Read Across America Day

Every year, the National Education Association (NEA) celebrates Dr. Seuss's birthday on March 2 with an event they call Read Across America. This event encourages communities and people of all ages to celebrate the importance of reading and promote literacy by taking time to read their favorite books or to reading to others in classrooms or libraries. Some communities even have large Dr. Seuss-themed parties. All of this reminded me of my favorite Dr. Seuss book. As a young boy, I was fascinated with race cars and dogs so clearly my favorite Dr. Seuss book was "Go Dog Go!" There were a lot of cool scenes to look at, and who could forget the party on top of the tree at the end? 

These days in addition to fun books, I'm usually reading business books. One of my favorite business books is "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni. In this book, the author writes a fictional tale illustrating the key elements of building a team for success. One of the first and most important ingredients to having a successful team is trust. Lencioni encourages building an office atmosphere where everyone trusts each other and supports each other versus stepping on each other and showing off to get promoted.

Reading is a very important way to keep up with the ever-changing business world and can help give a variety of business professionals insights on how to improve themselves and their teams. What books have you read that have helped you in your job? What did they teach you?