B. Scott Hoadley's Blog, page 2

Bringing your whole self

What do I mean by “bringing the whole self?”

Consolidation and rationalization. Two large multisyllabic words to represent the stage of life I am in. But I am also in a period of exploration and discovery. So it’s apt to think that as some things head towards eventual resolution and closure, new opportunities and experiences take their place.

But what does any of this mean?

Let’s start with the title, “Bringing your whole self.” For decades I have lived a segmented, compartmentalized life. I have separated out the things that comprise “me” from one another, building walls between them, and in the process fracturing my identity as a human being.

If it sounds familiar it’s because we all do it to an extent.

What kinds of things am I talking about here? Well, for one thing, I’ve been many people over the years… these “selfs” include:

Engineer

Technical writer

Entrepreneur / founder

Project Manager

Business Architect

Designer

Author / writer

Gardener

Introvert

Consultant

Teacher

Gay man

Activist

Son / brother / uncle

Partner

Friend

Meditator

Fireman

Farmer

Leader

Naturally, I am no longer all of these things—what a life that would be. Some have fallen by the wayside organically, others I’ve moved away from, leaving a bunch of them floating in the pool of identity that defines me.

In fact, fragments of these things come together to make me who I am today. But fragmentation, without reintegration can lead to chaos and an inability to know which self—or indeed which bits of your self—you are bringing to the things you do.

Why is this important?

Conversations that began last year and have carried into this year about what it means to bring your whole self to what you do have continued to reverberate in my head. At first I felt challenged, believing that I was already bringing all of me to everything that I do. But you only need to look across my diverse digital estate to see this isn’t exactly the truth.

I have different emails for all of the things I do. Different websites. Different blogging sites. Multiple Twitter accounts, etc. In fact, writing here on Substack brings yet another digital identity to the previously cluttered field. If I was bringing my whole self to all of the things that I do, why do I present myself as so many different versions of the same person? And conversely, why don’t I bring more of myself to each of the things that I do?

While this fragmentation of self into many may bring confusion to the people I engage with who encounter my different selves or personas, it’s not them who I’m primarily concerned with. It’s me.

So what’s the problem here?

One human split between many things creates a kind of fragmentation between all of the individual pieces. It leads to cognitive dissonance as you (and you, and you) step into and out of different roles and personas that you play; it’s like changing clothes to present multiple selves multiple times a day.

And frankly, it’s just plain exhausting.

The lack of seamless transition between “selves” fractures and fragments your psyche allowing the introduction of negativity, doubt, feelings of imposter syndrome creep in and poison your self identity. And it’s not just about how you feel or see yourself.

Context switching is a productivity killer. It is inefficient. It leads to a reduction in focus, time spent winding down/getting up to speed, changing mindsets, sometimes even changing tone of voice and approach. Who I see myself as when I am writing fiction is not the same as who I see myself as when I am leading design change.

Bringing your whole self is a journey—not a destination

You don’t just wake up integrated, refreshed and whole one morning. Bringing your whole self is a journey—one that I suspect once on it, never reaches a destination. We are always experiencing new things, winding down old things. Therefore we are talking about the equivalent of an engine of reintegration, where you are constantly assessing, evaluating, modifying, adapting, changing, and looking for ways to bring those fragments of self together in new, and different, and exciting ways.

I can’t profess to be expert on this. I’m just hopping on the journey myself. But over the coming months, I intend to find new and interesting ways to assess which pieces of self are on the journey with me, continually assess the ways in which I express myself, and look for new and interesting ways to bring more of my whole self to all the things that I am doing.

This space will become the vehicle for that. And I will look to consolidate all of my thinking around things like design, and fiction writing, gardening, consulting, fitness, business, entrepreneurship, teaching, and life together here, in one place.

I’m looking forward to the journey.

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May update - learnings and some book news

Just a "not so quick" update on my writing. I finished writing the third OLD BLOOD SAGA novel, Hunter's Moon, in January. I've been working on revisions and will send the manuscript to my editor in June. If all goes well, I'll aim for a July release.

I've also decided to make a few changes and updates to how I work and my books.

Updates

I will relaunch all of my books, with new ISBN numbers over the summer. When you publish through Amazon, they offer free ISBN numbers. The upside is they are free. The downside is that you can't publish your books on other platforms using their ISBN numbers. I've now purchased a block of ISBN numbers to use in my books going forward.

