Stories Waiting for a Book

One year ago, writing a book seemed like an unsurmountable challenge to me.

Today, I have authored and co-authored 4 books:

• Another Change Fiasco! Now What?: How to work with the 3% to win your change
• Connectivity is Broken! Now What?: How to connect your people for better performance and well-being
• Change is Gridlocked! Now What?: How to combat the six change blockers to succeed with change
• Fix Your Culture! This is How: 5 deep conversations with business leaders who got it done

A lot of people have asked, how I managed to do this.

I can say without hesitation that setting aside the time and having extreme discipline and a daily routine to write is the hard part. For me it has worked well to write in periods, where I have more time in the weekends (which is basically the track and field off-season of my kids), to seek out spaces, where I can be completely alone and to apply outside pressure by communicating about the book creation process externally.

Also, all four books are about topics, I am deeply passionate about – and where I have collected and shared anecdotes over the past 15 years. Stories, I have used in lectures and speeches for decades or shared in short LinkedIn posts.

Stories waiting for a book to be written.

“With Practice it Becomes Easier…” – NOT AT ALL!

After the first and also the second book - a lot of people told me that with practice, it becomes easier to write books.

For me personally, I can just say NOT AT ALL!

After the first book, you know the struggle it takes to write a book.

So, the second book was way more difficult to write. Even though I doubled down on the discipline and the routine.

Number three consolidated the tips & tricks from the two first books, and added +10,000 hours of research as proof.? I needed to figure out the insights in a way that made sense to the reader, so they could, change current ways of working.

For the fourth and final book, I wanted others to tell stories about others have had worked with change, connectivity, and culture. My thinking was that, if they explained it with their own unedited words, then it would be easier to convince other leaders to change practices.

It did not become easier to write books with the practice.

Rather the opposite.

On a side note, I can confirm that the people with those clever comments, have never written a book themselves. So also in this field, people claim to be experts, without knowing anything about what they talk about :-)

Having the Right People with You on the Journey Helps

In the process, I have engaged in conversations with past and current clients and members of the Innovisor community. When I have had small questions, where I needed someone to contribute or challenge with a different view this has been an enormous advantage. The key is, however, to ask for the help. People enjoy helping.

The books are the result of a lot of listening and a lot of helpful people. I have engaged with leaders from ?rsted, Straumann, Novartis, Roche, Santiago Canyon College, MAX, Holcim Trading, COWI, UOC and I am grateful for their support.

Fix Your Culture! This is How, would not have been a reality without Hilton Barbour , as he interviewed business leaders on how they had applied insights into their organizational networks to a wide spectrum of challenges.

Finally, none of the books would have been possible without the brilliant Innovisor team, who has helped with brainstorming, research, visualizations, editing, memorizing anecdotes, highlighting cases and pushing me to deliver on the extreme timelines I naively had committed to publicly.

The Books Are Not the End Goal…

The books have, however, NEVER been the end goal for me.

The change I hope they can drive is a change in the way leadership is practiced. Towards something more human. Where people are seen and listened to.

I am aware that reading a book will never change how people lead, but if they discuss it with peers and eventually apply their learning in practice there is a chance.

We have therefore created FREE downloadable templates, so readers can run book clubs with their peers. We encourage the discussion and the templates include great conversation starters. Hopefully will this ultimately lead to applying it in their own organizations.

We have also created alternatives way of retaining the learning, such as the monthly FREE newsletter, which consolidates cases to learn from. Such as recently how a leadership team improved its cohesion with +30%, or how an organizations succeeded with its post-merger integration.

Finally, we have built an international club - facilitated by Richard Santos Lalleman , where practitioners learn together about new organizational topics every month.

This month the topic is mergers & acquisitions, and we have kept the membership fee at an absolute minimum - EUR 3 per month - so this is not the barrier to turning this into a movement. If you are in OD, Learning or a Management Consultant, I recommend joining.

From the Journey… to a Movement

Personally, I do not envision writing more books in the near future.

Instead, I will return to working with Innovisor clients – and especially dedicating time to our community.

I will also be doing speeches and lectures to share the vision for a better future inside organizations. I have enjoyed the immense learning that writing these four books have brought with them, and I hope you have enjoyed it too.

I will do my part to ignite the movement and I hope you will be with me in the movement as well.

Helpful Links to Join In:

• The FREE Innovisor newsletter. Keeps you in the loop with new developments, insights and cases: https://www.innovisor.com/newsletter/
• The Books, our white papers etc. are available via our webshop: https://www.innovisor.com/shop/
• The Club: https://jeppehansgaard.gumroad.com/l/InnovisorOrganizationalNetworkClub