Back To Basics: Reading
Competency To Improve
Employee Productivity
Presented by: Jojy Azurin
BusinessSummaries.com

Outline
• Study Results of Book Reader Profile
• Implementing a Book Reading Program
• Challenges and A Proposed Solution

Part 1: Book Reader Profile
• Study Results of Book Reader Profile
– BusinessSummaries.com and QuantCast
– U.S. Dep‟t of Labor and a survey by Yahoo!
– U.S. Dep‟t of Education, Nat‟l Center for
Educational Statistics
– National Endowment for the Arts

Study Results
• Caveat
– Majority of results are based on U.S. studies
– Few are based on in-house study from a
global reader base

Study Results
• Some things
– Are proven to be good in one area
– But hard to adopt in another area
– Unless someone shows you how
• Fr. Ed Panlilio
• Learning How To Cook
• Reading

Demographics of Business Book
Readers
U.S.
Business Household
Income Range Summaries Income
$0 - 30k 17% 27%
$30 - 60k 24% 37%
$60 - 100k 31% 21%
$100k+ 27% 15%
Data provided by QuantCast

Demographics of Business Book
Readers
Educational Business Average
Attainment Summaries U.S.
No College 35% 65%
College 47% 26%
Grad. School 19% 9%

Demographics of Business Book
Readers
• According to U.S. Dep‟t of Labor and a
survey by Yahoo! Chief Solutions Officer
Tim Sanders
– business people who read at least 7
business books a year earn over 2.3 times
more than people who read only 1 book
per year

Demographics of Book Readers
• Accdg to U.S. Department of Education, Nat‘l Center
for Educational Statistics
– good readers generally have more financially rewarding
jobs
– More than 60% of employed Proficient readers have jobs in
management, or in the business, financial, professional, and
related sectors.
– Only 18% of Basic readers are employed in those fields.
– Proficient readers are 2.5 times as likely as Basic readers to
be earning $850 or more a week.

Demographics of Book Readers

Demographics of Book Readers
• Less advanced readers report fewer
opportunities for career growth.
• 38% of Basic readers said their reading
level limited their job prospects.
• the percentage of Below-Basic readers
who reported this experience was 70%.
• Only 4% of Proficient readers reported
this experience.

Demographics of Book Readers

Book Readers Are Culturally Active
• Good readers play a crucial role in enriching
our cultural and civic life.
• Literary readers are more than 3 times as
likely as non-readers to visit museums,
attend plays or concerts, and create artworks
of their own.
• they are also more likely to play sports,
attend sporting events, or do outdoor
activities.

Book Readers Are Culturally Active

Good readers make good citizens

Good readers avoid being a HS
dropout
• Deficient readers are far more likely
than skilled readers to be high school
dropouts.
• Half of America‘s Below-Basic readers
failed to complete high school
• One-third of readers at the Basic level
dropped out of high school.

Deficient readers tend to be jobless
• Deficient readers are more likely than
skilled readers to be out of the
workforce.
• More than half of Below-Basic readers
are not in the workforce.
• 44% of Basic readers lack a full-time or
part-time job—twice the percentage of
proficient readers in that category

Deficient readers tend to be jobless

Good readers stay out of jail
• Poor reading skills are endemic in the prison
population.
• 56% of adult prisoners read at or below the Basic
level.
• Adult prisoners have an average prose reading
score of 257—18 points lower than non-prisoners.
• Only 3% of adult prisoners read at a Proficient level.
• Low reading scores persist in prisoners nearing the
end of their term, when they are expected to return
to family, society, and a more productive life

Good readers stay out of jail

Overall profile
• Proficient readers
– Earn more
– Have management or professional positions
– Career advancement
– Active cultural life
– Good citizens
– Always had a job
– Stay out of prison/not a HS dropout

How is Corporate America
responding?

Book Reading Program
• Relative success of book readers in
terms of financial, professional and
personal status is very encouraging
• We can use these results to create a
book reading program
• developing book readers is good
– company
– individual

Good books are the warehouses of ideas.
-- H. G. Wells
A man is known by the books he reads.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The man who is fond of books is usually a man
of lofty thought, and of elevated opinions.
-- Christopher Dawson

Part 2: Implementing a Reading
Program
• Big Bang Approach
– Full reading program
– Big budget
– Management backing
– Political will
• Soft Approach
– Corporate library

Implementing a Reading Program
• Soft Approach
– Book allowances as benefits/ department
budget
• Promote book exchanges
– Corporate book clubs
– Speed reading programs
• Blend with existing programs
– Live or ‗virtual‘ classrooms

Implementing a Reading Program
• Blend with existing programs
– E-learning
– Corporate planning seminars
– Sales meetings
– Basic Training – Basic Supervisory skills
training
– Content for you portal or intranet
– Team building activities

Consciously Recruit Proficient
Readers
• Top Ten Questions
– 1. Can you tell me something about yourself?
– 2. What are your strengths?
– 3. What are your weaknesses?
– 4. How do you handle stress/pressure?
– 5. What do you know about our company?
– 6. Why do you want to work in our company?
– 7. Why do you want to leave your current job?
– 8. What can you contribute to our company?
– 9. Why should the company hire you?
– 10. Where do you see yourself five or ten years from now?