While my ebooks will remain exclusively on Amazon, from this summer, I will publish my paperback books on Amazon, through IngramSpark, and offer signed copies through my website.

In the spirit of change, I've also decided to recover all my books. Though I love my covers, I've realized they don't scream "urban fantasy" to my readers. I spent late winter searching for a new cover designer who specializes in Fantasy cover design. I'll announce some cover reveals soon. I'm excited about the new designs and I think you will be too.

Book news

And while I am overhauling things, I've decided to revisit my first novel, The Weaver, and do a full set of revisions. It was my first novel, and I recognize the first third of the book reads a bit too slow--something I've felt, and something I've had feedback on from readers. So along with the other exciting news, I will relaunch a new version of The Weaver this summer.

I'd always envisioned these books as a 5-book series. When I finished writing Hunter's Moon and outlining the fourth book, I realized there was a gap between books three and four. In exploring it further, I outlined a new fourth novel, which makes the series now 6 books in total.

With the launch of Hunter's Moon this summer, I will relaunch The Weaver and Old Blood with the new covers as well. Accompanying this relaunch, there will also be a 3-ebook "box set" on Amazon.

And finally, while I've mentioned the changes I've made to the number of books in the series, I'd be remiss in not mentioning I've completed full outlines of books four and five of the series and am already quite far along in writing book four, which will be available this Autumn.

I'm looking forward to a productive year and hope you are looking forward to seeing what happens next to Nathan and his friends.

Be sure to subscribe for updates as I'm launching a monthly newsletter over the summer.

Thanks for reading B. SCOTT HOADLEY! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Liminal Leaders podcast series

I’m currently working on a new podcast series with my friend, colleague and co-host, Martin Dowson. Titled Liminal Leaders, we’re conducting an open exploration for a book we are planning about the intersection of design, leadership and transformation, exploring “liminal” spaces that exist and how bringing these three things together can lead to more successful outcomes.

You can find it here: www.liminalleaders.com

Keep an eye out. We’ve already recorded 7 sessions and will be launching soon. Will update you more in the run-up to launch.

Subscribe now

Ramblings of a designer turned fiction writer

The long and winding road to…

Some might say I’ve taken a non-traditional journey to becoming an author, meandering through a lifetime of excuses and careers, while others, like myself, would likely respond that there is no traditional path to writing.

Don’t get me wrong. Along the journey I studied and earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. But the journey I took to get there, and the one since certainly didn’t follow the path of a writer.

I’ve always been one of those strange people who knew exactly who, and what, I wanted to be. From a very young age I wanted to be a writer. I surrounded myself with books. Books were probably my best friends, apart from my friend Charlie, when I was a boy. Books were my go to for escape, knowledge, adventure, and learning about the world — and other worlds.

So when I found myself in university studying engineering it was a bit of a shock. Studying engineering when you had the mind of a creator of worlds was an interesting experience. Let’s just say I was never the traditional, run of the mill, engineer. I jumped across onto the digital ship at the first chance I got, not long after moving to Boston. By then, I’d applied for the master’s degree program at Emerson and been accepted.

For a creative adventurer, hopping on the digital bandwagon in 1994 as it was just beginning, seemed like a way to live some of that adventure that I’d read about. For the next few years my work in the industry and my studies intertwined and when I graduated from Emerson at the end of 1997 I had a mix of engineering, digital and writing skills. My life journey to that point had seen me do stints as a fireman, a farmer, a technical writer, a project manager, a hardware salesman, and worker in an agricultural shop.

Suffice to say that at the point of graduation, I could have gone in many different directions. What I did do was jump fully into digital. For the next 25 years — through to today — I learned about digital product and service design, running operations, founding and running agencies, and, oh yeah, moved from Boston to London.

I continued to write off and on through that time — lots of story starts. Mostly short fiction. Some poetry. And some attempts at writing novels. But my digital career took most of my time, and so that’s what really thrived during this period.

Global pandemic as a catalyst for change

And then came the pandemic. I was just finishing an engagement with a client — by now I was running my own consultancy. I had planned to take a couple of months off to rest and recover from a deep and complex project. And out of the blue, the pandemic hit. Now, I accept that in many ways, the pandemic was a tragedy for many people. And things like this rarely result in good outcomes.

