Lessons I've Learned From Being an Author: You Can't Do It Alone

As a change expert, I am often called upon to share my expertise through speaking engagements, workshops, and consulting projects. However, I have also written two books: My Who Rocked the Boat? business parable and Change: How to Turn Uncertainty into Opportunity (which includes the parable) as a co-author alongside other FranklinCovey experts Andy Cindrich, Marché Pleshette and Christi Phillips.?

With the latter having just launched this week on 18th April, after years of effort, I have been feeling reflective about the journey.

When I first started the author journey, I thought my in-depth knowledge and client experience as a change expert would make the writing easy.?I'm very used to relying on that expertise, finding ways to deliver concepts to audiences in a way that is both practical and engaging. So, transferring that to a book seemed like an easy, logical next step, right??

Not quite! When we started writing my first book, I had a rude awakening: My knowledge was not enough to make authoring a book a simple undertaking.?

I learned that becoming an author is not simply a matter of gathering existing knowledge and putting it into written form. It is also about synthesizing that knowledge into a cohesive, easy-to-follow format that readers can understand and apply to their own situations. This was all new to me.

In the spirit of the journey the riverboat crew go on in Who Rocked the Boat?, over the coming weeks I plan to share what I’ve learned about the journey of being an author- how it’s shaped, challenged, and enriched me.

Here is the first…

Collaboration is Key

The topic and experience of change is universal, unifying people across industries, continents, and cultures. So, ensuring the ideas, frameworks and stories were understandable, relatable, and clear to everyone- whatever their role or background- was incredibly important. And you can't achieve that alone.

To be human is to be biased. As such, to avoid falling into the trap of creating a narrative or sharing advice which leaned too heavily into one individual’s worldview or made assumptions about experience, we needed the diverse efforts and perspectives of a collaborative team.?

Readers can’t ask you for clarification or to expand on a subject - communication in a book is a one-way street. I needed my co-authors to help me clarify my ideas, ensure it was engaging, and most importantly, make the language and concepts accessible.?

When you’re authentically open to others’ influences and value, not fear, their differences, you learn to welcome and in turn learn from them, cooking up something spectacular.?Even books that have a single author on the title will have found a way to gain input and insights from others – researchers, reviewers, or others.

What I'm describing here is the idea of collaboration, collecting and sharing ideas, leveraging the value from others --- or ‘synergy’ as we call it at FranklinCovey.?

Synergy is something you can go your whole life without experiencing, mostly because so many of us don’t seek it out. It is a know-it-when-you-feel-it experience, but there are also three criteria common to synergistic interactions which you and your teams can be intentional about cultivating. They are:

• A clear, unified understanding of the end in mind
• Seeking first to understand, then to be understood
• Being open to finding third alternatives together, rather than compromising or conceding

Stephen R. Covey sums it up best:?“Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand! It's the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.”?

I am particularly grateful for my co-authors, researchers, and writers that help capture, simplify, and clarify our message on change.?