Reading Groups: The Book Stops Here

An HR expert tells how her company has started voluntary reading groups to explore new team-building techniques.

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Three years ago employees at Wilton, a $65-million industrial-products manufacturer based in Palatine, Ill., hit a snag in their team-building efforts. Did they give up? Nope. They read a book. "It was an economical way of getting topics onto the discussion table," says human-resources-development facilitator Rachel Pankow. The book, The One Minute Manager Builds High-Performing Work Teams, by Ken Blanchard, Donald Carew, and Eunice Parisi-Carew, helped guide employees through some rough spots and started a tradition at Wilton: the company now holds voluntary reading groups. "We like to try to make changes related to what we're reading," says Pankow. For example, Tom Peters's Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations led to some lasting improvements in customer service. "For the money we invest, we really get a lot out of the discussion groups," says Pankow.

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Donna Fenn

Inc. contributing editor Donna Fenn is the author of Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit From Their Success (McGraw-Hill, 2009). Both this blog and the book examine the ways in which GenY is changing the entrepreneurial landscape with new approaches to starting, growing, and managing their companies. Learn more at http://www.upstartsrock.com/.

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