Three years ago we created a book proposal, chapter outlines and a draft front cover, and turned into an everyday notebook.
Those notebooks have been everywhere with us since. They’ve collected notes from our team conversations, observations, research findings, random scribbles, and lessons learned from leaders trying to build better teams.
In the last few weeks, we reached an exciting milestone by officially signing a publishing contract with Practical Inspiration Publishing for The Operating System for Fast-Moving Teams: The Proven Formula for High Performance Under Pressure. This book writing dream has just turned serious!
It feels too scary to celebrate just yet, but we are super excited because it means we get to share how to make teamwork more intentional, that it doesn’t have to be left to chance, and there is a pragmatic way.
Over the years, we’ve had conversations with leaders navigating growth, transformation, uncertainty, mergers, restructures, skills shortages, burnout, and increasingly, the impact of AI. The things we keep hearing, stay remarkably the same:
“We have great people, but our team performance is inconsistent.”
“We’re struggling with competing priorities.”
“Teams are working in silos.”
“We’re losing good people.”
“My team is being pulled in all directions.”
“We don’t really function as a team.”
Most organisations invest heavily in people, processes, technology and strategy, but very few invest deliberately in teamwork itself. That’s the gap we want to help with. Many leaders are expected to create high-performing teams without ever being given a practical framework for how to do it.
One of the concepts we’ve become increasingly passionate about is what we call the missing middle. Organisations measure culture and individual performance. But the place where strategy actually gets turned into results is with the team. You can have a great place to work survey result, and still have a poor team experience.
When teams are healthy, work just feels that little bit easier and a whole lot more enjoyable.
That’s why we wrote this book.
A Practical Approach for People Leaders
We didn’t want to write a leadership book full of theory. There are many great ones out there. What we wanted was something a time poor people leader can pick up. It’s for people who know teamwork matters but don’t know where to start.
At its heart, the book provides a practical operating system built around four fundamentals: Purpose, trust, clarity, and simplicity.
This publishing contract is such a huge milestone for us. To help even one team, have a better team experience will be worth it.
P.S. As Vicky likes to point out, when you’re writing a book alongside a day job, it literally goes everywhere with you. The photos in the heading are proof 📖😄
