Books@Work helps your employees take a break from work—together.
Even as I write these words, having learned what I have from hundreds of participant interviews, I cringe a bit–worried that they will somehow be misunderstood. After all, do employers really want large groups of employees taking a break from work together? We have overwhelming support that Books@Work helps people connect with each other at a deeper level, to explore ideas they rarely get to share and to create a culture of respect, inclusion and openness to diverse perspectives. The benefit of these outcomes to the workplace is not hard to understand.
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In each of our programs, we survey participants to find out what genres they like to read. In those surveys and in interactions we have throughout the program, we often discover that people like to read mysteries and suspense stories. Our forays into this genre have surprised and delighted us—these books make for a marvelous Books@Work experience. In fact, one group recently shared that they made a pact not to read ahead and they solved the mystery together, intensifying their connection as a group.
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In January, we experimented with something new. We at Books@Work and a number of volunteers who subscribed for this special series undertook to read a story, an essay or a poem every day for about three weeks. Intended as a springboard to think about mindfulness and to practice compassion, empathy and awareness (of ourselves and of the world we live in) the readings enabled—if nothing else—a few quiet minutes in the day to focus on something different, something literary or artful. Reading mindfully, we hypothesized, might be a way to decompress and engage our minds, with thought and deliberation. Here are our observations, plus a sampling of what we read.
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A 2013 study from the New School concludes that “reading literature improves theory of mind”—“the capacity to identify and understand others’ subjective states.” As the authors note, theory of mind is critically linked to empathy, that all-important ability to intuit and experience the feelings of another. Together with the cognitive component of theory of mind (“the inference and representation of others’ beliefs and intentions”), empathy is a crucial element of “positive interpersonal and intergroup relations.” We need to practice it, in other words, to be effective and considerate people at home, at work and throughout our lives.
Reading fiction had previously been shown to increase empathy by “[expanding] our knowledge of others’ lives, helping us to recognize our similarity to them.” But in this study, authors David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castono argue that literary fiction helps people practice empathy because of its complexity, too.
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Looking for something to read this weekend? Our suggestions on the history and analysis of the Book-of-the-Month Club, a new (and healthier) kind of vending machine, a walk along the Thames, the mathematics of the modernist novel, the key to creative success, and more.
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In a rapidly changing world, many low-skilled jobs have given way to automation, replacing individual workers with machines and reducing workforces considerably. But are high-skilled jobs immune to such automation? No, says Ji Shisan, a media executive with deep background in neurobiology, in a recent and provocative piece in the New York Times. In fact, computers and artificial intelligence are replacing human engagement in a wide variety of contexts. These include the Associated Press’ Automated Insights software, which “[produces] thousands of articles about corporate earnings each year,” Facebook’s “virtual assistant,” which “uses artificial intelligence (AI) to answer user questions” and “IBM’s Watson,” which “[determines] the best course of treatment for individual cancer patients.” All the programs require human supervision, but as Shisan notes, “white-collar workers are understandably starting to worry about the day when AI can go it alone.” But rather than underscore this worry, Jisan reassures us: “The future’s still bright,” he says, “thanks to our creativity – our unique trait.”
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Last week, we explored how Books@Work chooses books for our programs: we begin from the philosophy that narratives are fundamental to human inquiry and communication; we look for books that portray deeply resonant stories, knowing that our participants will both learn from them and be inspired to share their own; and we work with faculty members and participants in all of our book selections.
To date, we’ve taught more than 200 books, and we’ve found that every book inspires unique insights into each other and the human condition—and of course the book itself.
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Man is a storytelling animal—we tell stories to preserve our past, record our legacy, and to teach our children. And we have done so in writing at least since the Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2100 BC). By using high quality stories about the human condition, Books@Work gives our participants a lens through which to examine the whole of human behavior, in ways that provide for rich and relevant conversations. We know that when we read narrative literature, we identify with characters and reflect on their relationships. We see ourselves in the stories of others and we share our stories.
This is why we don’t read business or self-help books: they tell people how to behave rather than provide an opportunity to explore and learn about themselves and each other.
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At Books@Work, we recognize (and constantly emphasize) that the opportunity for reflection with others shapes our learning and our performance. We are always learning—about our participants, our company and community partners, about the books we use to spark reflective conversation and the benefits of reading and talking together. In this spirit of self-inquiry, we’d like to take moment ourselves to look back and reflect upon what we have observed in 2015.
Over the past year, Book@Work did not slow down. On every metric, we have grown, from the number of programs (50% growth from 2014) to the number of companies, participants, books and professors (and the colleges and universities in which they teach).
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