Practical Inspiration Publishing

**Business Book Awards 2024 Finalist**

An accessible guide to the business of being a board director, through the lens of 18 crucial conversations.

• How do you understand what is really going on in an organisation, so you can exercise the oversight that is required from you?
• How do you overcome the information asymmetry problem, where the executive directors know more about the operation than you do?
• How will you collaborate as a board to set the right strategic direction in a context that changes constantly?
• How will you see the organisation through the eyes of your advisors, your employees and your key stakeholders?
• How can you manage the risks you know about as well as the ones you don’t?

Your best tool for all of this is conversation – about the right topics, with the right people, at the right time. This book shows you what these conversations need to cover and how to make them count. Whether you are a new director of a PLC, a long-standing Trustee of a charity, or a governor of an educational institution, this book will help you and your colleagues become the board your organisation needs.

**Business Book Awards 2024: Specialist Business Book of the Year**

Ever come away from a coaching session feeling it didn’t quite hit the mark, despite your skills and knowledge?

It’s not just the words we use, it’s the music, the lyrics and the dance of the conversation that make a difference to the quality of the outcome, and getting these right demands not just skill but humanity.

Explore the human qualities that great coaches need to develop - humility, vulnerability, courage, and more - based on research from thousands of real coaching sessions, with stories, reflections, practical examples and tips on how to develop yourself and your work.

This is a book for anyone who wants to deepen their work without adding more tools and techniques, and who is willing to do some deeper work in service of having more transformational conversations.

**Business Book Awards 2025 Finalist**

'This is the book I really needed when I first became a working parent!' - Kathryn Bishop, CBE

Welcome to the world of working parenthood...

• Wondering how you’ll still do your job as well as being a parent?
• Want to have a conversation about changing your working pattern but not sure how to approach it?
• Don’t really know where to start with creating a return-to-work plan?

This how-to guide is designed to help you every step of the way on your journey to becoming a working parent – from before you head off on parental leave to while you’re away and on your return. Catherine Oliver has not only been there and done that but has supported many thousands who have chosen to take on the dual roles of parent and employee.

It will also be invaluable if your partner is taking a longer period of parental leave, or if you’re a manager worried about doing or saying the wrong thing. In the past this support has only been available to employees of big corporates: now you’re holding it in your hands.

Catherine Oliver is a Diversity and Inclusion Advisor who specializes in helping organizations from start-ups to the largest listed companies support working parents and their managers. She became a parent herself during her 20-year corporate career and founded Sky’s parenting network.

'An excellent practical guide to working through the many challenges of becoming a working parent.' Colin Jones, ex-COO, Sky

'As a first-time expectant parent this book was a game-changer.' Emma McKinley, Mum-to-be & Finance Director, Haleon PLC

**Business Book Awards 2025 Finalist**

‘A crucial tool for all Change Leaders.’ – Ket Patel

Organization change can be messy. Much of what matters takes place under the surface, and overlooking these hidden factors - as most change programmes do - too often results in failure and frustration. What’s the answer? More thoughtful conversation, inquiry and storytelling, which enable leaders to understand more fully what is happening under the surface in their organization and have better communication and engagement with their teams.

Based on her academic research and over 25 years of consultancy practice, Dr Susanne Evans’ ChangeStories approach enables leaders and change practitioners to have more meaningful conversations about change, create stories that can reduce resistance to change and increase engagement, and ultimately ensure the benefits of a change programme are realized.

This is a complete guide to building storytelling, inquiry and conversation into your everyday practice, including step-by-step guides, templates and case studies.

**Business Book Awards 2025 Finalist**

Have you ever dreamed of developing the next big app like Airbnb or TikTok, but you don’t know your webhooks from your APIs?

Do you have a software idea that could solve the world’s biggest problems but coding seems like a dark art? What was once a heavy barrier to most founders - creating a technical product - has now become simple and accessible thanks to the world of No-Code.

The No-Code Startup is a play-by-play guide to launching your business by building just about any kind of app with No-Code tools. You’ll learn the basics of storing data, building automations and even implementing AI tools like GPT. By the end you will be able to test your product with real customers before continuing your journey as a true tech startup founder.

Could your ‘small’ business be a Blue Whale just waiting to break the water?

