There are trends I’m seeing in the leadership and personal improvement world, and these thoughts guide how I approach my work as a leader, my writing projects, and my work as a co-founder for Kestryl Edge.
Here are the problems I have with the self-help and leadership genre:
- There’s too much narrative.
- The narrative is hard to relate to.
- Not a handy reference.
- [Usable content] to [Length] ratio is off.
- Disorganized.
- Not useful past the first read.
- Lack of references and research.
Let me color this in and then share some thoughts about what I aspire to provide in these blogs and future projects.
1. There’s too much narrative. & 2. The narrative is hard to relate to.
Humankind are beings of story. We’re all on the same page there. To make a point, your narrative needs to be tight, rooted in the point(s) you’re putting forth, and relatable to the audience. Since most organizations are hierarchical, you will have more team leads and middle management readers than you will CEOs. Your narratives need to be relatable to the aspiring manager and the middle manager. I have read many books where the content ends after the first narrative example. I did not need the three or five examples that came after that to get the singular point that is summarized by the title of the book. What would I want instead of additional narrative? That brings me to my next critique.
3. Not a handy reference. & 4. [Usable content] to [Length] ratio is off. & 5. Disorganized.
Great books, in my humble opinion, are the ones that make you change your mind, feel something, teach you something you can’t learn somewhere else, and maybe distract you from life. And the best books are the well-worn, dog-eared, annotated, sticky-noted, coffee-stained books that survive move after move and job after job but are a fixture on the desk, by the bed, or in the office.
What do these best books have in common? They are good references. They have useful tables. They have well-organized equations. They have a never-ending supply of pithy wisdom and utility.
In the age of AI, you could just go ask the internet to do your thinking for you. But this is no fun and lacks individuality and nuance. Sure, being able to get a good answer is a skill, and AI can take you from point A to B. And understanding, thinking, and being able to engage without needing a robot to do your homework for you is more impressive.
I’ve had a few “best books.” For a while, my Physical Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry textbooks were mainstays. Now I really like my copy of Never Scratch a Tiger with a Short Stick. I bring a quote to my team’s stand-up meetings on light days and we’ll discuss it. Fun and engaging team building. Books that are too heavy on narrative hide the useful and actionable advice between stories and extrapolation. The book is now hard to reference.
6. Not useful past the first read. & 7. Lack of references and research.
This is a personal preference. I prefer books that outlast the first read in their utility. Does that mean that all books need to be useful past the first read? No. But the industry is saturated with low-value, one-time reads. This dilutes customers’ faith that a new book is going to be worth buying.
Part of the issue with leadership as a study is that if we want people to see it as a hard skill, we need to treat it like one (and the same goes for Empathy and EQ). High-quality research and primary source references turn personal stories into valuable resources for the studious audience. A book chock-full of personal narrative only relatable to a select few is not going to end up on my shelf with dog ears, sticky notes, and coffee stains (a love-mark and the highest compliment I can muster).
What next?
As a manager and leader, I find books I like and I buy an extra copy and keep it on a table outside my office. Anyone is welcome to it. I have a small library there of high-quality books on leadership, managing, and building skills that support empathy and EQ in the workplace. This table is the first place I turn people to when they come into my office with desires to move up. Stay tuned for some future posts on the books I keep in my personal library.
As a writer, I strive to engage in the Leadership, Empathy, and EQ literature. There’s a boom in publishing these last couple decades and there are lots of studies worth reading out there. I learned how to read literature when I was in grad school studying chemistry. I didn’t know this skill would pay off years later as I apply the research skills I learned to other domains. I highly recommend people go find some papers every once in a while and read them. The scientific peer-reviewed literature is quite literally where new knowledge appears.
Many teams have regular safety moments or opportunities to present in meetings. A great practice is to find a paper that applies to your work and do a ‘literature review’ for your team. It can be 5 minutes. Include what the paper looked at, how they measured a change, and what their findings are. It’s a healthy way to stay learning and bring new ideas to your teams.
As a co-founder, I’ve taken my own critiques to heart. Kestryl Edge provides retention programs paired with workshops on leadership, empathy, and EQ. Our team has been diligent about including sources and references to our claims. We research ideas before we present them as fact. We find where the knowledge gaps are in the literature and instead of filling them with our own ideas, we embrace the nuance of the field. We present all angles and let our audience apply the knowledge in their own way. As we develop tools and resources, we benchmark them against the industry standard.
We’ve all been to the training or read the book proffered by a person with great tag lines and one-liners, but the material lacks substance and sticking power. I aim to cut through the noise with fact-first insights and scientifically backed methods. I’m proud that instead of offering narrative and platitudes, we bring universal tools and activities that give people actionable skills and practice implementing them.
That’s all for now.
Cheers, Dan