AHA! Leadership insights for making business a more human experience
My new book is based on my experiences with CEOs and leaders: the strategies and cultures they strive to bring into play, their behaviour, successful approaches, challenges, mistakes, and at times failures. I’m setting out to shine fresh light and alternative perspectives on some of these fundamental human things.
Through my twelve insights, I have created different lenses through which you can consider (and perhaps adjust) how you are leading the people to make your business a more human experience.
AHA! will help you get clear on why you’re in business and why you (personally) are involved. You’ll be able to consider where the business is actually at, look at the big picture, and share this with people. You’ll reflect on how strategy and culture are inseparably entwined and the impact your behaviour has on culture.
And you’ll go deeper on self-awareness and perhaps plot how you will grow your own emotional intelligence.
We’ll look at how health has become a strategic priority for all businesses and talk about how you can work to model healthfulness as a leader in the ways you choose to live your life. The conversations you have are crucial. How can you make more space for dialogue and encourage others to do the same? How can you better communicate as a leader, with words, stories, visuals and through your behaviour?
I want to inspire you to build your level of consciousness, to drop the part your ego currently plays, and to become more open to the natural way of things—especially in the ways humans socialise, connect and share their know-how.
“A beautiful and insightful book that invites you to learn. It’s playful and excites your curiosity. The case studies and stories take you on a journey of discovery which invites you to reflect and question your own leadership approaches, an inspirational book that every leader should explore.”
Prof. Sir Steve West Vice-Chancellor UWE Bristol
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“Brilliantly executed, for leaders, very well done. It’s a very practical and easy to understand narrative, in a classy presentation so well
done indeed.”
Chris Clark Deputy Chair AVIVA,
former Global CMO HSBC
“The book asks questions that cause you immediately to think more broadly and deeply. Mark guides the reader to look in the right direction or right places without telling them the answer. And makes it fun! A brilliant guide for getting leaders to think and find their own way.”
Kay Penney former HRD
(ABP and Northumbria Water) and now NXD roles
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“If you read only one book this year about how to improve your business - this is the one. I loved every minute of it. Ended up restricting myself to a chapter a day not to devour this masterpiece but to savour every moment. It's wonderful, insightful, engaging, warm!"
Manfred Abraham Senior Partner at Prophet
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“AHA! is not simply a book for the moment. It is a book for the ages. To be a reference and companion for leading a fuller life – whatever that means for the individual, it is a blend of masterful firmness with empathetic appreciation of the different starting points for each reader, and an appreciation that this stuff can be hard. And that’s not a reason not to do it!”
Melanie Kirkbride Vedic meditation initiator,
coach to leaders
You can consider the meaning of the experiences people are having and how to make business planning fun! And you can benefit from bringing more love into your business and choosing measures that really help people understand how things are going.
In these ways you will be able to improve the emotional landscape of the whole business and raise the collective level of consciousness.
It has always seemed inadequate to me to put something as complex as human experience across by using words alone. Especially when we live in a world where people have already chosen and favoured visual means of communication—YouTube, Instagram, X, Facebook, and even LinkedIn! So I have used a lot of visuals, graphics, and imagery—a huge part of our human need.
People respond best when it’s open for them to draw their own conclusions. The aphoristic style I’ve used in places is deliberately there to facilitate you in deciding what you think as opposed to working with conclusions I might draw.
There is no perfect way, no formula for being a good leader. You must work things out, decide on the right things in the context of your own business, and balance how important it is to make business a more human experience.
To help, I have suggested some simple things (simple does not mean they won’t be challenging at first) for you to try. These will help you change the status quo—of your business and sometimes for you personally. Other practical things here will help join more of your dots up, cause you to reflect on the responsibilities of being a leader, and appreciate more fully how everything is connected to everything else—if you change one thing in your business, everything else changes, too!
My aim is to advise leaders who have chosen the ‘adventure ride’ rather than the ‘guided tour’.
I’m mindful that everyone who picks the book up (literally and figuratively) will have different skills, knowledge, experience, and level of consciousness, and you will draw different things from what is here and in different ways. These are my stories and experiences that I want to share with you.
Get yourself a copy and dive in and explore—start anywhere or perhaps read cover to cover. I’ll look forward to talking with you!
Buy the book here (this is recommended for orders from outside the UK). You can purchase AHA! at bookstores, Amazon in hardcopy or eBook and it’s available from Audible and Apple books as an audiobook, read by me!
“I genuinely love it already. Thank you for creating it and putting it into the world, Mark. It is an amazing creation.”
Dan Wood CPO UWE Bristol
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“A treasure trove of wisdom, stories, practical tools, and big ideas, Mark has written a wonderful book - one that should, in my view, be required reading for leaders of all kinds, and, in fact, anyone with an interest in forming positive organisational cultures. Seriously impressive.”
Steph Matthews Culture and brand strategist
Would you like to book Mark?
Mark speaks at conferences, special events and runs workshops for leaders on making business a more human experience.