From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership

Q&A with the Authors

Who will benefit from reading your book? (or Who should read this book?)

(Kevin) - There are really three groups of people who will benefit the most from this book.  The first, as the title implies, are people in the transition, or have been living through the transition from being a peer to delivering a performance evaluation!  The second group is people who want to prepare themselves proactively for the role of leadership.  These people are anticipating or planning for their first leadership role.  The last group is more experienced leaders who are preparing or helping new leaders to be more successful.

The first section of the book is specifically about the transition, and the other five sections deal with the most important competencies to focus on building leadership competence and confidence.

(Guy) – Someone who was great at getting things done on his own and now finds himself having to get things done through others would get great value from our book. Someone who is preparing for leadership or helping others prepare for leadership would also get great value from it.

How can readers gain the most benefit from the book?

(Kevin) – Well the short and sassy answer is, like all other books, to read it!  Far too many books go purchased and unread.  Other than the joy of the purchase, not reading it gives you no value.  More to the point however, the way to gain the most from the book is to put something into action.  We made that easier for readers by providing a self assessment at the start of every section – to help them see their strengths and weaknesses, and in the tradition of my book Remarkable Leadership, by providing Now Step at the end of every chapter.   If a book buyer will open the book and read, then at the end of any chapter take the immediate actions suggested, this book will be of tremendous value.

(Guy) To make the book content more accessible and easier to put into action, we wrote the book in sections targeted at the six key areas where many new leaders have struggles and frustrations. We then broke each section into short chapters so that readers can get to the content in smaller, more focused chunks of information.  As Kevin said, read it and take action! We structured the book to make it easier to read, and we added the action steps so that readers can get into action quickly.

What are the Remarkable Principles?

(Kevin) – Also like in Remarkable Leadership the book contains Remarkable Principles.  These are bite-sized truths that summarize pieces of the text, but they do much more than that.  They stand alone, informing all of as leaders of important and in some cases, profound truths about the work of leaders and what is most important about it.  Here is an example.  I just randomly opened the book and found this Remarkable Principle from Chapter 41 – “The single biggest reason to set goals is that they improve your chances for success.”  This reminds readers of an important principle, and we hope spurs all of us to act to not only set goals more often, but be successful in helping others set them as well.  After all, who doesn’t want greater success in some part of their life?

What motivated you to write this book?

(Kevin) – From a readers’ perspective this book is important because we believe it fills a far too empty space in the market,   Thousands of people are promoted to leadership in the U.S. alone each week.  In most cases those newly promoted leaders don’t have the tools and support they need to succeed. In some cases their organizations don’t offer any sort of formal training for new supervisors.  In some cases there is training but it is mostly focused on laws, policies and procedures – helping keep the new leader out of trouble and out of jail!  Of course in some other larger organizations there is some formal leadership skills training available.  However in those cases it often comes “When the schedule allows or we are offering a class.”  This timing usually leaves new leaders alone with their new tasks without enough support, or even ideas to help them get going.

We believe this book can be a part of that support and learning system.  We don’t believe that a book alone is enough, which is one reason we created the Bud to Boss Community (http://BudtoBossCommunity.com).  This free community supports anyone who wants to get better in these areas with free resources, tools and ideas.   It provides even more value for readers of the book.  We have big plans for this community because we believe it can help people build an ongoing learning process for leadership development.

We also wrote the book as a connection to the Public workshop we built and deliver – The Bud to Boss Workshop (http://BudtoBossWorkshop.com).  This allows new leaders to work on their skills with others in the same boat as they are.  We currently delivering this workshop around the U.S. and on site for companies wherever they are located.

(Guy) – Virtually all of my formal training prior to taking a leadership position focused on technical skills. I studied both chemical and nuclear engineering and then I found myself having to lead people. I vividly remember the stress and frustration of trying to figure out how to lead people. My employers offered some training in management and leadership, and even those workshops and coursed focused mainly on technical, procedural, and business concepts. Very little of the training I got early in my career truly prepared me to understand how to effectively lead people. For the most part, I had to seek out books, workshops, training classes, and audio programs on my own. I had to work hard to piece together the different skill sets necessary to be an effective leader. I wanted to create a starting resource to help new leaders get a jump start on learning the many, varied, and sometimes complicated skills of good leaders as quickly as possible.

What is your hope for people reading the book?

(Kevin) – That they read it!  (Ok, I’ll get off that soapbox).  My hope is that people will use this book in their daily work to become better leaders.   I look forward to meeting people and signing their highlighted, dog-eared, worn copies – that will show that they have applied what we have written.   We wrote the book to help people make the toughest leadership transition of all.  We believe if people will apply what is inside the book, it will help them succeed faster and for the long term.  That is my ultimate hope – that this book helps people become more effective and successful leaders in all aspects of their lives.

(Guy) –We hope people read and re-read it and that they use it as a springboard for lasting leadership success. We hope it gives them a solid foundation and a good starting point for their continued personal and professional development. Ultimately, we hope it makes a real difference for them in terms of reduced stress and frustration and improved results.

What process did you use to write the book?

(Kevin) – I think the story of how we wrote the book is important, and I’m glad you asked! Guy and I had developed this public workshop with our partners at Briefings Media Group.  We both experienced our own transitions to leadership. We also had lots of experience training and coaching new leaders, and through our consulting, we had observed many other new leaders.  We used all of that experience and insight to design the workshop.  During the early part of the workshop we ask people about their biggest challenges and questions in their new roles.   While we tried to answer those questions in the workshops, we also made a list of those questions.   Before we started writing the book we compiled those questions, sorted them and determined that we would answer each of those most pressing and most often asked questions in this book.  Some are answered in a variety of ways throughout the book.  Some are answered by specific chapters.  When we finished the manuscript we went back to our list of questions and made sure we had answered them all.

