Q1. Hello, can you please introduce yourself? Readers would love to know more about you.
Hi, my name is Jeremy Blain. I’m the CEO of performance works International, which is a company that looks to create leaders for the future. So transforming business, where the digitally the workforce and the leaders themselves, so they have the knowledge, skills and behaviours for modern times, essentially, my background started in career terms in Procter and Gamble, then PepsiCo, then I became a consultant and trainer. And that’s kind of what I’m doing now in my business. I’m from the UK, in Manchester from the north of England. So as is obligatory being from Manchester in the north of England, I am a Manchester United supporter, and I loved the music from Manchester in the 80s and 90s. Particularly.
Q2. What were the key challenges you faced while writing your book “The Inner CEO: Unleashing leaders at all levels”?
In terms of the book, and in terms of being an author, it was something that hasn’t really been a part of my DNA, apart from when I started my business. And that’s when things started. The key challenges when writing this book, really were around the usual I think, being a business book as well, time, not just mine, but time of the people I needed to interview, time to research time to construct the right flow, and time to understand what was being said around the topic out there as well, because this was about a book compact empowerments leading at all levels, which is something that we hear a lot about in business. But with all of that research, I realised that were no books on the topic. Sure, there are leadership and management books out there, but nothing on leading all levels.
So of course, that shares a little bit of capability with some management skills and leadership skills. But actually, it’s a whole change for the organisation first, and the executive leaders and then everybody else in the business too as you flatten the organisation and flatten the hierarchy. So that was a big kind of chunk of time and challenge to do so. And then writing the book, which had never, literally never done this before. And trying to create a kind of language wasn’t me being colloquial or wasn’t too jargony, which I sort of learned from a lot of business books. And making it a very practical, how to action orientated book for anybody in business. Where was another challenge? Because of course, I have the idea. But how do you do it, there’s no book out there no blueprint.
So I find myself creating brand new models to fit into the spaces were where I needed to. So that also gave the challenge there too. And then I have to admit, the motivation Wow, at times, that’s like, it’s like a roller coaster. You know, when you’re on a roll, that’s great, but you know, getting up in the morning thinking, Oh, I’ve got to get to another chapter now. And I’ve got to get to this and I’ve got to finish that. Really, it can be he can be the enemy of progress. But fortunately, I had a great book coach and a couple of great mentors around this and I would recommend that as a fantastic way to start because they kept me going and kept the momentum building and also they kept the feedback coming in terms of flow in terms of content, what didn’t sound right, what needed more explanation, etc.
Q3. What books or authors have most influenced your own writing?
That’s a good question is more business writing of course this so it’s not a particular style in terms of like you would find in fiction models like bit science fiction, horror, or general fiction or, and so on. But of course, based on the books that I’ve I’ve read like from from people like Daniel Pink and Marshall Goldsmith, Paul Hargreaves, Kevin Cottam, all of these things were invaluable to me to make sure that I was writing a book that a meant something and provided insight, but also moved the question from what we need to do to how to do it. So it is really the authors that were that had published How To books and how to manuals in business terms and leadership terms. Were really my guide.
Q4. What’s your favourite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?
Favourite spot to visit in my own country and what makes it special to you actually, my favourite spot is where I live. It’s a region called the Cotswolds in the UK. I lived in Singapore for seven years with my family, and we really missed it. You know, it’s like being an expat. People think it’s a great life and it was it was a great life, but I really miss the outdoors. The Cotswolds is postcard England. It’s rolling green hills, old stone cottages, which is what I live in as well. It’s surrounded by countryside, lots of walking and running biking etc that you can do here. And what makes it special to me is really the people and the countryside, and just how special it is, and unspoiled it is. Which in the modern world is pretty great, I would say.
Q5. Is there lots to do before you dive in and start writing a book?
