Feniks 15
For the first 15 minutes of each day, everyone at Feniks & Company reads a book.
We go “old school” in this, requiring a book in hand instead of a screen in eye. We spend all day in front of screens, as most people do in this age of electronic information saturation, and a book in hand offers a big difference in perspective by the little fact of its physical form. We believe the physical act of handling a book and turning pages and immersing in the world of text as it was before electricity imparts learning in important ways different from phones and tablets, especially since it is removed from the habit-game of phone scrolling and distraction-response which captures so much of our attention these days. Pick up a book, grab a cup of coffee, cozy up in a comfy chair, turn the pages, feel the paper, forget about the charger, and feel a little better.
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We keep a growing library of books to reference and revisit. The books we read provide a common vocabulary and shared perspective which we put to use in our day-to-day communication. In many ways this serves as a shorthand, and in other ways it provides depth of understanding. Communication is a high value in our company culture, and daily reading helps enhance each person's ability to communicate and comprehend. This is especially true when we have all read a book and thus share a perspective based on a shared experience involving a shared vocabulary as presented by the book.
We value personal and professional development, and we choose books to reflect this value. Melody chooses most books, but anyone can suggest a book. After a book is finished, each Team Member writes a brief book report or essay on what was experienced in the reading. These are discussed openly whenever a Team Member is comfortable with sharing their experience. There's nothing quite like thinking about what you've read and writing about what you think that really sets the learning into you.
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​Some books are jokingly referred to as “Dr. Seuss for business” because they are written in an extremely simple style, almost a nursery rhyme. Like Dr. Seuss, they also convey valuable insights we can apply. While more serious readers might feel almost offended with the simplicity of the writing, the value of the shared experience with the contrasting viewpoints about it is real and beneficial.
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Other books are quite sophisticated and well-researched. Two favorites are Quiet by Susan Cain, and Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson. Quiet gives voice and good counsel to introverted personalities which are so often seen as “lesser” beings in a culture which seems to overvalue loud spectacle and blunt aggression. Surrounded by Idiots is known in the office as “The Color Book” because it sorts people into personality types according to their primary behavioral characteristics in various situations and assigns colors to those types. This provides us with a shorthand vocabulary for communicating about people in an interesting way. Julia might perceive someone, for example, as a “blue” and know not to present that person to someone in a “red” mood. The book title plays on the idea that we each at some time or another get caught in our own way of seeing and being and can't understand someone else's, and the book offers strategies to bridge that lack of understanding.
