Book Journeys Author Interview – Aug. 7, 2014
Dr. Angela Lauria with Maxine Attong, author of Change or Die
“When we start doing something and it’s something good, it attracts other great things to us.” ~Maxine Attong
Angela:
Well hey everybody. Welcome to Book Journeys Radio. Well we’ve been… had a couple of weeks off for the summer and it’s been an exciting time for me but it is nice to get back to the show after a couple weeks off, and we’ve got a fun guest here. I think it’s really going to be a helpful discussion today. Maxine Attong, who is the author of Change or Die: The Business Process Improvement Manual, is here to talk to us. She’s a gestalt-organized development practitioner, she’s a certified professional facilitator, an evidence-based coach and a certified management accountant, so I think this is a really good example… a lot of the books we talk about are kind of some of the more softer personal growth-style book and I think with Change or Die, we’re gonna have a good chance to talk about a solid business book. Maxine Attong, her website is also maxine… attong which is spelled a-t-t-o-n-g. Maxine thanks for being with us.
Maxine:
Angela thanks so much for having me today.
Angela:
Well, first of all, to kick our talk, tell us about Change or Die. What is your book about?
Maxine:
Change or Die is about change and processes in the organization and it’s not just about the process, it really shows people how to do this from the beginning… the selection of which process needs to be improved, to the end… with implementation. The fundamentals of Change or Die is that it really focuses on the human resources within the company because nothing happens in an organization, in my belief, unless people are really committed. It speaks about [people] in the organization; how do you walk them through change that is inherent within. It shows how business process improvement is linked to the structure of your organization; what is it to reduce costs and improve productivity, and it really deals with holding or empowering people to be creative and owning the processes and pushing them to completion.
Angela:
So, I see on your website maxineattong.com [also at maxineattong.wordpress.com] that all humans are creative, all humans are intelligent, and all humans want to make a positive difference. How does that kind of underpinning belief system influence your work and how you do what you do.
Maxine:
Well, I thought, in terms of the process improvement, most organizations, if they want to improve processes, they call in the expensive consultants. Consultants come in, they do all their fancy stuff and usually they help in implementation. I believe that while consultants have a place in an organization, the people who should really be developing the processes are the people who work in the organization. Every member of staff that you hire went through a selection process, and you selected what you thought were the best people for your organization and their job. What would it be like if we can find a way everyday to unleash the creativity of these people and harness their potential; to let them solve the problems of the organization, to let them come up with the best way to look at the processes, the best way to redesign processes, because at the end of the day they are the people who own the processes. And that is what Change or Die is about. It is really about being inside the organization… you have all the intelligence, then all the creativity to solve whatever problems you have in your processes. As leaders, what we need to do is empower our people and get out of their way so they can actually do that.
Angela:
So how did you come to write this book? My suspicion is, based on what you said, that you’ve actually been consulting for some time; that you’ve been working in The States for some time and so how did you decide to turn this into a book?
Maxine:
Well, two things. One, I always wanted to write. My dream as a kid was to have a published book. That’s a dream that came true for me during that process. And two, I was always interested in business process improvement as a field, and I have read many many books on that, and I thought that, though they had great books on the topic out there, a lot of them left me, as a practitioner, really wondering, how do I do this? So I wanted to write a book on something that I felt very passionate about and I wanted to share the information… and the approach in terms of how to guide people through the decision making processes and I wanted to take all that and give it [to] someone, a manual, that is saying, “Your team can do this; your team can improve processes, your team has all the intelligence to do so it’s a combination of my dream; a combination of… furthering my work… empowering people, and definitely contributing something to a field in which I am very interested in.
Angela:
So I’m guessing that while you were in the process of writing your book, you weren’t able to put your business entirely on hold and you had to write, well, off you’re working. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you schedule time to write and what your writing process was like?
Maxine;
Yes, when I was writing that book, I was working as an accountant for an oil company and I worked a 40+ hour per week and I’d go to it everyday, so what I would do is when I returned home at 5 in the evening, I would rest and then I would start writing from maybe six in the evening, until maybe ten. I would that every single day and on weekends, I will do a little bit more. When I felt [like] going out, one of the many things that I was advised to do is to take a complete day off, so Sunday is the key… my total rest day. So I would work six days of the week and assiduously on the book, and then on Sundays, I’d completely do nothing, and that really helped because, you know, we’ve learned that we have to keep going when we want to achieve a goal, but I can tell anybody that there’s beauty in rest and rest is really part of the creativity process. We need to take a step away and take a look at the big picture again, refocus, and then re-enter. It really re-energizes me every Monday; to go to work and come home joyfully and complete my book.
