What’s your mission statement? We can get caught up in business – and indeed in business writing – in showcasing ourselves. We airbrush the version of ourselves that we present to others. And in doing so we unwittingly lose the emotional connection, vulnerability and authenticity that actually give us the…
In the 1960s, Professor Laurence Peter articulated the famous Peter Principle: that an employee in a hierarchy tends to be promoted to ‘his level of incompetence’. As he looked at the evidence of women outperforming men throughout education and into the workplace, in the face of the ongoing gender pay…
‘The more people you know, the more stuff you get done. It’s as simple as that.’ But reaching out is an art: targeting the right people, approaching them in the right way, getting over yourself in the first place. In Reach Out, Molly Beck shares her simple, brilliant system for…
Highlights from the last few Extraordinary Business Book Club episodes, with a focus on fixing the problem every writer cares about: how to get going and keep going. I guarantee you’ll find at least one idea here that will get you unstuck, and one thing to make you go ‘ew’.…
Think that what you say on the internet has no impact? Euan Semple says think again. ‘An avalanche only ever happens because the last snowflake falls. If it doesn’t, an avalanche doesn’t happen. Each of our conversations could be a last snowflake.’ Despite the fact that he’s been blogging for…
The gig economy – flexible and empowering, or exploitative and uncertain? Sarah Kessler is fascinated by how work is changing, and her book Gigged follows five very different people over three years and tracks their experiences – good, bad and downright terrifying. In this week’s conversation, we discuss the difference…
Former ad man, CEO of both the Granada and Conran Groups and Chairman of Citigate, Roger Mavity is also a renowned author, artist and photographer. In this conversation we explore the twin struggles of creativity and specifically of writing: the private struggle to articulate the idea, and the public struggle…
We’ve been stuck on the idea of competitive advantage as the key to strategy for a long time now. Paul Skinner thinks it’s had its day. ‘Where competitive advantage assumes that the way to succeed is by being better than others, I believe the way to succeed is by supporting…
Campbell Macpherson hasn’t really stopped grinning since March, when I handed him the Business Book of the Year trophy at the Business Book Awards ceremony. In this week’s show we talk about the impact of winning such a prestigious award (or even just being shortlisted), and how your book can…
“I don’t want people to buy my book.” That’s a sentence I honestly don’t think I’ve heard an author say before, ever. But Barbara Gray’s vision for her second book, Secrets of the Amazon, was very different to that of most authors. It’s part of what she calls high fidelity,…
