I Opened Pandora’s Box!

A bit more than three months ago, I decided to write a book. Not any book, a book on People Strategy and how to scale a startup*.?

I initially thought I would be done by Christmas. Of course! I know my stuff, I have been working on that for the past 4 years. Without counting my 10 years in HR at Google where I have learnt from the “best company to work for” what to do (and not to do) to successfully build a positive and performing company! And I work fast, so how much longer could this take to write a book when I already have most of the content?

Well, I have to say that I’ve had to revise my deadline a few times already. I am now half way through and I decided to take a short break to write this article to at least get something published in the meantime (feels good!) and get some encouragement if possible!

It initially seemed obvious that I could get this done in a couple of months: I had set up time for it (1.5 days per week) and I knew exactly what the content was going to be. I have written a number of articles that I could re-use (here on LinkedIn and other platforms), and I also have a lot of content I developed for my clients. So I thought! The reality is that I opened Pandora's box!

The reason I decided to write this book was to validate my 4 years of experience in the startup ecosystem and to share my learnings. Weird enough, there is a lot of literature for startups around setting up a successful business, not so much about building the right organisation. You hardly find any book that can tell founders what they need to do and at which stage in order to make sure their employees remain engaged and performing as the company scales. So the whole project was promising!

When you start writing a book, there is of course all you already know. But there is also a lot that I didn't see coming (this is my first book so I learn on the way!).?

All this is purely based on my personal experience of writing this book so I have no idea if this can be generalised… but here is goes:

On the less positive side:

• Knowing what you want to say and knowing how to structure it is not the same thing. The time spent in trying to figure out what order made the most sense, or which idea a specific example would illustrate best took me ages. Probably more time than the writing itself!
• Validating your own content is actually a never ending process. I feel like I am in a constant roller coaster: I write something and I feel I nailed it. I read what I wrote and I feel it sucks. I rewrite it and I feel it is better. A week later, I read again in light of the following pages I wrote and it doesn’t make any sense anymore… Aaargh!?
• Being a non native English speaker who always worked in English, I had no choice but to write in English. Writing in French would actually have been impossible, even though it is my native language (I have never worked in French so do not master business vocabulary in French). But, it means that I have to go through several rounds of corrections and verifications before I can feel comfortable handing a copy for reading for feedback (there’s only as much as I am ready to appear dull!). Oh dear, so much back and forth!

All in all, it’s all about time… and I terribly miss-evaluated this!?

On the positive side:

• Writing about the methodology I developed for startups on how to build a positive workplace (that performs) forces me to articulate what is obvious to me into more comprehensible models. This was my initial objective and it is absolutely fulfilled!
• While going deeper into explaining my philosophy, writing also forced me to dig for further information and data. I realised that there was a lot I knew from common sense or general knowledge but where I was missing the data to back it. All this research took me a lot of (unplanned) time, but the learning curve for me has been invaluable!
• The more I research for the book, the more I realise the lack of available knowledge founders have on how to build the right organisation at the right time to support their business expansion. This has reinforced my motivation to create a comprehensive “how to” book for founders and keeps me going on!

The bottom line is a lot of learning and oh boy, this is by far paying off for all the pain mentioned above :-) !

Writing is a journey. I am so grateful for what it has brought me so far. Of course, I am impatient and very frustrated for not having met my initial timelines - even if they were totally unrealistic (but I hate missing deadlines so much!)

I would love to hear about YOUR writing experience… And if you have some interest in people strategies and startup ecosystems, post a comment and I’ll let you know once the book is available!

* If you are interested in the subject , write a comment and I’ll let you know once the book is out. I will randomly pick one of you and send you a copy of the book for free!

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About the author:

Anne Caron is an international speaker, author and People Strategy expert. Drawing on her 10 years' experience as a senior HR executive at Google, she set up her consulting practice in 2015 to support leaders in building high performing and positive organisations. Through her experience working with entrepreneurs, she developed a practical methodology for startups to grow the right organisation and teams, which she describes in her book?From Zero to 1,000: The Organisational Playbook For Startups.

Find out more about Anne Caron:?www.annecaronconsulting.com