These days there seems to be a book club for every interest and covering every genre. Artium is no different, and during quarantine we have recognized how instrumental a company book club has been for not only our professional development, but our personal growth as well. Although still in its infancy, Artium’s book club is off to a strong start. Whether it’s team-building, vulnerability training, time management, or even optimal lifestyle tips, there’s been something for all of us. We even have a couple science-fiction reads tossed in!

We caught up with a few of our team members to learn more about some of their favorites from the book club picks so far. Over the next few weeks, check back in for continued updates on what our Artisans are reading.

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Jake de Grazia, Product Manager

We started our book club by reading Deep Work together. Some of us had read it already with client colleagues, and that had led to an inspiring series of discussions about death by chat app, fear of trying to do our very best work, and wrangling ourselves to focus on one thing at a time. We thought it’d be fun and useful to dig back in with some Artium folks, and thus our book club was born. 

Cal Newport, the book’s author, is a non-violent revolutionary with a worthy cause: he wants us to give more of our time to working like master craftspeople—carefully, thoughtfully, and with undivided attention. His advice on how to “cultivate the deep life” is highly demanding, difficult to execute, and full of common sense. 

Reading Deep Work together has launched lots of little experiments here at Artium, both individual and among teammates. Thanks in no small part to our book club, we are better now at organizing our collaboration to respect each other’s need for peace, quiet, and long stretches of time to focus on our most difficult and important work.

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Alex Maher, Talent Partner

I picked up and read Daring Greatly at a turbulent time in my life before introducing it to our Book Club at Artium. At the time I was navigating a divorce, a new job, and a dark cloud of simply feeling like I wasn’t… good enough for anything. It was one of those books that really made me take stock of where I was at and where I wanted to be as a human being. ‍

Daring Greatly is a book about being able to be courageous and vulnerable in a world that doesn’t believe you should be. So much of what we do here at Artium requires us to be consultative with our clients. Being able to model and exemplify vulnerability, (especially in the face of fear or poorly refactored code) is something that carries a lot of weight and gravitas in our practice. I highly recommend teams pick up this book if they’re wanting to create more vulnerability, greater authenticity, and better psychological safety for themselves and others. You won't regret it.

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