The Extraordinary Business Book Club

'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 writing Powered by Purpose drew not only on her own experience but involved the input of a team of supporters and challengers. We also discuss how her practice as a reflective practitioner enabled her to capture insights and questions that would otherwise be lost over those years.

"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 more about how her own journey, about why six minutes is the perfect length of time for an initial exploratory writing session, and how her Quaker values infuse her own writing and work.  A joy of a conversation. 

‘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 about writing for posterity. In this episode we explore exploratory writing - the kind of writing you do for future you, rather than a future reader. How can we use writing as a tool and framework to help us think more clearly and more creatively? This kind of writing - where you are your only reader - is your secret weapon in a world where the future is so uncertain and the pace of change so fast. 

'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 out his writing journey with soul and humour.  Uplifting listening. 

"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 'pragmatic optimist', helping companies reimagine themselves with the help of technology. The Covid pandemic has accelerated this process, and one of its legacies will be a willingness to break from outdated processes and embrace new possibilities.  He's also pragmatic when it comes to writing, recognising that it's a low-tech but incredibly powerful thinking tool in the digital age. And that, as he says, when you put words together in the right way - on the stage or on the page - they make things possible.  Honest, insightful and very, very funny. 

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 people realise the brutal truth: this is your one precious life, and it's up to you to make something of it.  In this conversation we talk about why 'passion' and 'purpose' have become such problematic words, the importance of enthusiasm and vulnerability, why talking is such a valuable tool for writing, and why writing is an infallible guide to show you what you don't know.  Wake up and be inspired. 

'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 pilgrimage. Yet they're under threat like never before, closed in the face of COVID and battling the might of Amazon, with its staggering inventory, low prices and seductively easy ordering. Faced with the bleak vision of the end of bookshops on the high street, publisher Andy Hunter and the American Booksellers Association decided to put up a fight. They created bookshop.org, a B-Corp dedicated to matching Amazon's logistical might but with a key difference: their profits would go not into one man's already over-full pockets but be shared with the wider book ecosystem, and especially independent bookstores. Bookshop.org is now in the UK, and in this conversation I talk to Jasper Sutcliffe (formerly at Foyles) about how it works, why it matters, and how to make the most of it as an author as well as a reader. 

'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 self-published surprise bestseller (and noone was more surprised than Uri...) In this conversation we discuss why statistical literacy matters more than ever, why less is more valuable than more, and why books keep us sane in a world of infinite distraction. Shut up, world: I'm reading. 

'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 evolved too. This is a masterclass in reader-centred writing, in fusing creative, philosophical thinking with practical application, and in ego-free collaboration. 

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 researchers...  Anne Janzer on how her marketing career proved the lab in which she refined her writing experiments Zoë Routh on starting early and the endocrinology of writing in flow Rob Hatch on the research findings of a long-term newsletter experiment Elvin Turner on introducing user experience research into writing for explosive results Cath Bishop on narrative fusion - bringing together different strands of experience in the white-hot heat of the writing lab Rita Clifton on distilling ideas, the Wall of Content and the application of the seat of the pants to the chair Gayle Mann on the importance of finding your own best way to conduct your writing experiment Shuhrat Ashurov on the alchemy of stories and a lifetime of experimenting with storytelling.