Angela:
And how did you have a set amount of time that you would write, or if you didn’t feel [like writing one day] would you give yourself another day off in addition to your scheduled day off or if it was your time to write, you’d [go] back down no matter what?
Maxine:
Yes, one thing that I’d learned is that every day I needed to show up, I needed to show up. So as I showed up Mondays to Saturdays that I needed to write, I showed up in front of my laptop and I wrote. Some days, I would start a chapter and then I wouldn’t see that anymore. And so I would go on and write a new chapter. I stayed the course and I stayed on the moment of writing and I wrote every time I said I needed to write. It was part of the…habit, because all the writing that I’ve done before was playful writing but it was really about… “ I needed to thresh this product and this is what I’m going to do.” I did have some tricks along the way like I’d put the book cover up on the fridge, you know so that every time I went to the fridge I’d see it so I know I have to keep writing, keep loving to achieve what was very tangible in front of me.
Angela:
So I love this tip. I’m going to share it with everybody. Before you actually finish your book or actually even before you started your book, you had a book cover created. You didn’t have a publisher at this point, you didn’t have a book, but you had a book cover, so can you talk about, how you did that and why you did that?
Maxine:
Yes, so I have a very good friend who’s in Phoenix, Connie Gratsky, and… whenever I have a problem, I’d just call up and see her. I’d need some time and she’d give me some time. So I realized the power of those visuals and so I decided to create a visual for my book. I would put it up. The name of my book then was The Business Process Improvement… something. On the cover of the book was a team [of people] jumping up and the words at the bottom were, Finally, someone has revealed all the secrets of business processes improvement… Every morning, having coffee, I would see this team of people leaping up because I wrote this book. I’d put my name below it and I would all kind of things around it, you know… It sold so many millions of copies and it’s translated into so many languages. You know, all these dreams on this piece of paper… on the fridge. It helps me keep going. That’s what I want to do, because when people read this book, they are going to be leaping and saying, “Finally!”
Angela:
Wow. I think that’s fantastic. One of the challenges a lot of my clients face when they are starting a book is as they start the process of writing the book they’d get ideas for other books and sometimes they are in totally different genres. So I have an idea for a childrens book now, I have an idea for a romance novel I want to write. Or maybe it’s another project, “I wanna start another business” or “ I wanna be the PTA president for my kid’s school, you know. All these different interruptions start to come up almost right when they make the commitment to writing their book. So as other opportunities came up for you or thoughts came up for you, what were some of the ways that [helped] you to stay focused on that original goal?
Maxine:
One of the things that I’d learned is when we start doing something and it’s something good, is that it attracts other great things to us. So when we start writing our book and we know that it’s good and we get all sorts of wonderful ideas… people come out… and say, “You’re the best thing.” I really no longer subscribe to… multitasking. I think I need to be singular and focused for me to achieve a goal. So when I ideas for other books, I park them. So I just recently completed my second book which is also about human resources like the first book, and while I was writing that I had at least two other books that came to mind. But what I did was… got them out of my head and parked them and continued writing my book. And everybody else who came and said, you know I think you should do this, you should do that, I said, “No.” You know I keep saying that drugs are not the only thing we should say no to…
Angela:
The new Raiders mantra, “Drugs are not the only things you should say no to.” Well, let’s shift topic a little and let’s talk about the process of publishing. When you started writing your book; when you came up with the idea for writing your book, did you know then how to publish your book?
Maxine:
No, I had zero (0) knowledge of publishing then. I probably have “5 to 10” more knowledge now than I had then. So what I did was… I got a list of all the publishing houses and all the types of books and the… type of books they published. So I went through all this information and I identified maybe five publishers who would be interested in my book and it just so happened that they were the ones who, when you go to their website, they actually do take manuscripts. And so I followed their process; submitted the proposal forms… and I actually got a yes from CRC Press. It was a pretty, not-a-so-spectacular story, just doing the research and following the…
Angela:
But that is pretty spectacular! I mean, so many people don’t find the traditional publisher and certainly not that way. There’s lots of people who have spent lots of money, you know, taking classes, and lots of time trying to get an agent and it’s pretty amazing that you’ve found a publisher that was a bit in your, you know, your first round of query or proposals. Did you do a full proposal or was it really just a query letter?
Maxine:
Yes, it was a proposal and… they had a proposal form which you followed; pretty structured; just about filling in questions; they ask you for you bio; they ask what your book is about; what is different about your book. What is really important to the publisher is your network you know, what associations you belong to, whether you court the people who are going to buy your book, because… it’s the best thing; they want to know what of yours that they can tap into in exchange for publishing your book. I’m really grateful that it happened… so, yeah.
Angela:
Yeah, that’s amazing! And so what are some of the terms with your working with your particular publisher? Is it an academic press?
