In this guest blog, Felicity McLean from Ashoka introduces The Reader Organisation and how they're working to create a reading revolution, instilling and encouraging empathy and community cohesion in companies (and other groups) through reading aloud...

Reading aloud is more than words on a page. Shared Reading interactive groups delivered by The Reader Organisation in health, care, criminal justice, education, corporate and community settings for wellbeing, personal development and community-building, can also be an invigorating team building exercise. It's a slow, almost meditative activity. Don't choose the obvious, says Jane Davis, Founder of The Reader Organisation and newly elected Ashoka Fellow. The beauty of literature is that it can come at things (and people) in unexpected ways.

The Reader Organization is an award-winning charity and social enterprise that has pioneered the movement of shared reading as a practical way of improving wellbeing, building stronger communities and extending reading pleasure. The charitys mission is to build a reading revolution, connecting people with great literature and each other through weekly Get Into Reading groups, facilitator training, events and literary publications (www.thereader.org.uk).

Why should mindfulness and community cohesion matter in the corporate space? Organisation Culture consultants Change The Conversation argue "if an organisation is to be able to improve its performance and to sustain that over time, it has to develop a culture in which communication, energy and ideas can flow around it as they naturally need to."

Shared reading groups demonstrate wide-ranging personal impacts for their members such as improved self-confidence and self-esteem, widened horizons and a sense of belonging. This leads to a stronger sense of personal identity, improved quality of life and steps towards employment. The groups also create strong and safe communities through social participation and help to develop empathy and understanding towards others.

   *  80% feel more positive about life

   *  80% feel more understanding towards other people

   *  94% have an opportunity to interact with people they wouldnt normally meet in their day to day life

Below Jane Davis of The Reader Organisation recommends 4 surprising reads, which can provide essential HR guidance:

1. Michael Drayton's famous end-of-a-love-affair poem: 'Since there's no help come let us kiss and part is a wonderful read-at-work poem, opening up huge areas normally seen as the province of an HR department. Can you keep someone in your team when they want to leave? Should you?

2. Shakespeare's Sonnet 29: 'When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes offers a massive lift-off, arocket-boost to anyone faced with a complex or overwhelming task. Who or what inspires us when we are struggling? Who do you mentally turn to when you are 'in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes?'

3. Perhaps you are thinking of standing down, heading towards retirement or wanting to start over again, older and wiser? Try Edmund Waller's 'Of The Last Verses in The Book':

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,

Lets in new light through chinks that time has made;

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become

4. For those of a more cynical cast of mind, you can't do better than to engage and inspire your team with extracts from Alexander Pope's Essay on Man: 'presume not God to scan/the proper study of Mankind is Man'.

Poetry is all about human values, and almost any poem will offer an opportunity to discuss the personal elements behind every problem and every solution in business. What kind of people are you? Poetry will tell.