Should business professionals read more fiction and if so, why? Dr. Christy Seifert is a professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, and she wrote the 2020 article, The Case for Fiction in the Harvard Business Review. After reading that article, I just had to hear directly from this gifted communicator. I was especially intrigued by her discussion about cognitive agility and acuity along with the concepts and ideas behind cognitive openness.
Interview Highlights
- On being published in The Harvard Business Review
- Is fiction a missing link in business education?
- The use of fiction in medical schools
- Is this a topic we’d be exploring 75 years earlier?
- The reason business leaders do not read fiction – our theories
- What is cognitive ability? How about cognitive agility?
- A deeper dive into cognitive openness
- Empathy and reading
- Design fiction
- Does narrative non-fiction count?
- Ideas for an executive MBA program
Who is Dr. Christy Seifert?
Dr. Seifert has a PhD in English and is a full-time faculty member at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Christy is also an author and she holds the distinction of being the first and only author to have one of her books purchased by the podcast host during the recording of this interview (Whoppers: History’s Most Outrageous Lies and Liars).
I’ve enjoyed reading nearly all of her posts on her website. Her published articles on this topic are included below:
- The Case for Reading Fiction
- What Reading Fiction Can Teach Graduate Students about Empathy and Emotion – co-authored with Russell Clayton
The Medical Community – I Did Not Know That
Early during the interview, Christy mentioned the use of fiction at medical universities which was new to me. If you are curious, here are some articles on this topic that apply to business professionals too:
- Why Doctors Should Read Fiction – The Atlantic
- Reading Can Make You a Better Physician – Op-Med
- Can Reading Fiction Make You a Better Doctor? – in-Training
- While not highly rated, I found the book, The Doctor Stories by Richard Selzer
Books Mentioned on the Show
- Reader Come Home (Christy referenced intellectual rudderlessness during the conversation)
- Stoner by John Williams
- Rebecca by Dephne du Maurier
- Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville
- How Much Land Does a Man Need by Leo Tolstoy
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