Maxine:
Yes… they’re a sub company of Taylor and Francis [Group, LLC]. One thing I did which I think made a difference was… I scanned all the editors and… the person I contacted… she was actually interested in business process improvement in the health sector, whereas the [other editors] were not interested in business processes at all. So I kind of pitn business processes at all. ed in business processes lishers who would be interested in my book ched the book to her and sent my proposal to her.
Angela:
Yeah, I mean that’s great. So one of the suggestions that I give people is finding books that are like yours or are on similar topic and then looking at who in the acknowledgement and editors that you’re targeting; that specific person at the publishing house. And you decided, maybe it was out of ignorance, but you didn’t go through an agent and I’m wondering whether that was a conscious decision or did you just not know that step and say you saved yourself 15% or… How did you decide not to choose an agent?
Maxine:
I think it’s pure ignorance and I think that, you know, sometimes, ignorance is bliss, and I think that I was blissfully ignorant about the process and with my second book, I’d been toying with the idea of finding an agent, looking at publicity, and it was very, very expensive. It seems that the agent doesn’t really just accept everybody and anybody. So it’s a pretty tough decision. So it’s like I don’t know enough of that world, and even with my second book I was scared of that world because I don’t think I’m ready to enter that…
Angela:
You know I think it’s such a great story of just being clear of who you were and what you wanted and how you wanted your book to manifest and just the right people surrounding you. So with your book, did you need to make a minimum book purchase? Were there fees that you were responsible for? Were there any investments that you had to make specifically for your book publishing?
Maxine:
Actually no. With the traditional publishing house, I did nothing. I submitted the [manuscript]; they made some editorial changes; there was a little bit of back and forth, but that was it. You know I spent nothing and I actually received some royalty checks so that means that they actually sold something…
Angela:
Yey! That’s fantastic. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Let’s talk about how you’ve promoted the book. What sorts of things have you done to help spread the word about this book? I know you have another book coming out… any plans you have for work promoting that?
Maxine:
For my first book, I did various promotions…a Facebook page which probably got some 121 likes, not a lot, but I really pushed that book through my networks. So, on my professional networks… I got somebody from my accountant world to review it. I got a few other people from like local magazines and some foreign magazines as well to actually like mention the book or plug the book. But I think “that book” because of where to reside in terms of strategy and people who are really interested and… quality management. It resides in a positively good sweet spot, I would say, for people who are already interested in it. I saw on the Net the other day the American Society [for] Quality in Minneapolis; they actually donated a few of the books to the Minneapolis Public Library and that had nothing to do with me. So I think the book has found its people and it has found its fans. So for that book, I just think that… [if you just] find the tone, it will be fine. With my second book, maybe I need to be a little bit more marketing savvy, so with my second book, what I’m doing is… that book will be out 0n September 30th [2014]. The name of the book will be Lead Your Team to Win. I’m doing a little bit more promotion. We’re trying to do things a little bit differently. I tried working with a publicist… but publicists can be extremely expensive. So that cost is prohibitive for my pocket, for my model of how I wanted my book to land and find its niche with right people. So what I’m doing is I’m being a little bit more savvy and I’m going to have a digital launch on the third of October and have a webinar with other colleagues of the field, you know, answering questions… what they liked or didn’t like about the book and I’ve actually gotten a lead start on doing some Blog Talk… invite another reviewer to review the book for their communities, whether they are going to read or saw on Amazon, something like that. They all have a look at this book, but still not uppity level peer publicity, you know, how to get someone to do publicity for me… I just don’t have the cash to do that.
Angela:
So you mentioned that becoming an author was a dream that you’d had since you were a little girl and I’m wondering what it’s like. What’s the before and after for you having made that dream come true? How has being an author, you know, changed things for you, either internally or externally?
Maxine:
Well, it’s all been internal. The external changes would be, you know, it’s really fantastic for me externally when people come to me and say, you know, I read your book, I bought your book for my daughter, I gave it to my boss, you know. What would it be like if everybody read your book, you know. I love that. That’s very uhm, that’s a lot of .. But for me internally, it just says, you know, nothing is impossible. I can write more books and, you know, it’s like, just like a … of people when you give up or this is not what I wanted to do with my life, you know, it’s not over yet and that you can still do what you wanna do. And I’ve been … women doing some courses with… for women and it always comes up in these classes, you know, that we feel stuck, we feel that we can’t do what we want to do, usually we have family and other … and just teaching people, you know, just to do one thing for yourself once a week. You know it creates so much more room for you to do more for yourself more times a week. So that’s how I feel with my book. I feel having achieved the dream, I can now achieve more dreams. I can now create more space for more dreams to come up and just continue that cycle of doing what I need to do, doing what I want to do, and having the freedom to do it.
