Here is a great question from an EntreLeadership Podcast listener about required reading:

Hi Chris,
A few years ago, I began giving everyone in my business resources to help them outside of their responsibilities at work. I believe that I may have started after learning about the required reading Dave has for everyone at his business. I just finished listening to the podcast with the John Miller interview and you mentioned, a few times, QBQ being one of the required books.

My question is this: How does that process work in your business? Is there any follow up after the books are given out? Do they confirm with anyone that they read them? Or more importantly, they got anything from them? I want to bump up the reading at my company even more.  Is there more I can do to maximize the experience? Thanks. Keep the great info coming! — Jim Paulson

It’s funny. You can require your team to read books all day long. If there’s no culture inside your business that supports the information, though, it’s not going to matter. The reason we have required reading in our business is the books back up the culture that we already have in place. For example, QBQ—Question Behind the Question—is all about personal accountability and responsibility.

As leaders, we are constantly reminding our team it is their job to take care of our customers and our own team. There is no such thing as “that’s not my job.” If something needs to be done, they do it!

We just had an amazing day of ministry at GraceWorks, where we worked at warehouses loading and unloading trucks that were taking food, clothing, toys, etc. to families in need. When all was said and done, some folks grabbed the working end of a broom because they saw that we made a mess in the process. Now, most people would say the ministry could clean up the mess, since we came and did all of the heavy lifting. Not us. When you have a culture that is constantly discussed and reported on, people step up and follow.

In essence, don’t require reading just because it’s a fun idea. Make sure that you are choosing books that support your core values, and make sure you’re promoting those core values like crazy with the team.

As for follow up, we do confirm that they’ve read them, and some leaders take it a step further and discuss the books with their teams.

Question: What are your thoughts on required reading in your organization?