My boss recently bought a couple of books that he expected my team to read.
In the past when previous bosses have done this, I've generally gained a lot out of reading the books, even if I disliked some aspects of their arguments I've been able to get a lot of insight from the arguments and evidence presented.
But this book is complete garbage. Truly first rate trash. It barely qualifies as a book. Conquer Your Rebrand, is ostensibly meant to be a business strategy guide to branding. But it is more like a long winded LinkedIn post. It's clearly an attempt by the author to fill his sales pipeline that's barely disguised as him passing on 'expertise.' It presents no compelling arguments, no evidence, is severely lacking in any sort of citations and is written like someone desperately trying to flog a timeshare at a weekend convention. I have redlined the shit out of it but I got so infuriated reading it that I can't imagine how to have a decent discussion with my boss about this book without seeming like my low opinion of this book reflects back on him (which in reality it really does.)
I think it's so much worse because I just finished two brilliant books on my own time —Jack Welsh: The Man Who Broke Capitalism and When McKinsey Comes To Town: The Hidden Influence of The World's Biggest Consulting Firm — that both present compelling arguments, detailed referencing and excellent writing.
How would you handle this?
Real talk, are you getting paid to read this book? Like, on company time, or you're expected to read it after work?
This entire concept of reading a book for work sounds awful to me. Ive only ever had one boss buy me books, and it was just because they were friends with the authors and got us signed copies. There was no expectation that we would actually read them, and they were not all that relevant to our work.
Yeah, it's pretty normal to be given readings in my role as part of my cpd. There's no way to read them on company time so I typically read them after work or on weekends. I don't love it.
Company tasking happens on company time.
Don't simply accept abuse.
This sounds aweful.