This is what my face has looked like the past few weeks because I’ve been walking around with pure excitement. I’ve been bursting to make this announcement…
I am writing a book!
Despite how many times I say or type that out, it’s still a bit hard to believe. I’ve had the idea to write a book (or many books) for quite a few years. So, why now? Well, it’s simply time. I have the capacity and tools to be able to make this come to fruition. On a personal level, I want to take on this challenge and prove to myself that I can make this happen and have a meaningful impact on others. And on a professional level, I’ve had an abundance of people ask for it. They want a little Sarah on their shoulder.
The topic: How to free the elephants! As a refresher on elephants: Humans are naturally curious, but somehow we lose our curiosity when dealing with other people, which leads to misunderstandings and avoidance of difficult conversations, creating elephants in the room.
I was introduced to the concept of these elephants through adaptive leadership studies in grad school at Drake University. One of the books I read, Adaptive Leadership by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, stated that one characteristic of an adaptive corporate culture is one where the elephants can be named, but the book didn’t give any prescriptive advice about how to create that environment, so I’ve been on a 10 year journey to figure it out.
The more teams, companies, and clients I worked with, the more evident it became that there is an avoidance epidemic in our work culture. We avoid ownership of problems and having tough conversations. My passion to free the elephants has continued to grow as I dug deeper into my work and research.
I have read many books within the leadership genre that are heavy on theory, but light on tools. That is not what this book is. I want to give my readers everything. My goal is that by the end of the book, readers should be elephant wranglers. The highest compliment I could receive from this book is if someone said, “I am showing up differently in my relationships because of what I learned and practiced from your book.”
Part of this work includes collecting more data and insight. I need elephant wranglers! I am asking you, my wonderful friends, to lend your wisdom and experience to this book. Below is a button for a survey. It takes about ten minutes to complete. The questions circulate around knowing when there is elephant in the room and what can we do about it. There is an option within the survey to sign up for an in person interview to gather deeper insight and perspective. This will be conducted by me or one of my team members.
As I start this book journey, I have immense gratitude for my newsletter and blog readers who come back week after week for this bite-sized content and given me the courage to write bigger. I’m excited to have your insight and take you along on this book writing journey. The plan is to have the book released in early 2020. What a journey this will be! Thanks for being part of it!