Whether you’re in your third week or third decade of business, no matter what your current turnover is or what life stage you’re at, it’s never too late to re-evaluate your goals and your ambitions. But if you’re ready to grow your business after several years of trading, you might find that most of the advice and support out there is aimed at new start-ups.

Phil Teasdale took the decision to transform his own company 20 years ago, and since then he’s been helping other established businesses grow and transform with the help of his innovative, practical Blue Whale Plan.
Swimming with Blue Whales will change both you and your business – this is your invitation to become part of the pod.

A successful small business owner himself, Phil Teasdale has spent the last 20 years working with over 6,000 small businesses in the UK, US and Australia, identifying and developing growth opportunities.

Recognising that most small businesses and small business owners do not fit the traditional myth of the high-growth start-up ‘unicorn’, he is much more interested in working with ‘blue whales’: businesses with a longer gestation, who choose a different, more sustainable route to growth.

**Business Book Awards 2024 Finalist**

Of course your team is good. It’s made up of good people. But imagine if it was GREAT… imagine if it had the EDGE…

In a world of ambiguity and constant change, teams are the critical glue for solving complex problems, delivering in challenging environments and supporting each other to grow, develop and be engaged.

Drawing from extensive research working across hundreds of teams, Alison Grieve and Jenni Miller have developed an integrated and full-team approach that allows any team to achieve high performance and sustain it. In this highly practical book, they translate their authoritative research and theory into five key Edge Dynamics, together with clear steps and tools that can be applied immediately. Take your team to the edge of higher performance, deeper engagement and greater wellbeing and beyond.

What if every day at work felt like your team’s most productive ‘away day’?

The most successful and innovative teams and organisations are highly collaborative, creative and productive - you will find the principles of great workshops infused throughout their culture.

This is a book about how running great workshops, and taking inspiration from them, can lead to a great team environment. Workshop Culture will show you how to create a happy and engaged team through small actions which lead to big results. It features a practical and accessible toolkit to help improve your team’s performance and productivity.

Workshop Culture gives you:

• Inspiring case studies from forward-thinking and innovative teams that have found success from a workshop culture
• A structured methodology that you can follow to bring more happiness, productivity and engagement to your team
• Practical exercises to help you build new skills and knowledge, and increase impact at work

Alison Coward is a team culture coach, consultant and founder of Bracket, a consultancy that partners with ambitious, forward-thinking companies to build high-performing, collaborative team cultures.

***WINNER getAbstract International Book Award 2024 - Business Impact, Readers’ Choice***

**WINNER Business Self Development Book of the Year - Business Book Awards 2025**

**The People's Book Prize Longlisted Title 2024/25**

“I devoured every page of this wonderfully written book.” – Sergio Ezama, Chief Talent Officer, Netflix

Want to be more confident at work? You're not alone.

So many of us grapple with self-doubt.

Perhaps you’re an exhausted achiever? You’re delivering results and progressing in your career, but you feel utterly worn out. You’re compensating for a lack of confidence with excessive effort and punishingly high standards.

Or perhaps you’re feeling frustrated and unfulfilled? Self-doubt is making you hold yourself back, you're avoiding challenges that could demonstrate how good you really are.

This book can help. Distilling over a decade of real-life research into clear insights, practical tools and impactful activities, Julie Smith shows you how to Coach Yourself Confident.

'This is a deep and rewarding exploration of human motivation' The Financial Times

'Powerful and profound' - Matthew Syed

‘This book will change your outlook on everything.’ - Clare Balding

Reimagining success in sport, business, education, politics and life.

In this compelling examination of our obsession with winning, Cath Bishop draws on her extraordinary mix of experience to trace how increasingly narrow concepts of winning constrain our personal and professional lives. How do we redefine success in order to explore our potential more effectively over the long- term? In this second edition, Cath adds fresh insight from working with leaders who are putting The Long Win into practice and offers additional tips and strategies to leaders looking to unlock sustainable high performance.

Cath is a triple Olympian, World Champion and Olympic silver medalist in rowing. In her career as a diplomat, she specialized in stabilization policy for conflict-affected parts of the world. She now works as a coach and consultant, advising on leadership, performance and culture across business, sport and education, and teaches on Executive Education programmes at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University. She is a globally sought-after speaker.

