Success in business today is often equated with hyper-efficiency, hustle, and an extreme busyness. Cut the fat, focus on your work, and all else must follow. And in this pursuit a lot of distractions are removed, some good, some bad: time-wasting iPhone games, evenings with friends, aimless internet browsing, Netflix binge-watching, and more often than not, reading books.
Let’s be clear here: many people in business read a lot. Their reading lists are rich with long reads on industry scions, stories of startup failure and success, and sometimes even histories that get outside the focus of their work. Don’t get me wrong, reading those books is critical. Their depth gives us insights into the history and trends that have shaped how we work, and where we’re headed as a working society. But that’s not what I’m talking about here
I’m talking about fiction.
For whatever reason, it seems that many driven businesspeople and entrepreneurs (even the brightest and most brilliant) haven’t touched a novel in years. Maybe it’s because fiction is framed as entertainment and doesn’t feel like "forward" progress, or too many dry homework assignments in high school turned you off of fiction for good.
I get that. A great novel isn’t something you can really get into with half your brain, and the benefits aren’t immediately obvious. You can’t answer emails while you read a novel, and you can’t immediately take the lessons of Harry Potter and and apply them to the way you approach supply chain management at your company.
Despite those undeniable truths, I’m challenging you to take the time to read one piece of fiction per month—anything from a classic to a short story to a dystopian YA page-turner. Why? Because if you really make reading fiction a habit, I am confident that you’ll not only enjoy it, but you’ll notice that your mind is becoming more open, creative, and empathetic—all attributes valued in business.
Stories are a fundamental part of what makes us human. They get us out of our own heads and into the world of someone else, and whether that’s someone living in this reality really isn’t important. Studies have shown that fiction improves empathy, giving us the ability to step into another’s shoes, and may alter brain connectivity in a way that makes it easier to see the world from others’ perspective and situation. The ability to empathize with others is instrumental in the development of your social intelligence, and is critical if you want to understand and build relationships with those around you.
Most of all, though, reading fiction unlocks our own creativity, imagination, and ability to think beyond what is real today. Everything—every single business, product, or game-changing innovation—was once fiction. It’s as simple as that. Uber existed as a story in notebooks and on pitch decks long before it became the global force it is today, and as Tim Cook has pointed out, people have been pretending (both on page and screen) to make phone calls on their wrists long before the reality of the Apple Watch.
And books are a place where a lot of this process of envisioning and exploring potential future worlds happens. Science fiction has a long history of predicting the future—from Jules Verne writing about deep-sea submarines and space travel long before advances in technology let his visions materialize, to Neal Stephenson exploring a world where virtual reality and the internet would shape the way we interact with the world around us.
If we, in the world of business, are committed to innovating and shaping a new, better world for the future, we have to be able to step beyond the bounds of our own world and our own experience. Fiction allows us to study what could be instead of what is or was. It gives us a window into other people’s inner worlds and lets us escape the strict bounds of what is possible today. Reading fiction might not let you check off the next item on your to-do list, but if the possible benefit is the ability to envision and drive the future, I’d say it’s definitely worth a shot.
Let’s be clear here: many people in business read a lot. Their reading lists are rich with long reads on industry scions, stories of startup failure and success, and sometimes even histories that get outside the focus of their work. Don’t get me wrong, reading those books is critical. Their depth gives us insights into the history and trends that have shaped how we work, and where we’re headed as a working society. But that’s not what I’m talking about here
I’m talking about fiction.
For whatever reason, it seems that many driven businesspeople and entrepreneurs (even the brightest and most brilliant) haven’t touched a novel in years. Maybe it’s because fiction is framed as entertainment and doesn’t feel like "forward" progress, or too many dry homework assignments in high school turned you off of fiction for good.
I get that. A great novel isn’t something you can really get into with half your brain, and the benefits aren’t immediately obvious. You can’t answer emails while you read a novel, and you can’t immediately take the lessons of Harry Potter and and apply them to the way you approach supply chain management at your company.
Despite those undeniable truths, I’m challenging you to take the time to read one piece of fiction per month—anything from a classic to a short story to a dystopian YA page-turner. Why? Because if you really make reading fiction a habit, I am confident that you’ll not only enjoy it, but you’ll notice that your mind is becoming more open, creative, and empathetic—all attributes valued in business.
Stories are a fundamental part of what makes us human. They get us out of our own heads and into the world of someone else, and whether that’s someone living in this reality really isn’t important. Studies have shown that fiction improves empathy, giving us the ability to step into another’s shoes, and may alter brain connectivity in a way that makes it easier to see the world from others’ perspective and situation. The ability to empathize with others is instrumental in the development of your social intelligence, and is critical if you want to understand and build relationships with those around you.
Most of all, though, reading fiction unlocks our own creativity, imagination, and ability to think beyond what is real today. Everything—every single business, product, or game-changing innovation—was once fiction. It’s as simple as that. Uber existed as a story in notebooks and on pitch decks long before it became the global force it is today, and as Tim Cook has pointed out, people have been pretending (both on page and screen) to make phone calls on their wrists long before the reality of the Apple Watch.
And books are a place where a lot of this process of envisioning and exploring potential future worlds happens. Science fiction has a long history of predicting the future—from Jules Verne writing about deep-sea submarines and space travel long before advances in technology let his visions materialize, to Neal Stephenson exploring a world where virtual reality and the internet would shape the way we interact with the world around us.
If we, in the world of business, are committed to innovating and shaping a new, better world for the future, we have to be able to step beyond the bounds of our own world and our own experience. Fiction allows us to study what could be instead of what is or was. It gives us a window into other people’s inner worlds and lets us escape the strict bounds of what is possible today. Reading fiction might not let you check off the next item on your to-do list, but if the possible benefit is the ability to envision and drive the future, I’d say it’s definitely worth a shot.
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