‘[Writing] is a craft. It’s no different to knitting or painting by numbers or whatever, you just have to learn the craft. It might take practice and it might take learning a few rules, but, you know, they’re not that scary.’ For Robert Kelsey, writing is an essential business skill…
‘I delighted in writing it. That doesn’t mean I found it easy.’ Time management has been seen as an issue for individuals for too long: Helen Beedham argues that the real issue is systemic. The way that organisations manage and value time, she says, is broken. And it’s not just…
‘Expressing an idea and getting it out there is a very skilful process… the principle is to get the other people as interested in the idea you are.’ Creative work is to a large extent invisible – which makes it tricky for managers to manage. It also means that we’re…
In a world that screams ‘Just Do It!’, inaction has a bad reputation. But sometimes, strategic inaction is exactly what the situation demands – and much more productive in the long run than the rush to do something, anything. In this week’s conversation I talk to Jinny Uppal about how…
Anyone can have an idea for a book. Writing, publishing and marketing it? That means becoming an author, and that involves a whole lot of learning. In this week’s podcast I chat around the virtual campfire to seven members of the Extraordinary Business Book Club – some have just begun…
Back in episode 286, I set out a list of things that editors hate and how to avoid them. Apparently that was very helpful, but lots of people have suggested that I needed to do a more positively focused companion episode, so here it is: what makes editors’ hearts sing?…
“We knew that a handbook had to be incredibly practical… we tried to help people to really work through the stages that you need to think about.” There could hardly be a more important topic for businesses to engage with today than sustainability, and yet most businesses are still at…
‘It starts off as me working out what I think, and then it becomes something I’m going to share with other people… The point at which I allow myself to start imagining a reader is really important.’ Writing isn’t just a tool for communication, and your book isn’t just a…
They told Christian Busch that it would be ‘academic suicide’ to do his PhD on the science of luck. But it turns out that luck isn’t a random force at all: the results may be unpredictable, but the process of becoming luckier is a simple matter of creating more connections…
Whether you need to focus on building your following or your partnerships, or simply be a bit braver at making new connections, there’s inspiration and ideas for you here.