The Potency of Discernment: Why People No Longer Read

Experience is a magnificent instructor.

With that alone a lie has never been told.

We live within a global eco system with access to unlimited information, readily available within nano seconds. The evolution around us can do one of two things, propel our curiosity to achieve greater accomplishments or create workarounds to do less.

Noticing first hand within the legal profession, contract development specific to clinical trials CRO's, clients, coworkers including upper management do not like to read emails, contracts, SOPs, processes, workflows etc...

Have You To Noticed Within Your Profession, People Do Not Like To Read ?

To my admission, within an employee setting this drives me crazy that people do not like to read. But entrepreneurial I have a lot more patience and grace for non-readers. I can tell you why if you are interested (under one of my post on instagram comment "Patience and Grace" and I will know that you want me to expend on this ). I have noticed this decline in reading for the last 8 plus years and I was curious to know if I was the only one who was experiencing this and I was surprised to see a few articles on this subject matter and some statistics backing this up. For specificity, the research focused on people who do not like to read books. I was searching for people who do not like to read in general but there were no stats of such. I had to pause and think...WAIT...People may not be willing to fully disclose the fact that they do not like to read due to FOMO (fear of missing out) as this admission may impact their business and/or careers.

Ask yourself would you knowingly hire a person within a certain business capacity such as law, that admitted that they did not like to read? Would you want to spend your time teasing this out or would you spend your time seeking out professionals that you know would advocate for you zealously ?

Data Provided On Why People Do Not Like To Read

One of a few articles with data I read, stated that distractions of the internet is what's keeping people away from reading. Other data shared, video games, Ipads , lack of time , they can watch the movie and "reading is too much work" as reasons for the decline in people not wanting to read.

The articles goes on to share that"People don't see the point of reading".

There are some people who truly believe there is nothing to gain by reading.

Partially, I believe according to the data, the dislike for reading books is the cover.

Therefore, "don't like reading books" is shrouded within these very same people, do not like to read at all. If you do it in one place, most likely you do it everywhere.

If you are a non legal professional, you need to hire either an attorney or a paralegal especially if above applies to your unique situation. The way a legal professional read, is not the same way a non legal professional read nor comprehends.

Center-embedding isn't for the inexperienced and it's certainly throughout contractual context.

I would recommend that if law isn't your field of study nor practice, you should outsource all of your contractual negotiations. How can you identify non readers on your team that are playing the role you may ask. When a team member must read and respond to a redlined section within an agreement as they are a business partner who may own a certain section within the agreement push back, "houston we have a problem".

People who do not like to read will object, reject, re-direct, reverse engineer and delegate even their very own task in a multitude of ways.

3 Ways People Who Do Not Like To Read Show Up In The Workplace : Pay Close Attention To These Deceptive Practices

1. Your co-workers will send multiple email replies even when the initial 1st email you sent will suffice, the email you sent is resolute and is well articulated. This is that co-workers attempt to exhaust you into giving them the answer with no due diligence on their part. They want to frustrate and exhaust you into doing their job. This is a set-up for "Jenny told me x,y,z, here it is in a email/writing". I'm sure most if not all of the context you provided will be missing misleading and manipulating the escalation point of contact to favor their position. This kind of person is very calculated and is usually supported by a workplace culture. If you do not do it their way, you may be fired. People who do the bare minimum stick together hence they travel in large numbers. This tactic will work if you have weak management.

2. These team members become argumentative. Instead of them admitting that maybe they didn't comprehend the request or know how to do it (even though it's their job) they will intentionally be confused, triggered and rude.

3. People who do not like to read escalate to management a ton! This is their attempt at moving the bulls eye off of them as being the bottleneck which in most cases they are indeed the reason why a project has come to a full stop or slow movement of task completion.

Food For Thought

You cannot work effectively within the legal profession and not like to read .

More than half of the careers within the legal profession requires reading and comprehension.

If you are not in the legal profession and you do not like to read, you should outsource all of your contractual needs.

Advantage And Leverage Is Removed From The Table When You Aren't Advocating And Negotiating At Top Tier.

Goggle does not compensate for skill within the legal/contracts profession.

Hence why to this very day, we spend a lot of time, energy and money to stay educated within our legal profession. The best way to conduct successful contractual business outcomes is to connect with a legal and contract acumen.

Employer, clients, customers and/or business leaders, please stay within your scope of skill leaving the rest to us when it comes to top tier legal and contractual advocacy.