I Wrote 60,000 Words Before I Found the Book
- Susannah Brade-Waring
- Jul 10
- 6 min read
For the last two years, I have been trying to write a book about managing people. I knew what I wanted it to do. I wanted to help managers avoid some of the headaches I experienced while trying to work everything out for myself.
So I did what I thought writers were supposed to do. I planned a comprehensive business book. I wrote chapters, rearranged them, added more theory and included more detail. Eventually, the manuscript passed 60,000 words.
There was plenty of useful content in it, but something still felt wrong. The problem was not what I was writing about. It was the way I was trying to write it.
I was trying to sound like a writer, when I needed to sound more like myself.
The teenage dream that would not go away
I have wanted to write a book since I was a teenager. I imagined writing something that would help and inspire people, and that wish stayed with me through a career in finance, HR, commercial management, leadership development and business ownership.
Over the years, I collected a great deal of experience. Some of it came through training, research and psychology. Much of it came through trial and error, including errors I would have preferred not to make.
I helped grow a technology company from a start-up to more than £10 million in turnover and through a successful management buyout. I held senior responsibility for people, finances, systems and commercial decisions. The finances made sense to me. Systems could be understood, and policies could be written.
People were much less predictable.
I cared about doing a good job. I wanted people to enjoy their work, perform well and feel supported. I also wanted the business to succeed. Yet, like many managers, I was often trying to work things out while pretending I already knew the answers.
That is a lonely place for a manager to be, although it is far more common than most people admit.
Research from the Chartered Management Institute found that only 18% of managers had received formal management and leadership training.[1] Most people are promoted because they are good at their existing job, then expected to learn how to manage others through experience.
In other words, through trial and error. That can be a slow, painful and expensive way to learn.
The book changed when I stopped forcing it
The breakthrough came when I paid more attention to the conversations I enjoy most. I love practical, honest and occasionally messy conversations about what is really happening at work.
Why has someone’s performance changed? Why does an important conversation keep getting avoided? Why is the manager working late while the team leaves on time? Why does one person welcome responsibility while another seems to retreat from it?
These conversations are rarely tidy. People bring their emotions, worries, assumptions and past experiences into work with them. Managers do too.
My best work has always involved asking questions, listening carefully and helping someone make sense of the situation in front of them. Once I recognised that, the structure of the book became much clearer.
Instead of writing a traditional management textbook, I built the book around seven questions that managers ask every day:
What am I supposed to be doing as a manager?
Why won’t people just do what I need them to do?
What do I do when someone isn’t performing?
How do I motivate different people in different roles?
How do I develop people without micromanaging them?
How do I give difficult feedback without making things worse?
How do I help my team navigate change and stress?
Those questions became the plot line I had been looking for. The book finally started to feel like a real conversation.
Writing from a campervan
Much of the writing and editing has taken place during our travels in our VW campervan, through Italy, Portugal, Spain and France. There is something useful about leaving your normal desk behind. A different view can help you see familiar problems differently.
Of course, writing in a campervan is not always as peaceful or romantic as it sounds. Space is limited, Wi-Fi varies and normal life continues. There are still meals to make, routes to plan and work to do.
However, the journeys helped me think about the kind of book I wanted to create. I did not want people to admire it on a shelf. I wanted them to use it.
I wanted a manager to be able to open the book after a difficult meeting, find the question they were struggling with and leave with something practical to try. The aim was never to create the perfect manager. I am not sure such a person exists.
The aim was to help people become clearer, calmer and more confident, one conversation at a time.
Turning 30 years of experience into useful tools
One of the hardest parts of writing the book was deciding what to leave out. After 30 years of leading, managing, coaching and developing people, there is always another example, another model and another lesson that could be included.
But our clients value practicality over theory. They want help with the situation they are facing on Tuesday morning, not another complicated framework that will be forgotten by Friday afternoon.
So I focused on simple, memorable tools.
The Jam Biscuit helps managers separate what they can control from what they can influence, or may need to accept. The Performance Puzzle helps diagnose whether a performance problem is connected to the Destination, Capability or Motivation. E-TUK provides a way to prepare for feedback by checking whether it is Expected, True, Useful and Kind.
The rowing boat helps managers think about whether they are steering their team or exhausting themselves by trying to row every oar.
These models may sound simple, and that is deliberate. Simple does not mean shallow. A good model gives people a shared language for a difficult conversation. It helps them pause, think and respond more usefully.
“We’ve had this conversation three times already”
One story in the book began with a frustrated manager.
“We’ve had this conversation three times already,” she told me.
Work was being missed, deadlines were slipping, and the manager was working later and later because she kept stepping in to finish things herself. Her conclusion was understandable.
“They just don’t seem bothered. They’re not motivated.”
That was possible, but motivation was only one possible diagnosis. So I asked, “What does good look like?” Then I asked, “How clear are they on what good looks like to you?”
There was a pause.
“I’m not sure we’ve actually clarified it,” she admitted.
She hated micromanagement and did not want to tell an experienced person exactly what to do. She also believed they should already know. Both people thought the goal was clear, but they were working towards different versions of it. It was like one person growing lemons while the other expected oranges.
Both were working hard. Both were becoming increasingly frustrated. Neither understood why the other person could not see the obvious.
Once they created shared clarity around the destination and the expected standard, the situation improved significantly. No formal performance improvement plan was needed, and the manager did not have to take the work back permanently. She needed to diagnose the real headache and treat the right issue.
That experience captures one of the biggest lessons I have learned:
Never assume people know what good looks like.
The book I needed when I became a manager
The Confident Manager is the book I would have valued earlier in my career. It would not have prevented every mistake. Managing people will always involve uncertainty because people are wonderfully, and sometimes frustratingly, human.
But it would have helped me understand what the role required. It would have reminded me that being supportive does not mean avoiding challenge, and that being clear does not make someone unkind. Delegating does not mean abandoning people, and giving feedback does not need to become a confrontation.
Most importantly, it would have helped me feel less alone.
Managers often believe everyone else knows what they are doing. They look around and see people who appear confident, decisive and in control. Behind the scenes, many of those people are carrying the same questions, doubts and worries.
They are trying to balance being liked with being respected. They are avoiding conversations because they do not want to make things worse. They are doing work that should belong to their team because it seems quicker than explaining it again.
They care deeply, but caring is not always enough. Managers also need practical tools, honest conversations and the chance to learn from other people’s headaches.
That is why I finally wrote this book. It is not intended to present a perfect formula for managing people, but to share what I have learned, including what I learned the difficult way.
The finished book is shorter than the one I first tried to write. It is more conversational, more practical and far more like the way I naturally work. You can read it from beginning to end, or go directly to the question that matters most today.
Then choose one idea, one model or one conversation, and use it.
That is how confidence grows. It develops through small, consistent actions that help you become the kind of manager you would have wanted for yourself and the people you care about.
The Confident Manager: Overcoming the 7 Key Challenges of Managing People will be available soon.
To learn more and join the waiting list, visit:
Source
[1] Chartered Management Institute, Better Management Report, 2023.
Comments