'Mom, why don't you just write it like you talk to me?' When Laura Hamill set out to write a book about the subject she knew best - the subject she'd spent years researching in theory and practice - she naturally drew on all the studies, statistics and evidence she'd gathered together to support her argument. Turns out, that's not what the reader n…

'As we lean into artificial intelligence across every sector of business and life, how do we ensure that we're delegating the right things and keeping responsibility for the right things? And specifically, how do books and writing play into that?' In this best bits episode, I'm exploring the role of writing in human intelligence in a world where it…

'They think the goal is to have the book, but no, the goal is to become the person it takes to write your book.' Dan Kieran is a publishing legend: as a co-founder of Unbound he revolutionizing the industry by empowering authors and readers. He learned a lot about himself and about setting up a business along the way, and he brought all that togeth…

'I think we are living in a renaissance of the book... AI is changing how we are looking at trusted knowledge.' getAbstract is one of the leading corporate learning platforms, and it's based on books. The founders met with a lot of resistance from publishers in the early days, but their vision of making the knowledge in books discoverable and actio…

"As she was coached during a 15-minutes conversation, she put down each of those worries and at the end of it she was standing there in her full potential and I was like, wow, that's amazing. I want to learn how to do that." If there's a foundational text of executive coaching it's Coaching for Performance by Sir John Whitmore, first published in 1…

'Nice is about telling people what they want to hear. Kind is about telling people what they need to hear.' Graham Allcott's back on the podcast and all is well with the world once again. This time he's talking about the transformative power of kindness in the workplace. Many assume that leaders need to belong to Team Screw-Them-All-And-Be-Evil to …

'The majority of people think their life would be better if they were more creative, but they don't know how.' There are lots of books on creativity out there, but surprisingly few at its intersection with everyday business, what Sue Unerman and Kathryn Jacob call 'pragmatic creativity'. So they developed a series of practical techniques and struct…

'We're on the edge of really very exciting things, but also tremendous risks at the same time.' Whether you're an AI enthusiast or it fills you with existential terror, this conversation will challenge your perspectives and elevate your understanding of our increasingly super-smart world. Futurist Patrick Dixon has been predicting AI for 25 years, …

'We have this image of a reader being someone who's giving time and attention to our words... but online that doesn't happen.' Anna Faherty found out the hard way that there were no books to help her teach a course on 'digital storytelling' - so she had to write her own. And if you're trying to write a business book then much of what she tackles in…

'I'm going to tell you how you should be doing it, but it's up to you to do it. But I'm going to dress it up in a way where the message might land 15 minutes later when you're on the bus going to town. And you're like, Oh, that's what he meant.' It takes courage, tact and humour to point out to a leader not only that there might be an issue with th…

'It's that little extra something that makes the ordinary into extraordinary and the impossible into the why not?' When her son was diagnosed with autism at the age of 10, it was what former head of trading and executive coach Alina Addison calls her 'butterfly moment'. While she accepted the diagnosis, she says, she didn't accept the prognosis, wh…

In a world that celebrates speed and working smart, adopting AI solutions and smashing simple success metrics, it can feel not just challenging but unhelpful to diverge from received wisdom. But if we're going to create anything of real value - in business, in writing, even in sport - we need to be ready to take the less-traveled path. Because that…

David B. Horne, creative accountant and author of the award-winning Add Then Multiply: How small businesses can think like big businesses and achieve exponential growth, has a multidimensional perspective on the Business Book Awards as entrant, finalist, winner and now judge. He also knows a thing or two about the power of books for business growth…

Our definition of success has led us to a place that's actually constrained us from exploring what we're capable of. We're not getting the innovation or the collaboration that we want. We need to think about things differently.' If you're enthralled by the drama of the Paris Olympics, here's a thoughtful take on what you might be missing if you're …

'It's an unfair advantage to have a platform, it massively helps, don't get me wrong. But it's totally possible to do it without one.' When Hasan Kubba and Ash Ali got together to write 'The Unfair Advantage: How you already have what it takes to succeed', they assumed they'd self-publish. They even put up a 'lean' version of the book on KDP. But a…

'Embrace AI, but also make sure that you evolve as an individual and you understand the art of the possible while still staying grounded in the art of the practical.' Implementing AI in your business isn't easy, but NOT implementing it could be disastrous. Sol Rashidi is a former C-suite executive turned AI consultant who knows more than most about…

Henry Mintzberg is quite simply a legend, and my personal business thinking hero. When I was studying his writings for my MBA I could only have dreamed that one day I'd be chatting about writing to him on my podcast - and sometimes when dreams come true, the reality is even better than you dared imagine. Along with the nuances of management theory …

