The Extraordinary Business Book Club

  'I think that flow is quite important. It's almost like a cultural logic.' Intercultural communication is always complex, but for Western leaders seeking to build relationships as a way in to the mighty Chinese market, it's particularly tricky. From seating plans to changing job titles to how to ask for a solution to a problem, there are very different assumptions and unspoken rules. Which is why Catherine Xiang,  UK Director for LSE's Confucius Institute for Business, wrote Bridging the Gap:  An introduction to intercultural communication with China, named Specialist Business Book of the Year. It's tricky enough when everyone is speaking English, but if you're learning Mandarin, it gets even trickier: get the stress on a word wrong and you could easily proposition someone by mistake! For writers with an eye to the global market, there's a deeper significance too: not only language and metaphor but even the way the book opens or an argument is structured can embody a particular cultural bias.  Practical strategies and a thoughtful perspective on how to build genuine, effective cross-cultural relationships, at the meeting table and on the page.

 'Our businesses have been designed for us by us, for humans by humans, and that's what the big change is now.' What's the real promise and transformative power of AI in business? In their new book Autonomous:  Why the fittest businesses embrace AI-first strategies in digital labor, Henry King and his co-author  Vala Afshar make the case that organizational design will be transformed by agentic AI, with intelligent agents and humans collaborating seamlessly. It's an empowering vision: just as autonomous vehicles will democratize and expand humans' ability to move around, they argue that AI can augment and democratize our creativity and effectiveness. And Henry talks me through their ecosystem of iterative idea development, including the use of AI to challenge and expand those ideas, and offers super-practical advice for other writers in this space. If you're here for the intersection of cutting-edge technology, business strategy, the future of work and writing, this episode is very much here for you. 

'You have a choice about how you put content out into the world in 2026, and that choice isn't just a business choice, it's about who you are and what's important to you.' It's the time of year when we traditionally think about the changes we want to make in our lives to help us become the people we want to be. In 2026, I think we also need to think about what we want to KEEP doing for ourselves, even though AI tools might be able to do those things more quickly and easily.  Writing is a great example. From exploratory writing - early-stage, messy, private thinking-onto-the-page - to social media posts to writing a book, embracing the messiness and the hard yards is what will set you apart, personally and professionally.  Get out of your comfort zone and lean into writing that sparks genuine connection, builds trust and results in words worth reading. Because if you delegate your writing now, you're delegating you might just find you're delegating your thinking in the future. 

'Christmas is so many things, but it is also quite simply a moment of pause between the year that's ending and the year ahead. And as every writer knows, pauses can be extraordinarily powerful.' It may be the most wonderful time of the year, but Christmas is also very often a hot mess of busy-ness, stress and tricky relationships. So in these few days as the excitement/expectations build, here's an invitation to press pause, just for a few minutes, and try something a little different.  Because Christmas - together with the odd days of Twixmas that follow ahead of the new year - is a great opportunity to press pause just for a few minutes. And sometimes, that the gift we REALLY needed. 

'Almost every experience that I have is a story that I'm going to tell.' We often think of great leadership as 'magic,' but the truth is that's a convenient excuse. Great leaders aren't born that way - they become great by leaning in to what John Amaechi describes as ' a very boring set of skills and a huge amount of personal effort'. John's own background in the NBA showed him that the most extraordinary athletic achievements are the result of dull, consistent, mundane practice. That makes greatness accessible - though not necessarily easy - for anyone who chooses it. One of the most fundamental skills of leadership is storytelling, and John is a master at turning the raw material of daily experience into stories that connect, challenge and inspire. He has a model of storytelling that I guarantee you'll never forget. And why turn stories into books? Because books force the 'so what?' question. And that changes everything. 

