Last week’s Tuesday Tip talked about creating a reading culture in your team. We’ve had a few people contact us and ask us: WHAT should we be reading?

Of course, that’s like asking, “How long is a piece of string?” It really does depend on who you are, where you are, what you’re doing and what you need. But, we can give something of an answer to that question, without being prescriptive.

There should be four key aspects to your reading list:

1. Information about the changing world and the future
2. Industry and function specific insight
3. Leadership and the changing world of work
4. Personal enrichment

Where to read

There are over 1,000 books published every day. Many of them are really good. Of course, you don’t have the time to read them all, but you should at least try and read a book a month. If everyone on your team does this, and shares a short list of insights you’ll easily consume over 100 books a year.

You can subscribe to book summarising services like http://www.getabstract.com

Our team has recently read the following books, and recommends them all:

• The 100-Year Life, Gratton and Scott
• Leadership BS, Pfeffer
• The Innovator’s Method, Furr and Dyer
• The Black Swan, Taleb
• The Age of Discovery, Goldin
• The Leadership Mystique, Kets de Vries
• Industries of the Future, Ross
• Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahnemann
• No Ordinary Disruption, Dodds and Manyika
• UnCommon Sense, Common Nonsense, Goddard and Eccles
• Homo Deus, Harari
• Elon Musk, Vance
• Humble Inquiry, Schein
• The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil
• Blockchain Revolution, Tapscott

You should also be reading magazines

– in print or online, it’s your choice and preference. Steer clear of “news” magazines, and go for the analysis ones instead. Our team devours the following:

• The Economist, especially their quarterly Technology review and annual Christmas double issues
• Fast Company
• The Week
• Harvard Business Review
• New Scientist
• Popular Mechanics
• Strategy+Business

In addition to following the social media streams of the above authors and magazines, here are some websites and social channels we follow:

• https://futurism.com/
• https://www.raconteur.net
• http://www.holacracy.org/
• https://singularityhub.com/
• https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight (not safe for work)
• https://curiosity.com/
• https://disruptionhub.com/

Podcasts

Inc Magazine recently published an excellent list of “12 podcasts that will make you a better leader”. Check them out here.

We also have a podcast at TomorrowToday – see it here.

You will notice what is NOT on our list above

Breaking news. We highly recommend that people stop watching breaking news, stop reading the daily newspapers and stop being caught up in the clickbait headline news cycle. There is almost nothing that will happen in the world that requires you to be the first to know about it. These sources all sacrifice accuracy for speed, and intelligent analysis for hype. Rather seek out quality journalists and follow them directly, and use a news aggregator (most of our team use Flipboard) or Twitter to access news on your own terms.

To busy to read? Then you are too busy.

We’d love to know your top picks. Please reply and add your best books, magazines, blogs and social channels.

Graeme