The Book Box From Alberta
When I was a kid, every December I used to look forward to a box arriving from Alberta.
My great aunt sent it each year.
She was a retired teacher and a book lover.
The box was full of books, meant to be shared among the extended family in our city.
The system was simple. If you wanted to read one of the books in the box, you penciled your name on the inside cover. When you finished reading it, you’d pass it along to the next person on the list.
The books in the box made their rounds through grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins over the course of the year.
My great aunt loved books and wanted her family to love them too.
She built a clever system with an implicit set of rules and a reason for people to stay connected across the months and miles.
This June, as I contemplated my annual book-share with staff, I thought of my Auntie Margie.
On the last day of school, I set up a table in the common room.
Every June, I usually choose a work-related book for staff to read. But this year I went to our local bookstore’s website and chose an assortment of fiction and non-fiction titles, with something for everyone.
I laid them out and explained the idea, using the same system as Auntie Margie: pencil your name in the front cover if you want to read it, pass it along when you’re done.
Staff wandered in throughout the day. A few asked questions about the book-share idea or struck up conversations about various titles. By the end of the day, many of the books had several names in them, and the books started to disappear.
I don’t know yet whether this will work the way I hope. I don’t know if the books will travel, or if they’ll sit on someone’s nightstand until September.
But as summer begins I keep thinking about how some of the most durable things I’ve ever done as a leader aren’t the things I worked to maintain.
They’re the things I set up and stepped back from.
The systems that ran on their own.
The traditions people carried forward.
I don’t know if my great aunt ever followed up.
She sent the box to her family and let the rest happen.
That’s the whole lesson, I think.
Build the container. Keep the rules simple. Then you get out of the way.
It felt good to remember her this past week. And to share a little of her tradition with the people I work with.
What’s something you’ve built and released into the world?
And what’s something you’re still holding onto that might work better if you let it go?
Auntie Margie would be thrilled to know that you have found a way to pass on the ‘book box’ tradition. She was instrumental in encouraging many generations of book lovers.
It's so great that Margie's book box meant as much to you as it did to my sibs and I when we were young. It's a lesson in how to leave the world a better place.
Dad