'The research shows that it's stories that are the most powerful mobilizers of change.' What does 'story' mean to you? Zoe Arden asked that question of more than 100 people, beginning her research, as she encourages us all to begin our stories, by listening first.  Leaders have at their disposal more facts and data than ever before, but the research and our lived experience confirms that facts and data are not what we need to catalyse real change. Our brains are wired in such a way that only stories have the power to mobilise us into action - they are, in Zoë's words, both levers of connection and levers of change, so understanding how they work is vital for any leader who wants to gets stuff done.   But stories aren't just for telling, they're for living - and we need to make choices about the stories we tell ourselves, more or less consciously, just as much as the ones we craft for others.  Zoë's own story of finding her voice as a writer amongst the many voices of her interviewees will be invaluable if you're drowning in reseach, and her remarkable journey to publication might just be the inspiration you need to get started... 

 'When you read a book... it's like when you watch a TV show or go to the theatre; you don't think about all of the work that went in behind the scenes.' I don't know about you, but I couldn't claim any of the following distinctions before I turned 26: flying a spaceship, losing a million dollars, being fired by Simon Cowell or dodging paparazzi.  Dominic Colenso, author of Cut-Through, ticked off all of these in the course of his acting career. Life is a little calmer now that he's discovered how his acting skills could translate into a unique framework for effective business communication, helping leaders and teams pitch and present with impact. It turns out that rehearsing for a stage role has many parallels with preparing a business pitch, and even with writing a business book - not just delivering a message, but discovering the purpose, distilling the essence, drilling and debriefing repeatedly to get feedback on and refine the text.  And if you've been making excuses as to why now isn't the right time to get started, prepare to have them blown away...

' This technology isn't going to go away. We need to figure out what role it has.' George Walkley is a legend in the publishing world. Over the last three decades, and particularly at Hachette, he has not only witnessed but helped shape the digital transformation of the industry, and these days he's focused on how publishers respond to the challenges and opportunities of AI.  While the book itself has proved remarkably resilient as a technology, technology has transformed the ways in which they are written, discovered, read and published. What are the ethical and practical considerations of AI for publishers, authors and readers? And what does all that mean for George himself as he writes and considers how to publish his OWN book?  Essential listening for anyone curious about where publishing is going, and the implications for authors, plus top tips on building an audience through writing an unmissable newsletter. 

When we talk about writing business books, we usually focus on concepts, models, clarity, structure, impact. But alongside the head work is a whole invisible heap of emotional labour: behind every sentence lies a secret history of fear, doubt, frustration and occasionally joy. In this Best Bits episode, we're bringing that emotional undercurrent front and centre. Because writing a business book, just like starting a business, isn't simply an intellectual exercise. There's a profound inner journey behind every book, from the creative spark of the idea, so often born of frustration, through the gritty, vulnerable, exhausting middle, the stress of overwhelm and deadlines and the courage it takes to complete, and throughout it all, the unexpected moments of joy.  Writing a book is a whole-brain, whole-person exercise, and these conversations prove it. Hear from: Eleanor Tweddell on turning anger and confusion into the first steps of the writing journey. Parul Bavishi on accepting fear as part of the process and showing up anyway. Rachel Fairley and Sarah Robb on building trust and joy through collaboration. Alice Driscoll and Louise van Haarst on navigating difficult moments with curiosity and respect. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic on the three moments of joy (and the many hours of masochism). Maria Franzoni on falling out of love with you book (and then back in again). James Spackman on making choices guided by pride, joy and connection. Sally Percy on overcoming overwhelm. The work is real - but the good news is you don't have to do this alone. 

 'If you haven't diagnosed where the problem lies in the first place, how do you know which lever to pull?' If your idea of a rebrand is a new colour palette and an updated logo, think again.  Too often, superficial design changes don't just fail to deliver growth, they actively damage the brands they were intended to bolster. Rachel Fairley and Sarah Robb have helped some of the world's biggest companies refresh their brands from the inside out. They argue that rebranding is more a strategic undertaking than a design project, and it's definitely NOT something that should be driven by a new leader's ego.  This is a conversation for anyone invested in understanding the deeper mechanics of making a brand work over the long term, but also for anyone who wants to write a book that makes a real difference for its readers.

