Reading and Leadership

The insurance executives who consistently produce the sharpest strategic thinking tend to share a habit that is easy to observe: they read widely and deliberately, well outside the boundaries of the insurance industry.

The best competitive insights in insurance often come from adjacent industries that solved similar problems earlier. The carrier executive who reads deeply about logistics, healthcare administration, or financial services technology sees parallels that an executive who reads only insurance trade publications misses. Cross-pollination is a strategic advantage that costs only the discipline to read intentionally.

The practical objection -- there is no time -- is real but manageable. The most consistent readers I know treat reading time the same way they treat exercise: non-negotiable, scheduled, and protected from the urgency of the inbox. Fifteen minutes a day compounds into a significant knowledge advantage over a decade.

The executive who arrives at a strategy session having read something surprising is usually the one who moves the conversation forward.