‘It’s not often you can say a book will change your life, but this certainly could.’ Daily Mail

‘Anyone interested in motivation should read this book and think deeply.’ Margaret Heffernan

Chosen by the Financial Times as one of its Best Business Books 2020

You’ve just shared news of the latest plans with employees.

Message sent and received - job done.

But they ain’t buying it. Nothing has changed.

Now what?

Refreshing Comms will help you rethink and improve your whole approach to internal comms by showing you how to communicate in a way that connects people, purpose and strategy every time. In reframing the workplace and explaining the fascinating facts about what makes people tick, this book uncovers the real narrative shaping culture and behaviour, and introduces its practical and customisable Tools of Engagement Framework© so you can stop wasting time and start getting the right outcomes in a way that’s good, and simpler, for everyone.

• Discover how to make a compelling case to get people onside.

• Get intentional with an actionable comms plan aligned with your specific business goals and values.

• Learn how to engage your audience with high-value content.

• Start using internal comms as your powerful, strategic management tool that does the heavy lifting for you.

How’s that for a message that hits the spot?

Liz Atkin is a brand copywriter and internal comms strategist who has spent her career using the power of words to positively influence people and inspire action. Drawing on her experience, expertise and creativity she now helps businesses of all types engage with their target audiences through strategic positioning, powerful narrative and authentic messaging.

**Business Book Awards 2024 Finalist**

To survive disruption, organizations need disruptive leaders.

So they hire them. And then they fire them.

It’s the open secret everyone in the leadership industry knows but nobody is addressing: leadership culture is toxic, and leadership systems have failed. Publicly, organizations say they want leaders to be innovative thinkers who challenge the status quo. Privately, conventional leadership culture wants nothing of the sort. Leaders deemed as ‘a bad culture fit’ quickly find themselves marginalized, ostracized, and even exorcised. The qualities that get them hired are the ones that get them fired. Yet, these rebels and nonconformists often embody the very leadership qualities that organizations so desperately need to navigate disruption and adapt to the “new normal” of constant change.

Radically refreshing and practical, this book identifies five leadership qualities (F.I.R.E.D. Leadership™) that are key to tomorrow’s leadership success and offers a step-by-step blueprint to show organizations how to integrate these five crucial qualities into their current leadership identification, recruitment, onboarding, and development processes.

'Exactly what we need to fix our broken leaders.’- Whitney Johnson

‘A necessary read for anyone wanting to lead bravely.’ John Spence

Leadership maverick Paul McCarthy shows organizations how to reframe how they view their troublemakers, agitators, rebels, oddballs and shit-stirrers – to see the hidden leadership qualities driving those behaviors, and why they need them so desperately.

**Business Book Awards 2024 Finalist**

Write a self-help book that makes a difference

If you’re a coach, therapist, or trainer wanting to write a book that transforms your readers’ lives, you may feel unsure about what’s involved. How do you translate the words that come so effortlessly when you’re with a client into inspirational and convincing advice on the page? What’s the secret?

This is the book that guides you on your journey to becoming a successful self-help author. It gives you everything you need to write, publish, and promote a book that does justice to your ideas and expertise.

DEFINE YOUR BOOK

Understand what you want to achieve with your book, the exact topic
to write about, who your readers are, and what kind of self-help guide
it will be. So many authors miss this vital step.

OUTLINE YOUR BOOK

Discover easy and effective ways of structuring your content so that
it effortlessly takes your readers from problem to solution.

WRITE YOUR BOOK

Learn how to win over your readers’ hearts
and minds by writing clearly, persuasively, and authentically.

PUT YOUR BOOK OUT THERE

Uncover the mysteries of editing, publishing, and marketing your book so that it reaches a ready-made audience of willing readers.

GINNY CARTER is a bestselling ghostwriter of over 25 books, a book coach, and an award-winning author in her own right. Specialising in self-help guides, business books, and memoirs, she’s ghosted books on a wide variety of topics. Ginny is also the author of the award-winning Your Business, Your Book, which takes you through the key steps for planning, writing, and promoting a business book.

Learn more at www.marketingtwentyone.co.uk