 'That's all we've got as well in this age of AI… we have to put heart and soul into what we create.' When someone cheerfully tells you that when one door closes another door opens in the midst of the rawness of redundancy, you'd be forgiven for wanting to punch them. Eleanor Tweddell certainly did. But then she made a conscious decision to 'lean in' to the idea of another door. It turns out that opportunity is often disguised as messy chaos – it's all about how you choose to view it. Eleanor shares how her 'Another Door' blog, podcast and book came about – the idea that wouldn't leave her alone, the conversations that moved it forward and the creative process that begins – like all good things – with a whiteboard and is so very, very different from the polished, orderly approach of her corporate comms background. This is a conversation about what it means to be human in the act of creation, and to seek out connection before your ideas feel ready to share. It's about jealousy and comparisonitis and courage and designing for your reader, and it might just be the best thing you hear this week.

'The absence of healthy conflict is a large part of why people will leave jobs, because it's not where the growth happens.' How do you feel about hard conversations at work?  Our approaches to conflict are often less than smart. Whether your tendency is towards avoidance or aggression, unless you're actively rejecting 'enforced harmony' for an environment in which people are able to disagree well, you're not getting the best out of your individuals or your organization. (Plus, given that most people are so bad at it, mastering hard conversations is the ultimate leadership edge.) Alice Driscoll and Louise van Haarst, co-authors of Smart Conflict: How to Have Hard Conversations at Work, are experts at diagnosing the wide range of conflict styles and helping leaders make better decisions about how they adjust their approach for the situation and the person in front of them. But could they walk the talk when it came to the ultimate stress test: writing a book together for the first time? Spoiler alert: yes. But what they discovered in the process will be gold to anyone considering a co-authored project. 

Fresh (if you can call it that) from the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2025, I'm here this week with a candid look at what we and other publishers were talking about over those three hectic days - global sales, routes to market, Amazon and its new algorithm, AI, digital library platforms, translation rights and the evolution of metadata - and what all of that means for authors.  Plus why I HAD to go and have a good time each night - publishing runs on ideas, caffeine and relationships, and the Frankfurt Book Fair delivers all of these in spades. 

'At some point, the right to be you ends and your obligation to others begins.' 'Just be yourself.' It's the most uncontroversial advice in the world, right?  Wrong, says Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. He's a man who likes to pick fights with universally accepted truths, because of course they're almost always more nuanced than we like to think.  In his new book Don't Be Yourself, he points out that unfiltered authenticity is a privilege reserved for the powerful, and it's not just selfish and a terrible career move for the rest of us but also limits our potential - because we grow by exploring our future possible selves, not just repeating who we've always been. He's also a man with a nuanced opinion of writing: simultaneously 'the best way of... actually organizing your thoughts' and 'a lonely, slow, and occasionally masochistic pursuit, like knitting, except with more existential dread and less wool.' I think we can all relate to this. 

 'At the lowest end of what a business book could be is, yes, it's a calling card... [But] what if your book was transformational?' Parul Bavishi - editor, former literary scout, co-founder of the London Writers' Salon and host of the Writers' Hour podcast - knows something about the realities of writing and the power of creative community. Writing can be a lonely business, but in the LWS's regular 'Writers' Hour' Parul has seen the extraordinary power of 'body doubling' - simply watching others write can be all the encouragement and support a writer needs to get unstuck. And there are even more potent aspects of community such as accountability and critique that can take your writing to the next level. We also talk about the genius that is the five-minute outline, the agony that is finishing and shipping a book, and how to ensure that your nonfiction book clearly sets out (and fulfils) a promise of transformation to the reader. Because if you're going to put all that time and emotional labour into writing a book, you might as well make it one that changes people's lives.