But for me, something happened. Something serendipitous. I found myself sitting at home, finishing up with a client, the prospect of at least a couple of months ahead of me with nothing to do… and a government mandate to only leave the house for up to one hour each day. Really, it could have been a disaster. But for me, with a clean slate ahead of me, I began digging through some of the more recent things I’d been writing and settled on an early draft of something that for the first time I felt I could turn into a book.

Instead of the intended two months, I took four months off. And in those four months, I wrote my first novel, The Weaver, the first book of a five-book series. I got advice from an author friend, found an editor, a cover designer and a team who create ebook and paperback formats from your manuscripts and off I went. I’ve not looked back since.

Where are things today?

A couple of weeks ago, I finished the first draft of the third book in the series. Last year I published the second book, Old Blood. Over the last few years I evolved from the kid who dreamed about other worlds to the man who wrote about them. This year, I have an ambitious plan to publish the third book in the series, and write drafts of the final two books in the series.

Along this journey I’ve learned a lot of things, not least about how to turn the “fantasy” of wanting to be a writer into the reality of becoming an author. My intention, across this year, is to create a bunch of content around all of this; articles, videos, social posts, courses. There is a lot to share. And there is, of course, much more to learn.

I’d love to hear your stories, and I hope you will “tune-in” and engage with the ones I intend to share. I look forward to engaging with you.

Thanks for reading B. SCOTT HOADLEY! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Navigating complexity

I’ve spent a lot of time in recent years advising, mentoring and supporting digital product, design, and research leaders and teams through change in their organizations.

Whether building new teams, restructuring existing ones, or helping embed the way product, design and research practices engage with digital delivery models, these engagements are often complex, fraught with anxiety, and in a nutshell, not always entirely successful.

Creating change, under any circumstance, is difficult. People in transformation know this. According to McKinsey, less than 30% of transformation activities succeed. I suspect it’s much less than that, but that the criteria have been loosened to allow for a broader definition of success.

Organizations are complex systems, made even more complex by the introduction of humans into the equation. Complex systems are difficult to map, understand, navigate, and change. Layering the human factor onto a complex system with all of our emotions, ambitions, fears, anxieties, and other psychology helps you begin to understand why making change is so difficult.

And though I said successful change, under any circumstance, is difficult…

It’s not impossible.

Identifying some of the basics for creating successful change

Some things that I’ve come to believe need to be present for successful change are: thinking, shaping, planning, clarity, teaming, collaboration, engagement, co-creation, communication, decisioning, vision and leadership. These are things that I either see get muddled up in organizations attempting to undertake change, or are missing altogether.

Let’s try to understand them better.

Thinking — Before “doing” take the requisite time to “think” about the problems you are solving for, e.g., who is impacted, how you will measure results, and why you need to do it. Are you trying to “boil the ocean” or is your activity achievable? Do you have the resources you need? How will it impact customers and colleagues? What will shareholders think?

Shaping — Understanding your organization is a deeply complex organism and building time to understand the complexity of that organism will help you to shape your planning process. You need to understand the interconnectedness of your organization to identify how change needs to be implemented — and what it will impact.

Planning — With an understanding of the problems you’re solving for and the underlying complexity of your organization, you need a plan. Is this a program with a beginning, middle and end, or is your organization going on a journey? Is everyone committed? Have you allocated people and resources to ensure change does not become a “side of desk” activity?

Clarity — Can your team articulate a clear vision to one another, and across the organization? If not, can you simplify what you are trying to achieve to ensure everyone understands your intended direction? Having everyone “singing from the same hymn sheet” is an important factor in ensuring people get — and are onboard with — your vision.

Teaming — Don’t underestimate the effort in getting everyone to work together as a team. Being successful delivering in a silo is not the same as coming together, cross-functionally, effortlessly to drive change. You need to ensure your board and your c-suite are aligned and that this filters down to people across all parts of the organization… one team, one goal. Success.

Collaboration — Aligning around goals and objectives is important, but real change will require a thousand little — and big — interactions. This requires flexibility around collaboration, knowing that you may need to form and reform cross-functional teams together to do deep work, and deliver. Teaming gets you there, but collaboration is key to delivering results.

Engagement — If change is localized you still need to engage other parts of the organization to keep them informed throughout a change process. If you are undergoing wholescale organizational change, it is easy for teams to get out of step with one another. Engage often and openly ensuring people understand the moving parts of the process, and their place in it.

