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Jen Emery

Changing business by changing hearts | Changing hearts by changing business

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    • The book
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  • Recent Posts
    • An island in an ocean full of change
    • Herrings and peanuts
    • Beautiful and Terrible Things
    • Taking my own medicine
    • How’s business?
    • I do, we do, you do, review …
    • Two Monsters
    • The Tough Question
    • How to Keep Your People Engaged in Times of Uncertainty
    • A celebration, a pause, and a lesson
  • Resources
    • Rethinking Change – Extra Resources
    • Psalm
  • About Jen
    • About Jen
    • Publications and appearances
  • About the book
    • The book
    • Launch Party Photo Gallery
  • Recent Posts
    • An island in an ocean full of change
    • Herrings and peanuts
    • Beautiful and Terrible Things
    • Taking my own medicine
    • How’s business?
    • I do, we do, you do, review …
    • Two Monsters
    • The Tough Question
    • How to Keep Your People Engaged in Times of Uncertainty
    • A celebration, a pause, and a lesson
  • Resources
    • Rethinking Change – Extra Resources
    • Psalm

The book

Or download a sample
  • Humanising business,  Leadership,  Personal Reflections,  Storytelling

    Lessons from a Friend

    03 January 2023 /

    In the middle of November, on a gentle grey day, just as the old year was starting to tire and fray, one of my dearest friends, Gregor Grant, died.  In the long weeks since, there have been bouquets of words thrown down by the many people who loved him, lavishing praise on a wonderful artist, musician, lawyer and, above all, on a man who was curious, funny, generous and loving beyond measure. I have read and listened to everything I can lay my hands on. I have googled his name in hopes of finding more. But so far, I have not added any words of my own.  Gregor was a…

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    Jen Emery

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    How’s business?

    27 August 2019

    Beautiful and Terrible Things

    01 February 2020

    Did you imagine it would be this way forever?

    15 October 2021
  • Webb's first Deep Field (NIRCam Image)
    Humanising business,  Leadership,  Personal Reflections,  Uncategorised

    Great, make one!

    12 October 2022 /

    You know those pictures that circulate online of baking disasters? One went viral just recently, showing a horse cake that someone had made to mark the Queen’s funeral. Those pictures always make me sort of laugh-gasp-sob. I think perhaps grip us in the same way that true crime grips us; namely, with that vertiginous sense of ‘oh my goodness, that could so easily be me’. We all know what it is to have so perfectly conceived of an idea, a flawless, shining star in our imagination. The perfect cake, the perfect holiday, the perfect relationship, the perfect presentation, the perfect business strategy. And we all know what it feels like,…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

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    Herrings and peanuts

    19 February 2020

    Did you imagine it would be this way forever?

    15 October 2021

    Taking my own medicine

    28 December 2019
  • Humanising business,  Leadership,  Storytelling,  Women

    This Ramshackle House

    06 March 2022 /

    I talk a lot about what it takes on a personal level to be a good and resourceful leader. About the disciplines and practices that we should pay attention to and build for ourselves to ensure that we remain resourceful and healthy – the importance of rest and sleep and rejuvenation, of reflective practices, of eating well and exercising. Blah blah blah. I wang on constantly about books to read and new tools and techniques to try. And yet, in all of that, I don’t think I’ve mentioned even once my most tried-and-tested go-to remedy that I do in real-life-actual-fact seek out without fail whenever I have something gnarly to…

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    Jen Emery

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    Rethinking Agility

    16 March 2021

    Beautiful and Terrible Things

    01 February 2020
    Close up of a lemon meringue pie

    Rethinking Evolution

    09 March 2021
  • A bundle of all of the books discussed in this blog
    Business writing,  Coaching,  Humanising business,  Personal Reflections,  Purpose,  Storytelling,  Women

    What I read on my holidays

    23 January 2022 /

    When I was a kid, my nickname in my family was Johnny Number 5, after the robot in the 1988 movie Short Circuit who could read a book in seconds. My earliest memories are of the revolving door, beeswaxed floor and orange plastic chairs of my local library. My idea of the best possible day out was when I could persuade my dad to take me to James Thin in Edinburgh, where I’d lose myself scouring the shelves, and emerge hungry and dizzy hours later, surprised to return to the real world. All of which is to say, I really love reading. Mostly these days, though, my passion is quite contained and restrained. Reading happens on…

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    Jen Emery

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    Finding My Voice On The Page As a Female Business Author

    01 April 2019

    And they all lived happily ever after: Why change leaders need to ditch process in favour of telling a good story

    13 March 2019

    China in your hand – five lessons in gratitude

    03 January 2022
  • Business writing,  Humanising business,  Personal Reflections,  Storytelling

    China in your hand – five lessons in gratitude

    03 January 2022 /

    'Don't push too far your dreams are china in your hand....' sang Carol Decker of T'Pau in 1987, and I've been pushing to far ever since. But this year a very different sort of china in my hand has deepened my gratitude practice and helped me to understand how a bit of grounding in the present is exactly what our wild dreams need ...

