A plea to tech people:
Read books
For years I have been trying to convince colleagues to read books, but had very little success. Many are either too busy, refuse to invest time after work or read strictly the hottest technology news.
I explained to specific individuals why they would have benefited from reading specific books, and even bought them books, but in most cases I either got a “I will read it some day” shrug, or they did start but stopped after a few pages.
Here I want to list some benefits of reading, in an attempt to have better success.
I have to assume some basic curiosity, because without it people won’t bother reading. They may read only when a specific need arises, that is, a short, focused effort to solve a concrete problem, but not beyond. I can compare this behavior to taking a loan from the bank when you need money, in contrast to building capital in advance. This lack of knowledge about things that were written 20, 30, 40 or more years ago, and are so easily accessible, I call “personal knowledge debt”.
When I say “read books”, I mean books, not short articles or blog posts.
The topics may vary — they may be technical, such as: a programming language, a framework, a library, infrastructure, architecture, principles, algorithms, computer science, data science, QA, hardware, math, science. They may be about business, management, leadership, product management, project management, methodologies and people.
Of course, other forms of learning, such as watching videos, talks, conferences, podcasts and articles are all great. My point is, you will be more effective if you read books additionally, and here is why:
Language improvement
Obvious, but it’s worth mentioning, that reading helps learning languages. I am not a native English speaker, and even though English is the language I use for work, I always find words I didn’t know or forgot about when I read.
Not only vocabulary — spelling and phrases are additional benefits.
(My native English speaking colleagues probably wonder how bad my English would have been, had I not read).
Relying on spell checking tools will not always save you, for example, when you have to write down on sticky notes, or when words are similar, like conscience, conscious and conscientious.
Deep knowledge
Reading a one-paragraph summary of a book, or even a longer summary, such as Blinkist, will give some highlights, but cannot lead you step by step and cover the entire research, reasoning, conclusions and action items. This depth helps to build your credibility when topics come up in conversations, and will allow you to have meaningful discussions.
Books often contain diagrams, graphs and other types of visual content, which are helpful for both clarifying and remembering.
Broad knowledge
By reading many books about various topics, you will naturally gain broad knowledge. Consider the concept of T shaped skills — deep knowledge about a specific topic or two, and general knowledge about a lot of topics.
Your toolbox will become extensive and the ability to handle different situations will increase. For cases where deeper research will be required from you or others, you will recall that there is a book exactly about the issue at hand.
On the other hand, imagine how you would feel if you couldn’t participate in any discussion about design patterns, or how it would look if your direct would talk to you about basic organizational and managerial theories you never heard of.
Improve writing
Several writers have claimed that in order to be a good writer, one should read a lot. You get exposed to many ideas, many editing styles, many language, content and communication styles, so when you come to write yourself, you have a wide range of styles to pick from.
Common terminology
Each field uses certain terminology, and it makes communication easier, once everyone is aware of it. It also makes you look professional and credible when you use precise terminology rather than freestyle wording to describe something, albeit correct.
Examples:
“This method has high cyclomatic complexity”
vs.
“This method has a lot of “if-else”, also nested ones”.
“The adapter pattern would solve the problem elegantly”
vs.
“Maybe write code that translates from our internal API to their API in both directions”.
Value to your organization
Not only will you be able to contribute to shaping the future of the organization when ideas come up, but you will also be in a position to suggest more ideas, on a broad range of topics, you will have the depth to explain and discuss them, and the knowledge how to push them. May they be about hiring effectively, technical implementation, design, code reviews, solving team issues, political situations or methodology debates.
You might be perceived as a “go to” person or a mentor for a specific topic, which again, will be a source for knowledge radiation.
On top of it, you will have better understanding of how to help your boss and be more effective and efficient in your own work.
Value to the community
Besides being a craftswoman/man, and raising the average knowledge level of the practitioners, you might be able to contribute new ideas from other disciplines to a community you belong to, such as: a specific javascript library, a programming language or tool.
Pride
It can be highly satisfying, knowing that you are continuously getting better. Becoming better not in a competitive way, but rather the best you can be.
Curiosity — virtuous cycle
The more you read, the more you realize how much you don’t know. This has the potential effect of pushing you to learn and read even more.
In my experience, the less people read, the more dogmatic they are and certain about the correctness of their way.
Roles and promotions
After a period of displaying knowledge on various areas, it will be easier and more natural to offer you more influential roles and promotions, either management or in the individual contributor path. It’s not the only parameter, but it will help. It will also not be a surprise for anyone, a.k.a “well deserved”.
Job interviews are easier
When you have broad and deep knowledge, most of the job interviews will be easier and actually more interesting, as the level of discussion can be deeper.
You will know which “bad internet advice” to ignore and focus on being effective.
It will also help you filter out places where your interviewers fail to demonstrate knowledge.
Better job offers
Once you are more impressive in the job interview, and you succeed to impress not only in the technical ones, you are more likely to receive a better offer, a higher internal professional level or even a more advanced role.
This is true not only for senior management or individual contributor roles — imagine the effect of the following sentence in a hiring meeting “she is a on the junior level for a developer, but a very strong one” compared to “she is junior”.
Discover and try new roles
Books can entice your imagination to try new areas, move to management or to a different industry.
It is ok to try and figure out it’s not for you. Keep the door open.
Serendipity
Defined by Wikipedia as an unplanned fortunate discovery. Serendipity is a common occurrence throughout the history of product invention and scientific discovery.
Reading about things that are not necessarily related to your day to day work, or to concrete problems, can actually help you to borrow new ideas and to innovate.
Interesting lunch conversations
You will be a more interesting conversation partner, even to people outside of tech. I have piqued the interest of many people regarding the Pontiac and the vanilla ice-cream story, or about Milgram’s experiment about obedience to authority.
Recommendations
Document — keep a list of all the books you’ve read. I will make it easier to look up information and recommend to others.
Here is my list, which I go back to from time to time and even reread some books.
Take notes — it’s great to summarize interesting parts for yourself, to take notes, or mark directly on the book. Books are not sacred, use them in the most effective ways for you. The benefit of notes:
- Remembering better by writing
- Easier to find interesting ideas quickly
- More easily recommend to others, why they should read a specific book, as a short review of the book
Don’t fight — if you don’t like the book for whatever reason, don’t fight it, move on to another book.
Take the time — this is not a contest, no need to have a new year’s resolution such as “read 20 books this year”.
Knowledge is not the same as doing, it’s the first step, which requires practicing an applying afterwards. Take the time to process the information and try it out.
Summary
My hope is that we all become more effective professionals.
If you don’t keep learning, you stay behind. Imagine your colleagues professionally grow 5% in a year, your organization grows 10% in a year and has 10% more needs, the whole industry grows the same, and you do not grow — where does it put you?
Books will help to build your personal brand. They are your competitive advantage, and will accelerate your career in any field.
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