We’ve all encountered our share of books promising to make us better at our jobs. During my two decades in academia, that meant teaching handbooks, pedagogy theory to change student engagement, and assessment frameworks designed to capture learning in ways traditional testing never could. During that time, I also read dozens of books about writing.
When I accepted my position at Rare Bird, I hauled most of them to the purgatory known as Half Price Books. In exchange for all that knowledge, they gave me a smile and enough money to buy lunch that day.
Since then, I’ve read many books focused on business, marketing, sales, and customer service. I’ve read books about content marketing, social media, influencers, and the user experience; books by writers like Adam Grant, Donald Miller, Elizabeth Gilbert, Brené Brown, and Ethan Mollick; books on creativity, audience awareness, artificial intelligence, giving people more than they expect, and how to effectively count your habits if you’re a person—at least, I think that was the topic. I didn’t read the one about moving my cheese, because nobody touches my cheese.
Those worth reading present original ideas or research in a shapely arrangement of chapters that are exactly as long as they need to be, and not a page longer. The authors synthesize their experiences in ways that will shift how you see your own work or place in the world.
A few highlights:
- Traction, by Gino Wickman, helped me understand how healthy companies operate by focusing on tools that work. The Entrepreneurial Operating System he presents has helped thousands of companies, including Rare Bird, get aligned internally and start moving in the same direction.
- Patrick Lencioni’s The 6 Types of Working Genius helps readers understand what they’re naturally good at, along with what drains them. Everyone on our team took the assessment, and the conversations that followed are still useful a few years later.
- David Ogilvy’s Ogilvy on Advertising remains readable decades after its publication because the man could write. His ideas endure partly because they’re well expressed, and partly because they still offer something valuable to the world.
These titles respect the reader’s intelligence and time while showcasing an understanding of the writing craft.
The difference between a good business book and a mediocre one often comes down to whether it helps you think differently, or just makes you feel differently about what you already know. Does it create a path toward self-recognition and self-knowledge beyond the workplace?
Why Business Leaders Like These Books
Many company leaders genuinely find business books helpful. They recognize something in the pages that speaks to the many problems that are always weighing on them. They may think, “This is exactly what I need my team to understand.”
12 Habits of Valuable Employees and books like it suggest that employee mindset is to blame for most problems in a business. They argue that changing individual behaviors, rather than systemic reform, is the best way to address any problems. Leaders are told they, too, can have a team of “valuable” employees if everyone applies these twelve principles more consistently.
The appeal is understandable. Such books put the burden on employees to improve while offering a seemingly straightforward solution to a complex problem. They also allow for the appearance of investment in the team’s improvement without significant expenditure.
For leaders dealing with genuine organizational problems, a book that articulates the idea that employees are the problem will always be attractive. But when an employee who is already doing the things preached in such books receives a copy from their boss, the effect can be counterproductive. They read along and think, “I already do this. I’ve always done this. Who doesn’t do this?”
The Writing Reveals the Thinking
Many business books are badly written expressions of unsophisticated ideas. They’re bland, structurally lazy, and loaded with repetitive examples. Such padding stems from the cynical calculation that stretching thin content to reach a minimum page count will justify an $18.95 price tag for a small paperback. The ideas in these books, in most cases, can usually be conveyed in a blog post or two.
If business books faced the same critical scrutiny as other genres, few would achieve the “secret weapon” status they enjoy among certain business leaders. Instead, they coast on low standards and the assumption that busy executives won’t notice or care. And often, they don’t.
Employee Examples and “the Suspension of Disbelief”
The contrasting employee stories in 12 Habits are particularly weak. Employee A is lazy, resistant to feedback, and does the bare minimum. Employee B is enthusiastic, takes initiative, and goes above and beyond.
Such flat characterization is omnipresent in the book because none of the employees are showcased as real people. They’re cardboard cutouts designed to make a point. Human behavior, in and out of the workplace, is much messier than what readers see in this book. Much better books in this broader genre—by Lencioni, Grant, Clear, and others—at least recognize and acknowledge that fact.
12 Habits doesn’t seem at all concerned with the human element of having employees, let alone being an employee. Where is the high performer who struggles with communication, the somewhat problematic employee who happens to be truly brilliant at one specific thing the company needs, or the person who does excellent work but only when left alone? Such variations would inconveniently complicate the central (and errantly simplified) message that adopting these 12 habits will make every reader an über-employee, when most workers likely realize the employer’s whims are the only thing keeping them from becoming an Uber employee—the kind who delivers Chipotle for a living.
Some of the book’s scenarios also feel invented. They lack the small, specific details that make stories credible. No one talks like these characters talk. No one makes decisions for the simple, transparent reasons these characters make decisions. One particularly bad passage is about a customer service team that’s been “itching to do more than answer phones,” so they throw themselves into the new challenge of—I wish I were kidding—making a PowerPoint.
“They stayed late, watched PowerPoint tutorials, double checked facts and figures,” and over the course of a week “created a respectable corporate PowerPoint presentation.”
Sadly, their collective effort (A week! An entire team! One PowerPoint!) was merely adequate, as with all initial scenarios highlighted in this book. The presentation was too dry, it was determined, so they tried to make the next version funny, but the next version was no longer informative.
This is what happens when writers prioritize making a point over framing the truth. This book’s narratives exist only to confirm its original thesis. They’re packaged for managers who want their assumptions validated, not readers trying to understand situations in their own life or workplace. Readers who are already serious about improving themselves as people (and, yes, as employees) end up frustrated by this and similarly books.
For anyone who cares about the writing craft and believes that how you communicate matters as much as what you communicate, these failures are hard to ignore. Once readers stop believing these stories—whether they are “real” or not—the “willing suspension of disbelief,” as Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined it, collapses entirely. Any advice the book offers is easily ignored once readers realized they are being lectured about excellence in a book that isn’t fully competent.
Good books respect the reader’s intelligence. Books worth reading in any field are written by people who believe readers are capable of handling the truth, grappling with problems, and making their own judgments. The worst books—especially those focused on personal improvement—assume people just need to be told the main idea, over and over.
What Genuine Development Looks Like
Reading should be part of a team’s professional development, but the books selected should examine leadership practices, too, not just the habits of employees. The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni, for example, helps everyone on a team (including leaders) understand their own gifts and frustrations at work, and the ensuing discussions can allow your team to understand each other better, as well. It allows readers to try harder, communicate more effectively, and care more about their jobs and colleagues—which is what 12 Habits really wants, too—by allowing the lessons to arise from within the reader.
Ideally, discussion of a common reader in the workplace should lead to a more productive, harmonious work environment. They can be a real investment in your employees as people, rather than as resources to be “optimized.”
To build a thriving culture of improvement across a team, a leader selecting such books should look for those that challenge assumptions and present problems the group can discuss—without positioning the book itself as the only solution to those problems.