Consciously Recruit Proficient
Readers
• How many business books have you
read this year?
• Which ideas were you able to put into
use in your previous jobs?

Consciously Identify Book Readers
• Find existing proficient readers as
potential management-level employees
• Use book reading habits as one of the
factors for „manager material‟ criteria

Enlisting Support
• You need support to ensure success
– CEO or upper management
– Sales managers
– In-house management gurus
• Easy to implement
– Not expensive
– Reading is not alien to many; low level of resistance
– Benefits are universally accepted

Deadly Myth
• It takes years to reap benefits from a
reading program – FALSE
• Benefits could be immediate

Immediate Benefits
• QA engineer was able to set up a Six
Sigma program

Immediate Benefits
• Sales team was able to increase service
sells by 30% in 2 months

Immediate Benefits
• 3 companies implemented new
customer service strategies

Immediate Benefits
• Low level employee got a raise and a
promotion

“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should
ask him what books he reads.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
- Margaret Fuller, Women's Rights Activist

Part 3: Who has the time?
• Big challenge to executives – no time
• Besides human resources - executives
see time as one of their most lacking
resource

“Time is an inelastic resource. No matter how high the
demand, we cannot rent, hire or buy more of it.”
-- Peter Drucker, Management Guru
“Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do
not read are unfit for power”
-- Michael Foot, English politician and writer

Executive productivity
• Bersin and Associates Study
• How Executives Stay Informed
– A Study of Resources Used and Time Spent
Locating Critical Business Information
– 49% had titles of CEO, senior VP, or VP 51% had
director-level titles
– 26% worked in organizations with more than 5,000
employees 74% worked in organizations with
fewer than 5,000 employees

Executive Productivity
• 71% of the respondents felt that they were
well informed,
• But devote a significant amount of time to
this process.
• 37% spend more than 4 hours per week
searching for information to stay informed
and current
• this translates into $1,000 or more per week
in time lost through information searches

Executive Productivity

Executive Productivity
• Internet Recognized as Important Business Tool
for Today‟s Executives
– vast majority use the Internet as a business tool
to obtain critical information
– ―there is too much invalidated information‖.
– Approximately half of the responses indicated
frustration at ―too much information‖
– Content from trusted sources is more valuable to
executives

Executive Productivity
• Executives Want More Time for Reading
– At least half of this group devotes upwards
of 4 hours of reading time per week to stay
current and informed
– more than half of them are reading while
traveling, and that 75% read at home on
their own time

Executive Productivity

Executive Productivity

Executive Productivity
• Content And Delivery Method Are Critical
Factors
– Executives look for resources that are short
and to the point.
– Timeliness is critical for demanding
executives.

Executive Productivity
• Executives Require On-Demand Solutions
– Executives demand information from a variety of
sources.
– Traditional books and training does not meet this
demand.
– Learning on-demand is a key new solution.
– Online resources and search meet this demand.
– Training and HR organizations should address this
need.

Executive Productivity
• Blend book summaries with existing programs
– Executive E-learning
– Executive planning seminars
– Sales Manager tools
– Management Guru tools
– Content for you portal or intranet
– Team building activities
• Effects could be immediate

Executive Productivity
• Benefits realized from using book
summaries taken from our survey

What The Media Has To Say
• \"....a must-have executive productivity tool..\" -
CNNMoney.com
• \"to those who want to keep up but are too busy
to read the barrage of business titles\" -
Washington Post
• “Education on the fly” - New York Times
• “CliffNotes For Adults” - Fast Company

Companies

What Authors Say About Us
• Business Summaries provide a valuable service – I am able to read a lot
more books than I otherwise would have time to do. It also allows me to
decide which books offer novel ideas and which books I decide to buy. The
summaries are not only of tremendous value for the busy executive but are
also ideal for teachers, trainers, coaches and anyone who enjoys sharing
ideas. It‟s an intellectual tool at anyone‟s disposal. It will enrich your mind.
• Bruna Martinuzzi,
Author of The Leader as a Mensch:
Become the Kind of Person
Others Want to Follow

What Authors Say About Us
• “All of your summaries look great. I include them in some of my
seminar materials.”
• Brian Tracy - Bestselling author of TurboStrategy, Many Miles to Go
and Focal Point.

What Authors Say About Us
• \"The professionals at BusinessSummaries.com do the seemingly impossible. They
take the detailed content of a business book, cull that content down to its essence,
and present the summary in a concise and compelling way. I am honored that the
team at BusinessSummaries.com has applied their skills to my published works. Not
only have they brought the core concepts of my books to life, but in turn their
summaries have piqued the interest of business book buyers driving enhanced book
sales. I will keep writing business books and hope that BusinessSummaries.com will
continue to partner with me through their keenly insightful consolidations of my work.\"
•
• Joseph Michelli, PhD
Author of The Starbucks Experience,
The New Gold Standard, and
When Fish Fly

Questions?
“The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you'll go.”
- Dr. Seuss, (American Writer and Cartoonist best known for his collection of children's books.
1904-1991)
“A home without books is a body without soul.”
-- Cicero quotes (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43
BC)
\"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
-- Victor Hugo, (French romantic Poet, Novelist and Dramatist, 1802-1885)
“The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives
you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.”
-- Elizabeth Hardwick, American literary critic, novelist, and short story writer
With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands.
-- Ezra Pound. American Poet