Take a day off
It's finally released
Hey.
I hope you are doing safe and well, and having a good week. I’ve had a busy last week getting my new book ready. It’s now live!
It’s been a beast of a book to get done - and not because of the size of the book. It’s actually a short book but it took some time to whittle it all down and get it ready.
I still have around 8 posters to create - and then the photo book version (combination of words and posters) will be created. Once I’ve finished the posters I will put them on my site and they can be bought as prints, but will also form part of the photo book.
So, I’ll spend a little time talking about the book and why I think you should head on over and buy it…..for free! I’ll also explain why it is free and some of the challenges with the LeanPub platform. There is also a short article later in this newsletter, as well as the usual interesting links.
The book is called Take A Day Off and is really a collection of stories, thoughts, a couple of poems and ideas around the business world’s obsession with efficiency and my own struggles with finding work life balance (or managing the tension).
I’ve been more honest and open in the book which I hope is a good thing.
Why is it free?
Despite the two year mental investment and turmoil, I didn’t feel the book was worth the minimim price that LeanPub set.
I’m a little annoyed that the new minimum price is $7.99 on LeanPub. I can see why they’ve done this but I wanted to price the book around $3.99. I don’t think it’s long enough to justify the higher price, so I opted for free.
Yes, I invested a lot of energy and attention into it. Yes, I spent two years thinking and dreaming about it. But I also wanted people to feel they got value for money - and I think $7.99 was too much for everyone to pay.
Of course, you could always pay the $7.99 minimum price if you like, or donate some money to my main charity, Naomi House (who get 5% of proceeds from my products), or grab the free one and save your money for the photo book or posters :) Or just buy yourself a couple of lattes to enjoy whilst reading it.
The book
I won’t list the chapters of the book here as they are on the LeanPub site but you will get to meet:
Colin (who had it all then didn’t)
Malcolm (who upset some seagulls and paid the price)
The sliding man (who slid down a bank)
The Manager (who received a nice poem)
Prickles the cat (who taunted his owner, Marcus).
And an anonymous communication professional that nobody understood.
There are stories, poems and ideas to breeze through - but they are all trying to make valid, serious and useful points.
The book is really about how to be effective at work but not lose yourself to your job. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.
Download the book for free here. Or check out the page on my website.
Age is but a measure of time
There were around 25 chapters that didn’t make the final edition of Take A Day Off, for a variety of reasons. The seeds of which will form many forthcoming newsletter editions.
Here’s one that didn’t make the cut but I thought was useful for you this week. It’s been on my mind a little recently as I still keep getting asked how to manage millennials….
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It’s always bizarre when I get asked questions like “How do you manage millennials?”, or “How do you find working with baby boomers?”.
Truly bizarre that people within a dubious age range are deemed to behave in different ways, or want different things from a career to others in another age bracket.
Every individual is different no matter when they were born. When we label people, we put them in a box. When we define people, we confine them. It’s much simpler to just treat people like people and see each person for who they are: unique.
Management is not about boxing people up, labelling them and posting them to different sides of the office, then treating each box of people differently to the others.
Management is about getting to know each person as an individual, being consistent with them, understanding their skills and weaknesses, working out what they want from their careers, nudging good and bad behaviours in the right directions and doing your best to create a system around them that frees them to do good work.
It’s why I’m underwhelmed by managers who boast about managing 40+ people. How can you get to know that many people and still do the right thing for each of them? That’s not management, that’s herding.
We wouldn’t group people based on gender, or race, or religion, or belief systems, then treat them differently. There are laws about that. Strange that the world is awash with segmentation of people based on made up age ranges.
Grouping people by their date of birth is appealing. It sounds like it would make life easier. Like some sort of marketing segment, a persona if you like.
But someone’s date of birth and age is not a predictor of behaviours and views, it’s merely a measure of time.
Interesting Links
Only a couple this week also. It feels like my usual RSS feed writers are on some sort of break, or not finding much to write about.
Why don’t you hit reply to this email and let me know one RSS / email that you think I would enjoy? Ta.
Good read on money, purpose and happiness. Turns out people are wanting more money more than ever, and yet are unhappy still.
There is little correlation (except in the poorest countries) between a society’s GDP per capita and the feelings of purpose, happiness, and fulfillment its citizens feel, particularly at work.
If you’re trying to weave in creativity to your workplace, it may be an idea to let individuals be creative first. Turns out individuals express more creativity on their own than in groups.
The results show that individuals make more original choices than groups whatever protocol is used, confirming that individuals are better able to think outside of the box, take risks, and demonstrate the divergent thinking necessary for creativity.
Until next time
Rob..