Developing a Reading Plan

I just received an email from a friend named Earl Creps

land of plen­ty movie

(he’s the direc­tor of the doc­tor­al pro­gram at my alma mater, the Assem­blies of God The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary).

Any­way, it’s all about how to read for per­son­al growth. I thought it was worth shar­ing an excerpt here. In case it’s not obvi­ous, he’s speak­ing with­in the con­text of spir­i­tu­al and orga­ni­za­tion­al lead­er­ship.

I think points 3 and 5 are par­tic­u­lar­ly good.

Here are some keys to max­i­miz­ing the effec­tive­ness of your read­ing…

1. Read the clas­sics: dial up amazon.com and search for the works of
James McGre­gor Burns, Hen­ri Nouwen, War­ren Ben­nis, etc. While we can debate
“what’s a clas­sic?,” books of this sort will get you into the game in a
hur­ry.

2. Read the lat­est and skip the mid­dle: if you’re just get­ting into an
orga­ni­za­tion for­get what was writ­ten any more than 2 years ago [except for
lead­er­ship clas­sics] and read from here for­ward. Most of the stuff in the
mid­dle is derived from the clas­sics any­way.…

3. Trust your life to guide your read­ing: When I’m feel­ing fresh, I
read in my spe­cial­ties [self-lead­er­ship, emerg­ing cul­ture, pow­er min­istry].
When I’m tired, I read 90 degrees out from my spe­cial­ties [, i.e.,
pro­fes­sion­al lit­er­a­ture from oth­er fields such as tech­nol­o­gy or psy­chol­o­gy].
When I’m burned out, I read 180 degrees out from my aca­d­e­m­ic inter­ests
[e.g., fic­tion, his­to­ry]. Some­how, I always find more illus­tra­tions,
prin­ci­ples, and oth­er ulti­mate­ly use­ful mate­r­i­al in this “diver­sion­ary”
read­ing than just about any­where else. I also find it huge­ly refresh­ing. A
tired mind can­not absorb much any­way.

4. Any work is a “lead­er­ship” book if it’s read by a leader: the leader
of the future must be an inter­est­ing, well-round­ed per­son, not an
incom­pe­tent mys­tic or a cor­po­rate-clone tech­no­crat. Younger adults
espe­cial­ly are all about who you are, not just what you can do.

5. Putting it togeth­er: Read­ing in your field makes you com­pe­tent.
Read­ing out from your field [90 degrees] makes you broad-mind­ed. Read­ing
oppo­site your field [180 degrees] makes you inter­est­ing and cre­ative.

My major rec­om­men­da­tion for left-brain­ers: devel­op a read­ing plan that
includes 0, 90, and 180-degree dimen­sions.

My major rec­om­men­da­tion for right-brain­ers: start lis­ten­ing to your life
and read in response to it, dude.

Bless­ings,

Earl