We think (and hope) that this makes this book extremely practical, because that was certainly our goal.

(Guy) – Using the most commonly asked questions from our Bud to Boss workshops, we created a book outline that we hoped would answer these questions. Then we each wrote a first draft of the chapters that best fit our personal experiences and background. When we combined our respective first draft chapters, we had a starting manuscript. From there, we both commented on and added to the chapters written by the other. We went through this process twice and then sent it off for an editorial review by our publisher. After the editor’s review, we each took another close look at the draft to make changes and additions.

In the end, we had truly co-authored the book. It contains the best of our combined experience as leaders, coaches, and trainers.

Describe your working relationship as co-authors of this book.

(Kevin) – We have both written other books, and it was the first we had written with a co-author.  Personally, I think the process went super well!  Guy and I are very different from an experience and personality perspective.  I believe that makes this a far better book than if either of us had written it alone.  Our basic process was to take the jointly developed outline, and assign chapters, and in some cases sections of the book to one of us as chief writer.    We used our strengths to determine these assignments.  We talked regularly during the writing process about ideas, stories, etc.  Once a chapter was completed the other person read it, massaged it and edited it.  Our goal was to make the book seamless – so that no one would really be able to tell who wrote which parts initially, because before it was done we had had truly co-written the book.

(Guy) – I think our relationship is excellent. While we are quite different from a personality perspective, we share many common beliefs and values. We respect and like each other a great deal. Due to our travel schedules, we might go weeks at a time without speaking face-to-face, and we stay in touch with email, phone, text, and video conference. When we do get the chance to work in the same location, we both find it refreshing and energizing. While we were writing the book, we spoke openly and honestly about our perspectives on different sections of the book so that we could create a product that represented the best of our collective experiences.

What was your first leadership experience? What training/support did you receive in the transition?

(Kevin) – My first leadership role was on our family farm and related business.  Often when people were hired to a specific task or season, I was responsible for supervising them.  In many cases (as is the case for many who will read the book) I was much younger than those I was leading.   I didn’t have any formal training.  Dad didn’t give me any book to read.  He was an example and role model.  We did talk about how things were going and answered questions.   He would have been the first to tell you he wasn’t the perfect leader, yet he was extremely supportive and aware of the need to coach others.

(Guy) – My first leadership role was as a division officer on a submarine. I led a division of 8 or 10 enlisted personnel. One of them was a chief petty officer with more years in the Navy than I had been a legal adult. Several members of the division had been in the Navy much longer than me, and they definitely knew more about operating the engineering plant than I did. I did have some basic leadership training in Officer Candidate School, but it did not really prepare me for what I experienced as a new leader. The best support I received came from the Chief Petty Officer and senior enlisted personnel. They were never easy on me. They were honest, sometimes brutally honest, about my shortcomings as a leader. And, they helped me grow because of their honesty.

What are the core skills people need in order to make a successful transition to leadership in their organizations?

(Kevin) – Beyond the skills and strategies of the transition itself, we believe there are five big competency areas that need to come first, and we built the book around them.   They are:  change, communication, coaching, collaboration and teamwork, and commitment to success (everything related to goals and goal setting).

These aren’t the only competencies of leaders and we believe they are of prime importance for two reasons.

1.        They are highly important and complex skills to learn

2.       When someone first becomes a leader these skills take on a very different meaning or level of importance in their work and life.

(Guy) – The core skills are reflected in the sections of the book. When you carefully examine the content of each section, you will see that our focus is primarily on the people side of managing the transition and to developing competency in each of the six areas of leadership included in the book.  Both Kevin and I believe that leaders need to develop understanding and competency in the technical or transactional aspects of their role, and that the people side of leadership is the more complicated and difficult side. This book provides a solid foundation in understanding the people skills so vital to leadership success.

What do you want people to do once they finish the book?

(Kevin) – Put it to use!  Try some of the ideas in it, applying them to their situation.  Once they have done that, we hope they will contact us through the Community or otherwise to let us know their questions, and to share their successes with us and others.  

(Guy) – Like Kevin says: Put it to use! Look for opportunities to apply the concepts. We hope readers will review the Remarkable Principles, Bonus Bytes, and Now Steps to find the most important issue (or issues) that they confront and then get to work confronting them using the ideas we share in the book. From there, they can engage in the Bud to Boss Community to continue honing the skills they start developing by reading the book.

What extra resources are available to readers?

(Kevin) – We mentioned earlier the Bud to Boss Community (http://BudtoBossCommunity.com) and we hope that readers will become engaged in the Community as a source of support and ongoing learning.  What we didn’t mention earlier is that the Community contains something very special for readers of the book.  Like in my book Remarkable Leadership, this book contains Bonus Bytes.  The Bonus Bytes offer readers of the book over 60 additional pieces of content that extend the reach and usefulness of the book.   These Bonus Bytes are noted in the text and readers are told where to go in the Community to get them.   Readers will register for the Community once, and then have access to all of these Bonus Bytes (and everything else inside the Community).  Why did we do all this?  Because we believe learning is a process and we want to help engaged readers turn this book in to a part of their ongoing learning journey.

What do you think is the biggest gap in new supervisor training?

(Kevin) – I think there are two gaps.   First, most new supervisor training doesn’t talk at all about the issues of the transition. How do I lead the people I am friends with?  How do I deal with the team members who applied for and wanted the job I received?  How do maintain and manage those expectations?  How do I build relationships with my new peers, new boss?  And much more.

Second, while there is lots of great training available publicly and inside of organizations, it ss often available later than would best help the new supervisor, and far too often doesn’t focus enough on application.  Learning can’t happen just by attending class (or reading a book for that matter) we must take that new knowledge and use it.