Co-creation — Successful collaboration comes when people from different functional areas and perspectives come together to look at problems needing to be solved. Embrace the idea of change being asynchronous, a continuous stream of back-and-forth engagement, encouraging people to work together, create and design together, deliver and succeed together.

Communication — Large-scale change can breed fragmentation and disconnection. Communicate openly and often. There’s nothing worse than the vacuum silence creates when undergoing change. Rumor mills kick in, anxiety increases, guessing becomes that day’s facts, and before you know it your program begins to unravel and descend into a mire of “fake news.”

Decisioning — There are hundreds of decisions that need to be made daily and weekly, and no one person or change authority can hear, process, or make that many decisions. Identify people in the program who you empower and trust to make decisions to maintain momentum and unblock people and activities.

Vision — It goes without saying that any program of change requires a vision, a north star that everyone involved understands, can articulate, and make relevant to the work they are asked to do. Vision helps to guide people’s efforts and ensure everyone is aligned around core beliefs necessary to delivering successful change.

Leadership — Leadership cannot be subordinated or distributed without risking failure in any change program. Leadership should come from the top of the organization. If it is an organizational transformation, the CEO should “lead” that effort. Even if the change occurs further down the hierarchy, there should be a clear line of authority to the CEO.

Leadership is a Core Component of Successful Change

Let’s expand on the last point about the CEO “leading” transformation.

Leading won’t always translate to the CEO personally doing or driving all of the above. But they need to “own” change in their organizations. They need to understand the value of change, commit to the people and resources required, and ensure that change is understood and agreed by their c-suite and the board. Especially when that change cuts across teams.

Without this involvement, it would be very easy for any change process to feel that it doesn’t have the mandate or authority to deliver against its objectives and ultimately risk failing in its efforts. This failure represents a failure of authority to deliver change in an organization.

If organizational leaders are ready to own the potential for success they also need to own the possibility of failure. And the consequences that come out of poor engagement.

Some Final Thoughts

I like to consider Thinking, Shaping, and Planning as a “design” activity. Clarity and Teaming are about “selling” and “aligning” change. Collaboration, Engagement, Co-Creation, and Communication are about “delivering” change. And finally Decisioning, Vision and Leadership are about “leading” and “mandating” change.

It’s very difficult to align so many things across a program of change — you can see why so many efforts fail.

As I said at the beginning, change is difficult. But the approach to change can determine the level of success of the outcome. Great leaders understand the need to be involved in creating successful change in their organizations. They understand the necessity of getting people, purpose and vision aligned, agreed and communicated. They get that change is difficult and messy and requires attention to process and detail.

If you’re considering undertaking change in your organization, assess your effort across each of these dimensions to ensure you’re prepared for what’s to come. The outcome will be a good indicator as to the degree of success — or failure — you might experience.

Thanks for reading B. SCOTT HOADLEY! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

The 1st draft of Hunter's moon is complete

After a difficult personal year last year, I've finally completed the full manuscript for Hunter's Moon, the third book in the Old Blood Saga. I'm already hard at work on rewrites and hope to have those completed over the next eight weeks. Apologies for taking so long but as some of you know I lost both my mother and brother last year and lost my focus and mojo for writing.

The rewrites are progressing at pace now and with any luck I'll get the book to my editor sometime in March. I'm also about to start outlining the next two books in the Old Blood Saga, Blood Ties and Weaver’s Isle. Once I've got the outlines completed, I'll start working on the manuscript for Blood Ties.

This year I'm hoping to do something nearly impossible... complete the first drafts of both of the next two books and make a start on the final book of the series, The Conclave. I've set a really aggressive deadline for myself and am hoping I can make up for lost time. This means we should see Blood Ties published later in 2023 and Weaver’s Isle published in early 2024 with The Conclave following up in late spring/early summer 2024.

If you haven't read them yet, you can find my first two novels, The Weaver and Old Blood on Amazon. They are currently free on Kindle Unlimited, though this may change with the publication of Hunter's Moon this Spring when I look to revamp the look, marketing and social media presence of the series. So get them now if you haven't already.

You can find more information about my first two books here.

You can find both books on Amazon at:

The Weaver - https://getbook.at/TheWeaver.

Old Blood - https://getbook.at/OldBlood.

Look out for more posts in the near future on my upcoming books. If you haven't signed up for updates, consider doing so. You can sign up here - https://bscotthoadley.com/subscribe/.

Thanks for reading B. SCOTT HOADLEY! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.