Business Reading
Introduction
For someone to succeed at work, we say they should learn to ‘communicate’ well. More specifically, ‘write’ well. While other aspects of communication (presentation, public speaking, selling etc.) are important at different stages for different roles, ‘writing’ is considered core to all of it. It is said to help fine-tune one’s thinking. Places like HBR has scores of articles on “Business Writing”. A friend even bought an item from their store.
I even did a detailed write-up on how my thinking and writing have evolved as I worked in companies from different cultures (circling the globe from Far East to Europe/Africa to the US).
However, I have not come across any formal session on how to be a good “reader” or a training on “how to read”. Or an HBR guide to “business reading”. If writing is so important, is it not equally important for the person at the other side of the table to be equally capable?
This post is an attempt to capture my thoughts on ‘being a good reader’.
Pointers from “How to Read a book”.
There is actually a whole book on the topic of how to read a book. While reading a doc and reading a book are not the same, there are things to learn from it on ‘types of reading’’ so let us have a quick summary.
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The book talks about four kinds of reading:
- Elementary Reading: This is at the level of basic literacy. If you know the alphabets in a language and you know how words, sentences are formed, and can read them, you are already here. This is what is taught in the early schooling years.
- Inspectional Reading: As the name says, this is about “inspecting” the book before going deeper. It has two varieties: Systematic skimming where you go through table of contents, chapter-summaries, index, reviews etc; and Superficial reading where you pick up random pages of interest and form an opinion. Inspectional reading (particularly the systematic skimming) is what will be very useful for reading a business document so pin this in your mind. This is similar to the “Reverse Outlines” technique used in writing but from a reader’s perspective.
- Analytical Reading: At this level, the reading gets more involved and this is where you actually learn (or critique) the concept in detail. You may read certain parts multiple times, chew on it, digest it, write a summary and so on. For example, this will be useful when you go through a training on financial modeling, reading an analysis of an A/B testing experiment, your digital marketing campaign etc.
- Syntopical Reading: This level involves reading many articles, posts, books, and other material on a topic; compare and contrast ideas in them and form your own opinion on them. Think of it as something you will do at the early stages of an initiative — say reading a bunch of proposals/pitches from others, deciding on a tech approach by comparing/contrasting them, deciding on which tech system to use, and things like that.
Farnam Street blog has a whole list of articles on the topic of reading which I strongly recommend. Disclosure: My summary of the book is also influenced from there.
Things that have helped me
There are a few techniques that have helped me become a better reader. I am nowhere near to being a good reader so do not read these as coming from a realized soul offering his fool-proof techniques but from a fellow being who struggles his way with life.
- Understanding the purpose: The purpose itself is at multiple levels — of the document you are reading, of the review in which context you are reading, and purpose of the meeting itself. The doc could be a proposal, could be an analysis summary, could be an intermediate step towards something etc. The purpose of review could be a pre-review before it goes to someone else, could be about the content, could be about the structure etc. The purpose of the meeting could be as FYI to the audience, for arriving at a decision, or as knowledge-sharing. It has helped me to understand the purpose well before I start reading it. Sometimes it is clearly mentioned in the doc but sometimes not. Just asking the doc owner or the meeting organizer is helpful.
- Understanding my role: I have found it useful to set my dials (inside my head) based on what my role in the review/meeting is — Am I in it to provide feedback/guidance/decision OR to learn. In either case, there is one more level — Is it feedback on the doc before it goes to someone else (higher/other teams etc.) or if I am part of the final audience for it. In learning, is it for me personally, or is it for my team/org (in which case I need to be able to summarize) etc.
- Systematic Skimming followed by Detailed Reading: Usually the author would have added appropriate section headings which I will go through first. Or I will do the reverse outlining process. This is the “inspectional reading” part we discussed earlier. Depending on the time available, I would go into details as appropriate after the systematic skimming stage.
- Giving feedback: I try to limit my feedback on the “doc quality” and move to the “content” as soon as I can (unless the review was about the doc quality or it was so bad I could not get to understand the content at all). Insert your favorite metaphor about tail-wagging-the-dog or focusing on the letter vs spirit etc. here. I have been at the other side of the table when all I got out of a review meeting was about the doc structure, adding line numbers etc. (as biased as it sounds, believe me, those were not cases of “so bad the content is incomprehensible”). I try to not show my superiority in how to write a doc and help the doc writer in whatever they are trying to accomplish with it. Depending on my role in that meeting, I will either speak up or will provide offline comments.
- Being Responsible: Depending on how important the doc/meeting for me, my involvement in it tends to vary. I struggle with this often. I try to hold myself responsible because my involvement will dictate how well the doc owner gets value from it. If I think there is no value to me (or my team/org) or to the doc owner, I try to not even join the meeting. In such meetings, it is very easy to get distracted. A notification from Slack/Email suddenly appears important, I attend to it, and before I know the discussion has moved on to things that I do not understand, and so I move back to my email, and it is a vicious cycle from there. I have tried to disable all notifications, carry only a notebook (for in-person meetings) etc. but this is a perennial struggle
What are your hacks and thoughts on ‘Business Reading’?
