The Extraordinary Business Book Club

We often say that something raises more questions than answers as if that's a bad thing - but perhaps it's a more dangerous state of affairs when we have more answers than questions.  Many of the recent conversations in the Club have focused on the power of writing to identify and explore good questions, and the work that needs to be done to communicate the answers.  Hear from:  Gillie Bolton on t...

'The writing process took about four years and the actual material gathering for the book probably took more like 15 years...' Sarah Rozenthuler, psychologist, leadership consultant and pioneer of purpose-led leadership, has been working for many years now with individuals, teams, and organizations. In this week's conversation we discuss how purpose plays out at those three levels, and also how wr...

"As writers, what we need to do is find an occasion when that usher is off duty and we can get up there and nip behind the curtain." Gillie Bolton essentially founded the discipline of reflective practice, having discovered for herself that writing allowed her to go behind the curtain that separates so much of our mind's inner workings from the 'stage' that we present to the world.  She tells me m...

'It is good to speak to the future, the future will listen.' Those were the words of Ptahhotep, an ancient Egyptian vizier, who lived back in the 25th century BC. He was right - more right than he probably imagined in his wildest dreams: because he wrote those words down (well, OK drew them as hieroglyphs), he is heard so many thousand years later.  But writing as speaking to the future isn't just...

'I have a lot of enthusiasm. I bring in so many things and often the reader [is] like, where are we going?' Jonas Altman finds writing hard. Which is lucky for us, because he's done the work to discover a way through, and he generously shares it all in this conversation.  From identifying the protagonist to finding flow, from working with an editor to a more fluid approach to footnotes, he sets ou...

"When you're trying to create something, when you're trying to change something, when you're trying to think differently about something, writing for me is the way that you unravel the spaghetti... you end up with some really clear, precise thinking that... moves the thing forward." As Chief Envisioning Officer at Microsoft (yes, really) and now as a consultant Dave Coplin sees his role is as a 'p...

So many people [are] skimming the surface of what they can be and do in the world. And I was too. So often in life and at work it can feel as if we're surrounded by people who are disengaged and disconnected, half asleep and half alive. Sometimes, if we're honest, we ARE those people.  Dr Alise Cortez has spent years studying engagement - or the lack of it - and has dedicated herself to helping pe...

'A town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore, it knows it's not foolin' a soul.' - Neil Gaiman, American Gods For most booklovers, bookshops - especially independent bookshops, that care about their books and their readers, stock just what you didn't know you wanted, and provide recommendations for your Next Big Read - are places of pilgrimag...

'With a book you're not just paying for the pages you read, you're paying for someone to make the rest of the world shut up for a minute while you can concentrate.' Uri Bram knows a thing or two about the value of content and attention. He curates the internet, after all, as the publisher of The Browser and The Listener ('the absolute dream job'). He's also the author of Thinking Statistically , a...

'If you are in a position of real power and authority, it's the dialogue with yourself that defines your capacity to run an organization.' Dr Pippa Malmgren - economist, entrepreneur, innovator and advisor - returns to the podcast on the publication of The Infinite Leader to talk about how leadership is evolving, and about how her own and her writing partner Chris Lewis's approach to writing has e...

In some ways every week on the Extraordinary Business Book Club we're talking about the results of a book-writing experiment - and many books are themselves the results of fascinating experiments in business and life. In this Best Bits episode we don our white coats and safety glasses and head fearlessly into the laboratory to watch the magic happen in the company of some of our most recent resear...

Cath Bishop has performed at the highest standard in three very different fields: sport, international negotiation, and business coaching. An Olympic medallist and world champion herself, she has seen first hand the intense highs and lows of competition - how it serves us as humans, and how it doesn't.  We are as a culture obsessed with winning. The word has seeped through our language across spor...

