

Love your blog, by the way.

[dave]

Thanks for dropping in Lora! Don't you just love that blank, hollow, empty expression that folks have when you start talking about blogging and business books?

Hi Lisa! Thank you for the compliment! Thank goodness for our online friends!

[Glenn (Customer Service Experience) Ross]

Ah, so this is heaven. I'm a business book gym rat, too.-)Just starting to read The Wisdom Network by Benton and Giovagnoli.

I'll be reading (you and them.-)

Regards,

Glenn

[dave]

LOL Glenn! No telling what you'll turn into by adopting what my friends call Dave-isms. Let me know how you like that book too.