Angela:
I love that. I know for a lot of people, after they write their first book, they immediately want to write a second book. Many of my clients who published with me have said that and I know that’s the case for you. Is there anything that you feel like you’ll do differently with the second book than you did the first time around?
Maxine:
I think… 2 things I did differently. I kind of set a deadline for myself because I didn’t want it to go on and on forever. So I gave myself like six months to get this book all to my head. That was definitely different. And I think I paid more attention to the process of writing, you know, in terms of … it became more symbolic for me this time. Whereas the first time it seemed like work because I wanted to get this thing all done I structured around writing and was very disciplined. This time I took a lot more joy in writing. I call my second book my heart book because it really came from my heart and I let it rule out from my heart. And I think I was a lot less afraid this time for my voice to come out and for my voice, my opinions, to be heard in terms of how I believe that leaders should lead a team. So I think that the second book has a lot more of me in it whereas the first book, Change or Die, I refer to that as my head book because it was all the stuff that was in my head about business process improvement, You know. so I can say for me the journey has been more internal, I feel more empowered with my second book and I feel that my voice is now being heard. I guess by the fourth book it will all be me and no head, and just pure heart and maybe some soul.
Angela:
I do think that one challenge that authors have is like, especially with a business book, how much are you yourself and how much are you in, like, a professional voice or, you know, in your case you’re writing for an academic publisher, are you supposed to be talking in some sort of academic publisher voice or, you know, how do you find who you are? And it sounds like for you the process of sort of finding your voice was a little different for the second book than for the first. Was that a natural process or did you kind of do some work on that to identify how you wanted to sound?
Maxine:
I think it was a natural process and it was also a process of me… You know one thing I’ve never done, I’ve never read my first book. You know, I never read it when it was published. Funny. And that tells me something. That tells me that, you know, though I like the work and people like it, that tells me that I didn’t fully show up in that book. You know, one of my challenges to myself is, you know, how do I show up in these books? Because anybody can write a book about something, but what makes it Maxine Attong’s books? What makes Maxine Attong’s thumbmark, you know, and I also… that notion that I really want to be proud of it and the thing to be proud of is not the words. The thing to be proud of is the me that’s in the book. So I think that process just happened, you know, just realizing, and processing, what happened to Change or Die. You know, it’s a great reference manual. People use it. People give me good feedback. But what makes me not pick it up? Because I guess I’m not really interested in business processing improvement as a [fare]. I’m really interested in what I have to do to change people and organizations … for a change.
Angela:
Right, right. Wow well what is for you, if you were, and I’m sure you have, if you were asked by somebody, hey how did you finally get your book done, like I’ve always wanted to write a book, how did you actually finish it? What’s the advice that you give to people who tell you that, like you, they want to be an author?
Maxine:
Ok, so my first thing is to decide who your cheerleaders are because the process is gonna be long. The process sometimes will be revealed and sometimes the opportunities will come up, … the distractions. But find some cheerleaders, people who believe in you, believe that you could do it, and who regardless of anything will come out in the rain, in their pompoms and shake them for you to encourage you on. The second thing is, nobody knows any better about anything than you. You know, so if you decide you want to write a book on your experience, just write a book on your experience. Don’t listen to anybody saying, maybe you should put this and that, maybe you should put in that and that. No, it’s your book, you just take on, you should put it and write from where you are. And I think what’s the emphasis with me now in my second book is really about writing from my heart. What the reader wants to know is about your story. So you know, you would have done magnificent things, but it’s not the things we’re interested in. We want to know how you… things. So really in writing has a way also of keeping yourself on track because seeing how that story documents itself and seeing the thought will just keep you and you’re like, I wrote that, you know and allowing yourself to be vulnerable on the pages of your book and for people to see who you are. I think for me that’s a big thing ‘coz that’s what kept me writing with my second book .‘Coz everyday I showed up it was shocking to see what I was willing to reveal. You know, what chapters I was willing to… I think that for me makes my second book very special.
Angela:
Well that is gorgeous advice. You can follow Maxine, that’s Maxine Attong, M-A-X-I-N-E A-T-T-O-N-G.com., maxineattong.com. She is the author of Change or Die: The Business Process Improvement Manual. And she’s got a new book coming out. Do you know the name of your… do you have a title for your next book?
Maxine:
Yes, it’s called Lead Your Team to Win.
Angela:
Lead Your Team to Win. So look out for that by Maxine Attong. Maxine, thank you so much for being with us today. I loved all your advice and good luck with the second book.
Maxine:
Thanks a lot for having me, Angela, and you enjoy the rest of your day.
Angela
Thank you and we will be back next week in Book Journeys Radio.