I'm a big reader. Voracious may be the best way to describe it.

I read 25-30 books a year, cover to cover. Across all sorts of disciplines.

Books help me with a critical skill in my growth: Lateral Thinking.

Lateral Thinking is the "ability to learn from sectors and practices both adjacent to you and far away from the way you typically do business." (From The Creativity Leap by Natalie Nixon).

Lateral thinking helps me make non-obvious connections that I can apply to my own learning and growth.

In other words, you can learn a lot about business and leadership by reading many books that are not obviously related to business and leadership.

Here are a few lessons from recent books that expanded my perspectives and made me a better person and leader.

Biographies and Memoirs

Biographies and Memoirs help me better understand the critical characteristics and techniques of some of our most outstanding people and leaders.

King by Jonathan Eig shows how Martin Luther King, Jr. led a transformative transformation of American life. King worked on his speech techniques throughout his life, practicing and working on the volume and pacing of his words to transform ordinary speeches into transformative ones.

Reagan by Max Boot illustrates one of Reagan's most valuable gifts: his ability to communicate simply and compellingly. One technique was writing and collecting his favorite thoughts, jokes, and anecdotes in a large collection of notecards that he added to and referenced throughout his political career.

Super-Infinite by Katherine Rundell is about the 17th-century poet/preacher/provocateur John Donne, whose life and practices are a great model for a creative mind. Donne wrote everything down in his "commonplace books, " enabling a "startling combination of ideas." He lived the concept of lateral thinking; combining astronomy, logic, theology, botany and other topics to create poems and sermons that resonate centuries later.

Novels

Novels don't just tell great stories. They allow you to get deep into the characters' minds to help me improve my empathy toward others.

James by Percival Everett is a dramatic re-imagining of Huckleberry Finn, told through the eyes of his slave Jim, James, as he calls himself. This book is built around a powerful idea: those we think or believe are at the margins are at the center of their own dramatic and powerful journey. We should take the time to listen to those stories.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton is a thriller wrapped around a web of organizational dynamics. It illustrates how people play off each other to find power and extend their own ideas. A complex novel like this one is a wonderful way to explore individuals' motives and see how people push those desires, in this case, to dramatic and violent ends.

The Appeal by Janice Hallett. This mystery is an epistolary novel, told through texts, emails, and notes, without normal prose. It's a hilarious story of a group of players in a small-town acting troupe, which ends in a murder. The plot is over-the-top, but the practice of reading and re-reading texts and emails is something we do each day to find clues and hidden meaning.

Summary:

Lateral thinking is the process of learning from a variety of different areas and non-traditional areas.
Books are a great way to expand your lateral thinking.
Biographies and Novels are excellent sources of ideas and techniques that can help anyone in their own development.

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The Best Way To Expand Your Thinking? Read a Lot of Different Books

A variety of books are the best fuel to enable lateral thinking.

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