"We are bombarded every single day by buzzes and dings and notifications... I wanted to help people find some simple ways to reclaim the power of their decisions instead of reacting all the time, to take a breath or to set up some simple rules and systems that they could use to make better decisions for their life, for their business." Rob Hatch had been training to write a book for nine years wit...

"Some days it feels like an emotional connection with the people who need to hear it. And those are good article days... it's a great pleasure when people write back saying, Oh, that just hit the mark for me today. That was exactly what I needed to hear. Did you write it just for me? And I'm like, No, I wrote it for me, but I'm glad it helps you." Zoë Routh has been writing all her life, but she s...

The best business books include powerful stories that get across key points in a memorable, engaging way. What if we could make those stories accessible to more people, more easily? That's the vision that prompted Shuhrat Ashurov to create Storypack, a microlearning app that gives people in business access to a library of stories from business books and also encourages them to add their own.  Shuh...

'Failure can be quite a deceptive word... misadventures feels like a much more forgiving word that allows you to go off and try stuff.' Gayle Mann and Lucy-Rose Walker have supported thousands of entrepreneurs in their work with Entrepreneurial Spark and beyond, and if there's one thing they've learned it's that the reality of being an entrepreneur is very different from the version portrayed on s...

"Being open to the journey of innovation of your own book is really important..." Someone told Elvin Turner as he prepared to write his first book to expect two things: first, that he would have a ton of new ideas, and second, that as he forced those ideas onto the page, they would simplify, and simplify, and simplify.  Turns out they were right, and Elvin revelled in the 'IP generator' that his b...

Imposter syndrome gets a bad rap, but it can be rocket fuel, says Rita Clifton. 'It's a drive, you know, go with it and use it.... you worry that you're not going to be good enough, and you stretch yourself. That's when you grow most.' As well as talking about her own extraordinary career, from a working-class family to Cambridge and then on to top roles at Saatchi & Saatchi, Interbrand and more,...

Q: What do you get when you throw together a bunch of people all working on different business writing projects into a 2-week virtual retreat?  A: Lots, it turns out.  If you're listening to this podcast you already know how valuable writing is for your business, but that doesn't mean it's easy. In this special episode, eight participants in the most recent Practical Inspiration Virtual Writing Re...

'Writing is a way of doing something physically while thinking deeply, it's a container for deep thought in your life. If you think about it that way, it's a really wonderful thing to make time for in your life.' Anne Janzer's mission is to 'help people spread important ideas by writing'. In this conversation we talk about why that matters and what it looks like in practice. What IS the process of...

Yes it's a cliché that writing is a journey, but that's because it's TRUE. In this week's Best Bits episode I look back over the last few conversations in The Extraordinary Business Book Club and highlight the ways in which my guests have been shaped and changed, and moved forwards in their lives, by the experience of writing their books. Do you recognise any of these?  Tom Cheesewright on how wor...

How are events changing in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, and what does that mean for you if you're an author?  Award-winning events producer Sasha Frieze talks about how digital events are evolving, what the hybrid event of the future might look like, and the opportunities and challenges for speakers and authors in this new world.  From how (and when) to pitch for a speaking gig to smart t...

In a pandemic, we discover that we can do things we'd never imaged we could. Companies that have told staff for years that they can't work at home have discovered that in fact they can, Tony Crabbe discovered that he could write a whole book in 16 days, and Hachette discovered that they could publish a book three weeks after it was delivered. In this week's conversation Tony reflects on what he (a...

'Systems transform lives.' After discovering the power of systems and processes in her career with McDonalds, Marianne Page now spends her time teaching small business owners that life-changing systems and processes aren't just for big companies.  We also talk about the joy of management, the power of the deadline, and the smart way to write a book... 

'It's part of building a physical legacy. The work that I do now, working with people all the time, you are aware of the changes that people make in their lives, but I've also been rather envious of this friend of mine who's an architect and he was showing the portfolio of all the buildings that he's been designing; you know, to write a book is, is part of a legacy, not only for your children, but...