Yearning for Learning

To efficiently deal with the ever-expanding and potentially overwhelming onslaught of industry-relevant information, you can assign different staff members specific periodicals to religiously read and report on. One staff member might be assigned to Research, another to Barron's, and a third to The Wall Street Journal. The periodicals assigned will depend on the staff member's specific role, i.e., technology-focused team members should be assigned technology-oriented periodicals, investment-focused team members investment-focused periodicals, etc. As the rainmaker, read the most crucial information sources yourself.

The best way to learn something is to teach it; a staff member who knows he or she will be regularly responsible for conveying important information to the group will almost certainly do a better and more focused job. At a once-weekly meeting, the assigned reader can then give your entire team the Reader's Digest version of key articles (and hand out copies if desirable). But the real key here is to require a high standard of reading and reporting. Start out, then, by sitting down with each staff member to go through the periodicals they've been assigned. Point out the things that you think are interesting or important, and perhaps provide a topic list.

While the Internet can be useful here — the person assigned to The Wall Street Journal can have keyword searches established so that relevant articles are directly e-mailed to him or her — it's better to avoid the plethora of online blogs, streaming webcasts and other sources of online financial information. Instead of trying to swallow the entire electronic ocean, simply take advantage of the Internet when it makes sense. Far too many people waste far too much time online, a trap you and your staff should avoid.

Properly managed, such assigned reading and reporting becomes an extraordinary ongoing training exercise. It will help team members understand your overall practice while focusing them on their specific roles. In effect, you'll have an internal clipping service that will keep you informed while substantially lightening your own load.

Read 'Em and Keep

Find a way to make the important information you read — including business books as well as periodicals — available to you and other staff and firm members down the line. Advisors in CEG Worldwide's coaching programs can usually name the last business book they've read, but few can state the three most important points from that book. Why? It's easy enough to read something, but hard to do something about it. People read valuable materials all the time, but then lose this value because they don't draw action steps from it. It gets put into their brain through reading, but soon enough it just disappears from the brain, down time's drain.

So, as you read a book like Jim Collins' Good to Great (2001), highlight text or make margin notes to indicate specific sections that you feel are important. Then give your highlighted or annotated materials to a staff member, who in turn can transcribe your notes and create a computerized file to be distributed or referred to later. Make sure to indicate action steps that flow from the materials and that directly impact your business. If you feel strongly enough about the material, schedule a meeting to discuss it. By ensuring that you'll come back to what's important, you'll ultimately be turning your yearning for ongoing learning into increased earnings.

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Patricia Abram is a senior managing principal with CEG Worldwide, a research, training and consulting firm.