' Nobody cares about you until you show that you understand their problem, their situation, and you care about them.' As a former international speaker bureau owner, Maria Franzoni knows exactly what it takes to become a highly sought-after (and well-paid) speaker. In this week's conversation, she reveals what speaker bookers are really looking for, and you might be surprised to discover that how well you speak is only one factor in her brilliant Bookability Formula. We talk about the interplay and overlap between being a speaker and being an author, and the way in which books support speaking so beautifully, and vice versa. (But it has to be the right book - Maria spent months of her life writing the wrong one so you don't have to.) If you want to land more speaking gigs, if you're not afraid to hear what that takes, and if you want to write the right book to support all of that, you probably shouldn't miss this.

 'You need to kind of kick off this persuasive chain reaction and enlist people to the cause of your book.' In the book trade, James Spackman is known as 'The Pitch Doctor'. From an illustrious start to his career in the post room at Bloomsbury to sales, marketing and agency roles at Hachette, Osprey and now The bks Agency, his passion has always been to communicate a passion for books.  As he explains, the success of a book depends in large part of a 'chain of enthusiasm' that has to begin with the author and ultimately - hopefully - reaches the reader through a complex ecosystem of agents, editors, sales reps, marketers and booksellers. This is the art of the pitch, and because it ends with the reader, that's where the crafting of it must begin too.  In this week's conversation we discuss the fact that publishing is 'a business of persuasion rather than a meritocracy of texts', and what that means for authors. We also talk about the extraordinary route that James took to publish his own book, why measures of success are deeply personal, and why doing things your way is so damn rewarding. 

When she started her first job reporting on farming, trying to work out how to move into interior design, Sally Percy had no idea she'd forge such an extraordinarily successful careeer as a business journalist and author. But the lessons she learned in her earliest days - how to write so a five-year-old child could understand, how to write to word count, the sanctity of deadlines, and perhaps most importantly how to ask questions without embarrassment - have stood her in good stead.  That kind of unashamed questioning is a trait also shared by many of the leaders she interviewed for her latest book 'The Disruptors', shortlisted for the Business Book Awards. In this conversation she shares her hard-won lessons for writers, and also reflects on how business and business writing has changed over recent years and where the opportunities for those writing in the space can be found. 

People who write business books - at least, business books worth reading - tend to think a little differently. This 'Best Bits' episode features a formidable line-up of disruptors, each of whom brings a very personal toolkit for unsettling the status quo, in work and in life. Challenging the system often starts by asking awkward questions and you'll find lots of those here. What you WON'T find are excuses. Think you're not creative or confident enough to be an author? This is for you.  Listen, enjoy, but don't expect to leave with your assumptions undisturbed. Hear from:  Charlotte Otter on why we need new leaders (and how to get them);  Hilary Cottam on reimagining work; Lesie Grandy on creative velocity; Mike Porteous on redefining confidence;  Todd Sattersten on books - and publishing models - that turn things upside down;  Jane Friedman on why you should consider NOT writing a book;  Georgia Kirke on how AI can help unleash the missing voices;  Kerry Tottingham on how to launch a book differently.  Let's keep shaking things up, brilliantly.

'I see confidence as something that's rooted in how we feel before any words, something which touches on sensations.' What do you think of when you think of sports coaching? Elite lean performance machines preparing to break records?  Mike Porteous has competed and coached at elite level as a triathlete, but he believes that coaxing new swimmers from the shallow end is just as important an act of coaching as taking an elite to a new world Ironman time.  His vision of coaching is centred on confidence - and all the messy, emotional reality that surrounds human ambition, at whatever scale. To allow people to go beyond what they believed themselves capable of - in sport and in life - the coach needs to build confidence in three directions: the athlete's confidence in their own ability, the athlete's confidence in the coach, and, crucially, the coach's confidence in themselves. There's an obvious parallel to the book-writing process, and the slow-burn confidence demanded of authors to grapple the uncertainty and believe that their message is worthwhile. If you're involved in coaching, in whatever capacity, and particularly if you're writing about it, this is for you.