Derek Draper Has Worked As a Leadership Consultant, Business Psychologist and Executive Coach for Nearly Fifteen Years
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Derek Draper has worked as a leadership consultant, business psychologist and executive coach for nearly fifteen years. He is the co-founder and CEO of CDP Leadership Consultants and was previ- ously Managing Consultant and Head of Business Development for the UK and Europe at the global consultancy YSC. He has assessed and developed senior business people in around twenty FTSE 100 companies and in some of the largest privately held companies in the world. As well as working in the UK he has worked with businesses in Germany, the Nordics, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Africa. Prior to this he worked in politics, as chief aide to Peter (now Lord) Mandelson, and was the founder of Progress, the centre- ground think tank. He was also an entrepreneur in the marketing and communications sector helping build and sell a public affairs consultancy to Omnicon and then co-founding an advertising agency which was sold to Cello. Today, as well as leading CDP he has a small psychotherapy prac- tice in Bloomsbury and is a Governor of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. He is an active member of the Association for Business Psychology (ABP). He lives in London with his wife, the TV and radio presenter Kate Garraway, and their two children, Darcey and Bill. He tweets @derekdraper and you can sign up to receive his regular newsletter at www.derekdraper.net/signup. Create Space.indd 1 04/07/2018 12:06 This is a stimulating, thought-provoking and valuable guide for those who are serious about ‘being the best they can be’. It blends research, considered insights and storytelling to offer a very practical framework to take control and make space for reflection, learning, possibilities and being. It will act as a useful ‘coach’ in all aspects of one’s life and at all stages in one’s career. Valerie Scoular, former Group HR director at Barclays, British Airways and Dentsu Aegis Network What I most like about Create Space is the twelve stories at the heart of the book. They bring to life the ideas within it in an engaging and entertaining way. Whether you are at the start of your career, enjoy- ing your first management responsibilities, or sitting in the C-suite, this book has lots to offer. I highly recommend it. Henry Birch, chief executive of the Rank Group plc Create Space is coming at the right time. Leaders today are always on, and operating in environments which are rapidly changing. So figuring out how to get the space to think, learn, decide and grow is a very high-leverage piece of help. Austin Lally, Group CEO, Verisure This book sets out in a very well researched, practical way how you can create the physical and mental space to make better decisions, build deeper professional relationships and get the things that really matter done. Whether you work in business, the public sector or the third sector, if you aspire to master the art and science of leadership, this is a great guide. Gavyn Davies, chairman, Fulcrum Asset Management, and former chairman of the BBC Create Space.indd 2 04/07/2018 12:06 No matter how busy you think you are, find the time to read this book. Packed with far-reaching insights and simple steps for wresting back control of your diary and your career, Create Space is a must- read for thoughtful leaders looking to take their performance – and the performance of their teams – to the next level. Sarah Wood, founder and non-executive chair, Unruly.com (part of News Corp) Derek Draper will do something for you that no politician can; he will help you take back control. Robert Peston, ITV political editor (former BBC business editor) I’m moderately successful but permanently playing catch-up. I’m late for everything. I struggle to prioritise, and even to catch my breath. I juggle with only mixed results. I’m glad I stepped back and created enough space to read Derek Draper’s original, clever, prac- tical book. Space to think is the most basic necessity. Draper has shown me, for the first time, where I can find it. Euan Rellie, co-founder and senior MD, BDA (Business Development Asia) I see loads of business books and they can often be one idea stretched out to fill a book and a little bit too ‘ivory tower’. This book’s differ- ent. Each chapter takes a vital skill and digs deep to really understand it, through very lifelike and funny stories. There’s then a tonne of practical suggestions that will resonate with anyone who works in business. If you’re serious about your career, grab this now and get reading. Ian King, business editor, Sky News Create Space.indd 3 04/07/2018 12:06 DEREK DRAPER PROFILE BOOKS Create Space.indd 5 04/07/2018 12:06 First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Profile Books Ltd 3 Holford Yard Bevin Way London wc1x 9hd www.profilebooks.com Copyright © Derek Draper 2018 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 The right of Derek Draper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. All reasonable efforts have been made to obtain copyright permissions where required. Any omissions and errors of attribution are unintentional and will, if notified in writing to the publisher, be corrected in future printings. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978 1 78816 048 3 eISBN 978 1 78283 447 2 Text design by [email protected] Typeset in Dante by MacGuru Ltd Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. Create Space.indd 6 04/07/2018 12:06 Contents Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 PART 1 Create Space to Think 17 1 Space to Reflect – Raku and Her Sister’s Ghost 19 2 Space to Learn – Rachel and Her Need to Go It Alone 46 3 Space to Decide – Hans and His Family of Tyrants 71 PART 2 Create Space to Connect 91 4 Space to Check In – Nick and His Three Deadbeat Dads 93 5 Space to Share – The Spirits Team and Their Need to Get Nasty 108 6 Space to Relate – Amir and His Time in the Doghouse 127 PART 3 Create Space to Do 153 7 Space to Plan – The Brothers and Their Failing Magic Show 155 8 Space to Deliver – Tamsin and Her Missing Delivery 172 9 Space to Lead – Yulia and Her Hungry Sea Lions 203 PART 4 Create Space to Be 223 10 Space to Dream – Oscar and His Love of the Land 225 11 Space to Balance – Trevone and His Near-Death Experience 239 12 Space to Grow – Almantas and His Gladly Missed Targets 254 Create Space.indd 9 04/07/2018 12:06 x CONTENTS PART 5 The Three Gateways to Creating Space 263 Gateway 1 Set Your Personal Strategy 264 Gateway 2 Raise Your Personal Productivity 265 Gateway 3 Adopt the Space Mindset 266 Conclusion 275 List of tools and models 280 Appendix: Data analysis 282 Further reading and resources 287 Index 299 Create Space.indd 10 04/07/2018 12:06 Introduction HE two IDEAS at the heart of this book came to me during T two very different afternoons. One was spent hiking up a mountain in Kenya; the other in a noisy works canteen off a ring road on the outskirts of London. Oddly enough, both took place while I was working for the same client, a FTSE 100 giant, whose products fill aisles in every super- market in the world. A couple of years ago I was sent to Africa to work with some of the company’s local business leaders. After a few days, I had an afternoon off and hired a driver to take me to a nearby national park, close to the Serengeti and the Great Rift Valley. As I hiked up Mount Longonot with a guide, a herd of wild giraffe strolled across our path. Luckily, that day, no lions. Half-way up we stopped and surveyed the surrounding landscape. The dusty valley seemed to go on forever. Vast swathes of green, brown and yellow scrubland rolled on and on to an eventual horizon marked by dark, jagged mountain- tops. The only visible signs of humanity were a few indistinct clumps of grey, marking out various hamlets and small towns. I was struck dumb by the stillness and grandeur spread out before me. I had never before experienced such a sense of limitless, almost entirely empty space. What a contrast to my usual hectic existence. This land was where our ancestors first walked the earth. Roughly 200,000 years ago the first recognisably human figures had spread across this part of Africa, and every single one of us alive today has DNA that can be traced back to that group – some scientists argue to a specific man and woman. About 75,000 years ago these slender, Create Space.indd 1 04/07/2018 12:06 2 CREATE SPACE graceful, large-brained Homo sapiens began to journey slowly out of Africa. Over the next tens of thousands of years they settled pretty much everywhere on the planet, displacing several other hominid species, such as the Neanderthals, along the way.