Book clubs can be a great way for people to learn more about a subject or concept–if they are designed with that in mind. Unfortunately, many book clubs are poorly designed and lead to entrenched habitual thinking. “How so”, you might wonder? When book clubs ask what people liked and disliked about a book, or what parts seem relevant or irrelevant for their context, it’s very subjective to biases. We are bombarded with information, there’s a lot going on at our workplace and in our lives, and thus it becomes difficult to fully grasp the concepts described in books, particularly the more abstract they are. And any evaluation people give…
Experiential book clubs help people grow, and they’re fun too! :)
In this blog post I go through the differences between conceptual and experiential book clubs. I also share some tips if you’d like to organise an experiential book club for yourself. A few years ago I coached a team that was making a huge effort to reduce their technical debt. I offered to organise a book club around the book Clean code but I was faced with some skepticism. Several team members had participated in book clubs in the past but those had not been valuable. I explained that this book club probably would be different from previous ones they’d attended because this one was going to be experiential. I…