Welcome to the first of our weekly Friday notes in the run up to publication, launch and beyond. We hope you’ll find them useful and we’d love to hear your views.
We’ve been delighted with the feedback from our endorsers and those who read the final draft before it began its journey through the publication process. This quote from Helen Bevan, OBE (Chief Transformation Officer for NHS Horizons) sums it up for us:
“This book is a treasure trove of ideas and practical actions for mid-level leaders. Often when you’re a middle manager, you feel powerless and under pressure from all angles…You feel like you have to have all the answers and worry that if you are uncertain it will be seen as weakness. This book shows how it doesn’t have to be like that. It sets out how to take your power as a mid-level leader and make a difference. I’ve never seen a book like this before, aimed specifically at mid-level leaders. I am going to share it widely.”
The description of how those managing in the middle feel, the lack of support for this critical community in organisations, and the practicality of the book, chimes completely with Diana’s motivation to create Own Your Day. That journey from idea to reality has been fascinating for us both. And the joy of doing this with a co-author is the different perspectives it brings - which has been evident since the outset. So we thought we’d start at the beginning: why and how did we come to write this book together? Let’s start with Diana…
Diana’s story
It was a dark windy December evening just before Christmas when we met at a bar on Brighton sea front, and the door kept swinging open allowing a freezing wind to blow in on us. The annual get together with Julie was not just the usual catch up on work and life over the past 12 months. I wanted to ask Julie something important but had no idea how to begin.
After years working in the private, public and third sectors as a line manager through to board level, I had seen first-hand how some organisations with positive cultures really got the best from people enabling them to flourish. Others that were bureaucratic had much less engaged employees. However, what really struck me was that even in negative cultures, some teams thrived and this was down to individual managers supporting their teams to do their best. Whenever possible I would share examples of things that had a really positive effect but the reality was that the number of people I could reach on an individual basis was quite limited, so the thought of writing a book was born.
Because I had seen how managers succeed with support and encouragement, my aim was to share the examples from other teams which I had seen to be effective in helping managers who were caught between strategy and operational delivery. The thought was to compile simple tools and techniques in a light and easy read, grounded in research into the real and perceived barriers encountered in the workplace.
However, I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. Which brings me back to Julie.
What I wanted to ask her on that December evening was to co-author a book with me. I started off by saying that I had no idea how to ask the question but the answer I expected from her was yes. Having talked through all my reasons for wanting to write the book in a roundabout way hoping that they would resonate with her, I finally asked her if she would co-author the book with me.
With absolutely no hesitation, she said yes! Delighted but surprised, I asked her why. She too had been wanting to write a book and had got as far as talking to publishers but come to the same conclusion as me that she couldn’t do it on her own. We talked about the plight of managing in the middle across all sectors and especially the public sector where she had also been on the board of an NHS Trust witnessing first-hand the glacial pace of progress in some areas. We both cared strongly about managers who are overwhelmingly able but who face barriers that make delivering the expectations of executive teams really hard.
So having found a like-minded individual to write with me, we fixed a date in the New Year for our first brainstorm and the adventure began.
Julie’s story…
I’ve always enjoyed writing. I love words. The lyrical sense of them. The sheer variety we have in the English language. The playfulness of tone. As a teenager it was poems and short stories. The joy of penning a long letter to a pen pal (in the days before email). As life got busier I kept reading, but stopped writing.
Then as my career progressed, I got back into writing. Mainly as an exercise in communicating with teams. And I started to see the benefits of the effectiveness of creative writing at work. Especially as what I was doing centred on leading people through change. Compelling narratives. Storytelling. These were all essential tools to underpin my craft.
The hankering to write a book returned. At one point I semi-retired with a plan to get a Non-Exec portfolio, volunteer for things that mattered to me and write a book. When I tell my three part career story in headlines, this bit is always followed by the throwaway line ‘So I have the Non-Exec portfolio, I still volunteer, but I only got three chapters into the book before I realised I was bored and needed something else to do…’ It works as a narrative bridge to get me to the final part of my story, but it really does the book bit a disservice.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of organisations in my career. Only as I’ve got older can I see the real value in the breadth and depth of that experience, and I realise just what a privilege that is. Such diversity of experiences, perspectives and situations to draw on. A great collection of tools and techniques gathered on the way to reach back into, in whatever unique combination the next scenario requires.
As I started to coach people I realised the richness of these experiences provided narrative and storytelling to help people frame their challenges and think about how they might address them. I began to notice the commonality in the issues that people shared with me and the stories that I returned to again and again. And I started to see trends around the handful of themes which affected all people, no matter what point they were at in their career.
I’m not sure any of this was particularly conscious until, one day, over a drink in a seafront hotel bar in Brighton, Diana - a longstanding contact and good friend of mine - asked if I’d like to write a book with her. My instinctive yes came from this long held desire to write. This feeling that my experiences meant there was something worth saying. I didn’t even ask what we were writing about before I said yes!
She was convinced that those in the middle of organisations needed something practical to help them navigate the pressures they were facing in the world of work. She is curious, has an enquiring mind, reads business books widely and wanted whatever we produced to be grounded in research that she would enjoy doing. I loved that she brought all that to the partnership, because it meant I got the opportunity to write…at last.
Your thoughts…
Other than giving you an insight into our motivation and how we came to start this wonderful journey together, what thoughts has reading this email prompted in you?
Has it inspired you to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard?
To look for a collaborator?
To think about long held ambitions yet to be pursued?
Whatever they are, we’d love to hear about them in the comments section. Simply click on this link to share your thoughts:
Until next Friday.
Best wishes
Julie & Diana
PS You can pre-order your copy of the book via these routes:
Interesting start. Julie’s comments about ‘semi-retirement’ and moving too soon to a NED portfolio career when you want to contribute and do more really resonates. Looking forward to reading more.