• Home
  • Get in touch
Jen Emery

Changing business by changing hearts | Changing hearts by changing business

  • 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
  • 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…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Webb's first Deep Field (NIRCam Image)

    Great, make one!

    12 October 2022

    How’s business?

    27 August 2019
    Close up of a lemon meringue pie

    Rethinking Evolution

    09 March 2021
  • 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…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Rethinking Agility

    16 March 2021
    Close up of a lemon meringue pie

    Rethinking Evolution

    09 March 2021

    Sometimes I don’t even know the question

    27 September 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…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

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

    13 March 2019

    Leaving things half done

    07 August 2021

    Sometimes I don’t even know the question

    27 September 2021
  • 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 ...

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Finding My Voice On The Page As a Female Business Author

    01 April 2019
    Close up of a lemon meringue pie

    Rethinking Evolution

    09 March 2021

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

    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…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Ordinary Gorgons

    09 March 2020

    Rethinking Simplicity

    25 March 2021

    Beautiful and Terrible Things

    01 February 2020
  • 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…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    China in your hand – five lessons in gratitude

    03 January 2022

    An island in an ocean full of change

    01 March 2021

    Leaving things half done

    07 August 2021
  • Humanising business,  Leadership,  Organisational change,  Personal Reflections,  Storytelling

    Rethinking Understanding

    22 March 2021 /

    Almost all of us have surely, over the past year, been sucked into the impossible game of ‘pandemic trumps’. Whose wifi is worst? Whose pet the most disruptive? Is it better to be locked down in the city or in the countryside? Alone or with small children? Who has looked enviously while perched on the end of their bed with a laptop at someone else’s spacious booklined study? Who has used the time to get in the best shape of their life, and who has a developed a packet-a-day biscuit habit? Who has thrived on the quiet solitude and who is tearing their hair out with loneliness? We will all…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Sometimes I don’t even know the question

    27 September 2021

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

    13 March 2019

    Leaving things half done

    07 August 2021
  • Agility,  Business writing,  Humanising business,  Leadership,  Organisational change,  Personal Reflections,  Purpose,  Storytelling

    Rethinking Agility

    16 March 2021 / No Comments

    My fifteen year old son is a goalkeeper. During lockdown, his training has been via zoom calls and has involved setting up ludicrous obstacle courses across the living room, so that he can practise changing direction in a fraction of a second, or leaping from a standing start onto a high box. He is working on his agility – the first thing to go, apparently, if you don’t practise for a while. I wonder if some of that loss of agility is also creeping into our psyches, into how we lead, and into our organisations? At first blush, you’d think not. Haven’t we all been congratulating ourselves on how well…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

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

    13 March 2019

    Taking my own medicine

    28 December 2019

    An island in an ocean full of change

    01 March 2021
  • Close up of small boy looking smug!
    Business writing,  Confidence,  Humanising business,  Leadership,  Organisational change,  Personal Reflections,  Purpose,  Storytelling,  Women

    Rethinking Confidence

    12 March 2021 /

    Some days I don’t have the first idea what I’m doing. I eat cake for breakfast and shout at the children, and my hair looks crap. Some days I look at the length of my to do list, the unanswered emails, the state of my kitchen, and realise I am profoundly unqualified for the role of Living My Own Life....

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Ordinary Gorgons

    09 March 2020

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

    13 March 2019
    Close up of a lemon meringue pie

    Rethinking Evolution

    09 March 2021
  • Close up of a lemon meringue pie
    Business writing,  Humanising business,  Leadership,  Organisational change,  Personal Reflections,  Purpose,  Storytelling

    Rethinking Evolution

    09 March 2021 /

    I have two daughters, aged 12 and 10, who like to define themselves as pretty much polar opposites of each other (though in truth, they are perhaps more similar than either of them cares to admit.) One of the differences between them is that one loves to bake, and the other loves to cook. Baking Daughter loves to flick through recipe books on a Saturday morning, to find a glossy picture of something delicious. She’ll note down a list of everything she needs, take money and a shopping bag, walk to the shops, come home and lay out all the ingredients.  She’ll pre-heat the oven, weigh and measure, whisk and…

    Read More
    Jen Emery

    You May Also Like

    Ordinary Gorgons

    09 March 2020

    On Irish radio with Bobby Kerry

    25 March 2019

    Lessons from a Friend

    03 January 2023
12

Receive the latest articles in your inbox

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

Archives

  • January 2023
  • October 2022
  • March 2022
  • January 2022
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019

Categories

  • Agility
  • Business writing
  • Coaching
  • Confidence
  • Humanising business
  • Leadership
  • Organisational change
  • Personal Reflections
  • Purpose
  • Storytelling
  • Uncategorised
  • Women
© 2023 Jennifer Emery