Journalism is changing, which means journalists have to change too. And a great example of this is the way that BBC reporter Dougal Shaw has reinvented his own role from pure video journalism, transforming what started as corridor conversations with business leaders who happened to be visiting the BBC into a high-profile series that runs on rolling…

'This is the moment to embrace authentic neurodiversity inclusion as a core organizational value. It isn't the whole solution to anything, but it is part of the solution to nearly everything.' As we hurtle towards the workplace of the future, where human and machine intelligence will interplay in ways we can't yet fully imagine, one thing is clear:…

'We can't really understand what failure teaches us until we achieve success after failure. So it's the success actually, that is more instructive.' If you're navigating business or personal growth challenges, this episode could be a game-changer. Rob Hatch challenges the widely accepted narrative that failure is our greatest teacher. Instead, he a…

At this risk of going a bit meta, this is a brilliant conversation podcast about how brilliant podcast conversations are… Michelle Glogovac is an author and host of the My Simplified Life podcast, and a frequent guest on other podcasts. She’s passionate about the special, intimate connection that podcasts create between authors and their readers, a…

‘That last pillar before you go make your decision: is it ethical? What's the effect it's going to have? The feedback I've got from a lot of people was, oh, I never really thought about that.’ While ethics has become more talked-about in business, it might not be something you’ve considered as a factor in your business writing. But you should. In t…

‘So they go, “Hang on, I've got to look confident… I have to have all the answers,” which is the worst place to come from.’ Becoming a first-time CEO is a lonely experience, and David Roche (who’s got that particular t-shirt himself) believes every new CEO should be assigned a coach and mentor, because if we expect our leaders to have all the answe…

'We basically treated legal compliance as a proxy for ethics, which has never really been a particularly good fit.' I think we can all agree the world is ready for some fresh perspectives on the ethical obligations of the business world: Alison Taylor is here to provide them. All too often there are stark differences between company statements and …

"Do what you can in the circumstances you are given right now. And don't wait for the systems in the world around you to change in order to get some life into your life." Most of us are only too familiar with 'languishing' - the opposite of flourishing. It was when Adam Grant wrote his famous 2021 New York Times article that we all recognised it as…

'For an academic book, you are looking to demonstrate that you stand on the shoulders of giants. For a practitioner book, you ARE the giant... But you're not the first giant.' Meredith Norwich is a senior acquisitions editor at Routledge, part of Taylor and Francis Publishing, and she has seen a LOT of business book proposals. What makes a proposal…

I’m just back from an exhausting, exhilarating few days at London Book Fair. My ears are still ringing slightly, my feet hurt, I need to spend a few days on my own in a darkened room and I can’t even tell you how many follow-up actions are on my to-do list – in other words, it was a great Fair. But what does that mean? As publishers, we at Practica…

Louise Brogan helps entrepreneurs and professionals elevate their LinkedIn game. In this week's conversation she explains why LinkedIn is so important for businesses and why most people are so dreadful at it. From fundamental mindset to the most effective tactics right now, it's a masterclass in maximising your profile on LinkedIn without losing yo…

"It was fantastic, just as a sheer exercise in putting something out there and being brave and saying, these are my thoughts, what does everyone else think?" Lucy Adams spends her days helping HR leaders reimagine their profession, and her classic work HR Disrupted and its sequel, The HR Change Toolkit, are critical to this mission. Her message is …

'The beautiful part of it, which is also the hardest and the most painful part, is the editing... [if] you put a book out into the world which will be around longer than you, you might as well put in the effort to get it right.' David McQueen has never been one to shy away from tough conversations. In his book, The BRAVE Leader, he challenges all l…

Following last week's quadricentennial episode, a slightly belated but still brilliant best bits episode, showcasing the shiniest gems from the last few Extraordinary Business Book Club conversations. The theme is pushing through discomfort, and it brings together extraordinary stories, illuminating insights and gloves-down challenges from: Errol D…

How can I start running when I absolutely hate running? What's your one big, albeit lesser known, tip for writing your first book? Have you tried smoked chili peanut butter yet? When I put out the call for questions for this quadricentennial episode, I could never have imagined the response. From the playful to the profound, these questions have go…

"You have to get in front of what you're writing. You have to look at it and you have to type a key. If you don't, it's just not going to happen." Errol Doebler knows a thing or two about discipline. He's been a Naval Surface Warfare officer, Navy SEAL officer, FBI special agent and SWAT operator before founding his leadership consulting firm Ice C…