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    Jen Emery

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    Sometimes I don’t even know the question

    27 September 2021

    Herrings and peanuts

    19 February 2020

    The Soft Underbelly: Why showing your vulnerable side is critical for change leaders

    13 March 2019
  • Business writing,  Humanising business,  Leadership,  Organisational change,  Personal Reflections,  Storytelling

    Did you imagine it would be this way forever?

    15 October 2021 /

    I’ve confessed before that for someone who is making a career out of helping organisations to change, I don’t half make heavy weather of it sometimes in my own life. I love the present hard, while taxing it with all my anxiety around the future to come. I’m like my littlest boy who loves holidays so much that he starts fretting from day two about how sad he’ll feel when it’s over. Years and years ago, when our children were babies and dark winter afternoons felt interminable and hair-tearingly boring, even as everyone told us to treasure them, a dear friend gave me the simplest, most game-changing gift. She used…

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    Jen Emery

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    How’s business?

    27 August 2019

    Rethinking Understanding

    22 March 2021

    Ordinary Gorgons

    09 March 2020
  • Business writing,  Coaching,  Humanising business,  Leadership

    Sometimes I don’t even know the question

    27 September 2021 /

    We all know the experience of being around someone who doesn’t ask any questions. In some social circumstances, it can be an introvert’s dream scenario – I have lost count of the number of drinks parties, dinners, wedding receptions I’ve been to where I’ve been able to hide in plain sight – just ask a couple of questions of the right people, and they’re off, and you’re home and dry. Not asking questions is more common than you might think. It’s not necessarily because someone is full of their own sense of importance or their own narrative – though I read somewhere that on average we spend 80% of our…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Taking my own medicine

    28 December 2019

    Rethinking Simplicity

    25 March 2021

    Finding My Voice On The Page As a Female Business Author

    01 April 2019
  • Business writing,  Confidence,  Humanising business,  Leadership,  Personal Reflections,  Purpose,  Uncategorised

    Leaving things half done

    07 August 2021 /

    Where I grew up, you worked hard. You cleared your plate. A hard day was a good day. Sick days were for wimps, lay-ins for layabouts. If you were banging your head against a brick wall and it wasn’t working, you just needed to bang a wee bit harder, a wee bit longer. I am about to leave a job that I have loved and have worked very hard at. In leaving, I’m going to be leaving a whole heap of things undone, and of the many things that are hard about this transition season, it’s perhaps this that I have wrestled with most. I would like to have somehow…

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    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Rethinking Agility

    16 March 2021

    Sometimes I don’t even know the question

    27 September 2021

    How’s business?

    27 August 2019
  • Child with face painted as zombie and t-shirt saying 'revive me'
    Business writing,  Humanising business,  Leadership,  Organisational change,  Personal Reflections,  Uncategorised

    Rethinking Energy

    26 April 2021 /

    Of all of the themes in the book that I’ve had cause to think longest and hardest about this past year, it’s the theme of energy.Everywhere I turn, I encounter leaders who are overwhelmed and exhausted. In the UK at least, this seems even more acute as things start to feel objectively a little better – I suspect because we’re out of adrenalin and crisis mode, some numbness is wearing off, and the reckoning of all that we’ve been through is beginning. I speak to leaders who feel that they are too thinly spread, and have been for a long time. They have violated so many of their own boundaries…

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    Jen Emery

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    Rethinking Simplicity

    25 March 2021

    Purpose over Process: How Your Gantt Chart Causes Damage During Periods of Change

    13 March 2019

    This Ramshackle House

    06 March 2022
  • Humanising business,  Leadership,  Organisational change,  Personal Reflections,  Purpose,  Storytelling

    Rethinking Simplicity

    25 March 2021 / No Comments

    Blue anemones in a glass vase. A clear diary. A perfect story. A clear decision made. Do you find yourself craving simplicity in what feels like an airless and cluttered world? Does your brain feel foggy? This week's blog is a cri de coeur for simplicity. Simplicity of message, simplicity of information, simplicity in structure, in decision-making, and in getting stuff done. Simplicity in rules and, perhaps above all, simplicity of expectation. Organisations and leaders that can bring simplicity are giving their people the gift of enabling them to focus on what truly matters, and the gift of freedom from being entangled in clutter. But why is that so hard…

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    Jen Emery

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    Photo of three of my children sitting at the dining table, drawing pictures while blindfolded

    Rethinking Belonging

    04 March 2021
    Close up of small boy looking smug!

    Rethinking Confidence

    12 March 2021

    Ordinary Gorgons

    09 March 2020
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Recent Posts

  • Lessons from a Friend
  • Great, make one!
  • This Ramshackle House
  • What I read on my holidays
  • China in your hand – five lessons in gratitude

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