The answer may be a very simple one – we simply knew we had something we wanted to share!
Mandy and I have worked together for many years, since 1997 in fact, first at American Express and then as owners of our own companies, finding projects to collaborate on now and then.
One day we were talking about how we spend so much time with individuals, teams and organizations around the world, and enjoying our work very much, but that we are always limited by time – there are only so many people we can work with.
We decided that we wanted to write a book to see if we could share some of our experience of leadership and teams in such a way.
So one day we sat down in Mandy’s kitchen, inspired by the garden outside (yes, the picture is from there), with a laptop and a flipchart and started brainstorming ideas and then started writing, one word at a time.
We found straight away that writing was SO MUCH FUN and that we wrote well together, it worked. Time just seemed to shoot by when we were writing. At first we weren’t thinking about the publishing of the book, we were simply completely caught up in the writing, enjoying the process and the creative way to explore what we do for a living. Over time, the story and the characters have developed and they now feel very close to us, like people we know. It’s worth mentioning though that the people in the book story are completely fictional, they are simply a summary of our business experience over the years.
What we have written is a fun business book which we think will appeal even to those people who wouldn’t normally read business books but still want to develop work skills and be successful at work. It’s a story of a leader and his newly formed team after a merger in the international world of business.
The book is released 4th March 2013.
Elisabet Vinberg Hearn, co-author of The Team Formula