"We've been innovating forever, before digital formats came along... in a way we have some of the natural abilities we need. We need to remember that and not be too scared when new things come along." Publishing is an industry that runs on creativity and intellectual property. So how are book publishers responding to the challenges and opportunitie…

'It's an uncomfortable struggle to land that title of the book, land that sharp, sticky center of the life brief, but it is so worth it.' As a brand strategist, Bonnie Wan knows how to put together a creative brief that makes meaning out of mess, that goes straight to the essence of what a company is really about. So when she reached a moment of cr…

"The vast majority of business owners would happily spend 99% of their time creating and recreating and tweaking and iterating on the product side of things, because we know how to do that, we feel of service when we do that. But in order to help people, or to do the work that you love, you have to also talk about it." For many small business owner…

'It's the stories we respond to in life. It's people's stories we respond to, and then... you can tease out the lessons. You don't go for the theory head on.' There are many, many books about creativity: what it is, how to do it, what steps to follow. When journalist and arts administrator Sir John Tusa turned his attention to the topic, he took a …

"If you're thinking about writing a book... that's a gorgeous, sexy goal, but it's very unlikely to happen as long as it stays an outcome, a goal, in that form. But if you start to ask yourself, Okay, what's the process that's going to lead to that outcome? Then it starts to get real.' When you tell people you're a publisher, you discover pretty qu…

'Sometimes it's just writing to get it out... you can almost interrogate it more. You can hold it in your hand and you can explore it and you can look at it and then maybe it becomes something or maybe it doesn't.' Having a good idea is a great place to start when you're writing a business book. But it's only a start. Then comes the real work: test…

Kathryn Bishop, CBE and Gillian Camm are seasoned members of both private and public sector boards. And they've learned that effective governance comes down not to rigid structure and process but to one of the most ancient human skills of all: conversation. Conversations on the right topics, with the right people, in the right way. So it made sense…

'That book that's for everyone is for no one, right?' Naren Aryal is laser-focused on the business of publishing for business. In this week's episode he talks to me about how Amplify Publishing Group developed from a single title to one of the world's leading business imprints, the unique goals and expertise of business authors, and why it's so imp…

"Business books are unique because they are in that sweet spot between business activity and creative endeavour, that’s why I love them so much, that’s why I do this podcast, that’s why you’re here. It’s a beautiful thing." Too often, people see writing a business book as something comletely different from business itself. It's not. In this best bi…

"I started where I think a good marketer should start, by asking some people to read the book and give me their feedback." Luan Wise, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing with over 20 years of experience in B2B and B2C sectors, is an expert on all things social media. She's also become something of an expert on writing and publishing bu…

'If I'm not doing my own writing, I'm not properly thinking.' You'll be familiar with the idea of visual identity in branding: but what about verbal identity? John Simmons, director at Interbrand, recognised that the language you use as a business is just as important - if not more so - as the logo, colours and fonts. He also realised that most bus…

"Unless you have a way to differentiate, then you don't really have any sort of justification for putting out yet another book." There's not much Josh Bernoff doesn't know about writing business books. And he knows that differentiation is everything. Whether it's your unique perspective or a groundbreaking solution, finding your distinctive edge ma…

Ginny Carter, experienced ghostwriter and award-winning author in her own right, discovered when judging the self-help category for the Business Book Awards that authors were consistently making the same mistakes. The answer was obvious: write a great self-help book explaining how to write a great self-help book! In this super-practical episode, Gi…

'The problem that you have here, it's not a writing problem. It's a thinking problem.' When Adrian Hornsby faced the challenge of how to convey complex business information in a way that resonated with readers, he drew on his background in writing fiction for theatre to bring dense business concepts to life. But he quickly learned that using a stor…

'Motivation is what drives your choice of what to do, and also how hard you try and how long you keep trying for.' With a wealth of experience in coaching and training leaders from top multinational companies like Airbus, Google, and Audi, Catherine Stothart has developed a deep understanding of what motivates individuals and teams. Understanding t…

"Oh, this is why people write books. This is actually quite addictive, this feeling that you've produced something and it is having an impact." Katie Lewis and Matthew Stafford are the co-founders of 9others, a unique community that brings together founders and entrepreneurs to find answers to the questions that are keeping them up at night. These …

'I thought it was going to be a 20% update and I think the content has changed by about 80%.' This might sound familiar to anyone who's sat down to update their book. But this conversation isn't just for you if you're considering a second edition: Karen Williams is talking about her bestselling Book Marketing Made Simple, and this conversation is p…