There are lots to do before diving into writing a book yet, per my response before, it is all about Prep, it’s all in the planning. If you just sit down with a pen or a keyboard and think right, there we go chapter one, then you’re not going to get very far you student soon run out of steam, and I realised that I had some, some ideas to start with. But navigating all of those ideas and putting them into some kind of order in some kind of plan. So that you really a can qualify whether you do have enough for a book, or whether it’s going to be a short paper, for example, is, is really critical. So getting all of that in place, but also getting the people in place who are going to support you who can critically provide your feedback, rather than kind of giving you the answers that you want to hear is like really get to it. Is this worth doing? Is this unique? Will it help out there? How it needs to be? All of those things need to be in place first, then that planning process that I talked about before? And lining up all of the examples The interviewees if you’re doing them, which I did, are very, very central success.
Q6. How long did it take you to write your book ‘The Inner CEO: Unleashing leaders at all levels’?
Well? That’s a great question. Well, let’s just say that the idea for the book was 2017. And I was procrastinating for at least 18 months about Yeah, I’m gonna get into the book and to get to the book. But it was really I mean, I must admit, and it’s, it’s not a very nice thing to say, but it was locked down actually, through the pandemic gave me the opportunity and the space to actually do something serious about it. So it took me that three years to 2020 to really get going. And then it took me most of 2020 to get done. And then we were kind of then finalising for the first couple of months of 2021 before it was launched.
Q7. On what platforms can readers buy your book?
All online book sellers and physical bookstores by order. You know, kind of Barnes and Noble. Amazon, Waterstones, you name it, it’s on all platforms out there. It’s also available, of course on ebook on print version, but also audio book. So you can access that through the likes of Apple or audible, Spotify, Google.
Q8. Tell us about the process of coming up with the book cover and the title ‘The Inner CEO: Unleashing leaders at all levels’?
Well, actually, this was thanks very much to my publisher. I and my designers in my business, came up with a design. But my publisher took one look at that and said, No. So they came up with what I have to admit is an absolutely brilliant cover, with a thumbprint, which then has waves emanating from it, making it unique to the individual who’s going to unleash their inner CEO, let’s say, but also impacting the rest of the organisation. As they grow, they grow the team, they grow the organisation. So I have to say thank you to Panoma publishing, which is part of rethink press.Their design, people really nailed it for me. And the feedback about it has been absolutely terrific, which is fantastic, including the colour schemes of the greys and the yellows, which I’ve kept over onto all of my design work my presentations, etcetera, etcetera.
Q9. When writing a book how do you keep things fresh, for both your readers and also yourself?
Well that keeping it fresh myself is a great question. That’s all about that momentum building or lack of, in some ways, but for me, actually, I approach this as I would approach my customers, I tried to put my put myself in my readers shoes, say what do you need out of this book? So if I were picking this book up, what do they really need? They need the why. Why is this important? Why do we need to be thinking about this? They need the what. What do we mean by it? How do we define it? What needs to happen? All those things and then the majority of it is the all-important how to how do you implement this because implementation is where it’s so often fails. So, in all of the chapters and all of the different component parts, I was constantly asking myself, what can I do here to make it come alive. And I found that actually a very motivating for myself, but it really did keep it really fresh. For the audience, I brought in different people at different levels in the organisations to interviews, I had interviews with a fast food company, with Spotify, to bring in what they think about empowerment, so not just my own ideas, but thinking about how companies do it right now.
The creation of these new models to make it all come alive was I found very motivating as well, and kept it really fresh for the readers because every point even if it was the, the why and the what came with came with something that was actionable or practical that they can apply to their own business. So that was really important. And that was really the key message that I had myself which which took me from the start to the to the finish.
Q10. At what age, did you start reading self-help books?
I would have been a teenager, then kind of probably mid teenager, late teenager and I’m Generation X. And there weren’t so many self help books readily available for our age. You know, there was not the internet, you couldn’t just find things online like you can now so I had to rely on time when I could actually go out without my parents when I have my own money when I could actually buy these things either. Either that you know things that I didn’t want other people to see which were just unique for me or whatever. When I started at university and then into my first job that’s when I really started getting a hunger for self development books, if you like from a business point of view, how to be a better salesperson or a marketeer or manager or leader and broaden my knowledge about the business world and about enterprise. So you know, took a while but I got there
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