Steer Through the Storm# author Leah Mether

 Do you spend your days trying to implement and defend changes you can't control and may not even agree with?

Leadership is about people. Yet many leaders find themselves responsible for implementing change without ever being taught the foundations of HOW to support and lead people THROUGH change. 

If you're a leader challenged with navigating the rough seas of change, this book is your beacon.

You will learn a new approach to communication and leadership that will help you deal with the feelings of your people, improve performance, and get better results.

In her follow-up book to Soft is the New Hard: How to Communicate Effectively Under Pressure, communication and "soft skills" specialist Leah Mether gives you a plain-speaking, practical, step-by-step guide to help you lead your people through turbulent times.

To connect with Mether ...
https://steerthroughthestorm.com.au/
https://www.instagram.com/leahmetherspeaker/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahmetherspeaker/ 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good morning, Leah Metha. Welcome to Yellow Shelf. Oh, thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. Congratulations. Your book is available now. Steer Through the Storm. Tell us all about it. What do we need to know?

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Oh, look, this is a book that really is for the time right now, because we are sure in the middle of a storm. And what how I often describe it is there's so much out there on change management. This is not about change management. This is about leading people through change, the messy human bit, whether it is your change or not, whether you have control of it or whether it's happening to you, whether you even like the change or not, there is a whole skill set around supporting people through that when you are a leader that is a gap in the market. So that's what this book was all about.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

And Leah, I mean, you and I were talking off camera. We we know each other's corporate world. So, you know, we've we've had to implement change, we've had to discuss change, and we've had to be part of change. So do you want to do you want to give us some understanding as to why change is so difficult, even for those who actually understand it?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, and so much change fails because we focus on the um, you know, the nuts and bolts, the processes of you know, that that management piece, and we forget about the human piece. And that is the really important bit because humans are emotion-driven beings. As much as we like to think we're creatures of logic, we're not. We're creatures of emotion. And if we don't deal with the feelings, fears, and emotions of people when we're navigating change, that will always be what hamstrings us. So human beings are wired for comfort and certainty. We're good at adapting to change. We are actually good at it, but we don't like it. We see it as a potential threat, even positive change. And our instinctive response is to go, oh, this could be a threat, and to have that bit of a freak out. That's normal. The key is if we have the skills and if we've got a good leader who has the skills to help us through that initial freakout and help guide us through that uncertainty and change in the best way possible. And how this book actually came about, it came about because a leader hit me up just before COVID, actually, and what timing uh for that. But he said to me, Leah, have you got anything on leading people through change? And he said, I don't want managing change. You know, people have given me all these books on change leadership. And he said, but that's not what I'm after because he works in an industry that is under massive transition. And he said, There's nothing I can find that is what about when you're like me and you're the manager in the middle? This change is happening, whether I like it or not. Uh, I'm not the one making the decisions, but I have to implement it and I have to support my team so that they come with me through this. So that's where it came from. And Lee, do you want to tell us about is this your first book? This is my second book. So my first book is called Soft is the New Hard. It's a play on that term, soft skills. There is nothing soft and easy about the essential human skills, it's the hardest part. So, yeah, this is the follow-up to that first.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

And so tell us about even for both, like, what's your journey uh as a as an author? Like diving in to the the various topics. Like, do you do you block write like some authors, or do you balance life and work and writing? Like, what tell us about that journey?

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah, I will absolutely. So, my background is actually as a newspaper journalist. So that's where I started my career. And I actually uh at uni studied creative writing. I've always been a writer, um, fiction, non-fiction. So writing is my thing. Interestingly, though, I am a type A perfectionist. So my story to writing these two books, I wrote these two books when I had three very young boys navigating some really stressful things in my personal lives. I actually wrote Steer Through the Storm through a marriage separation and so folks, I was going through the storm as I wrote it. Um but so what I had to do was realize that I was getting in my own way when I was writing because I wanted it to be perfect and it meant that I was holding on too long. So what I did with both of these books is I set realized that progress was better than perfection. So I set myself a really low-ball word count, a daily word count. And my rule for myself was I wasn't allowed to read back over my work. Okay. I just to get a crappy first draft out there. Um, and because it, you know, we've all heard the cliche, you can't edit a blank page. So that was the plan for me. It was keeping track in a notebook. Um, the first book, it was 300 words, 500 words a day. The second book, it was 300 words a day. Some days I wrote a lot more than that. But the beautiful thing was knowing that it was a low target meant some days I could smash that out in half an hour. And given what was going on in my life, it made it achievable. So I know everyone's got different um ways of going about it, but that was me knowing myself well enough to know that I would get in my own way if I didn't set myself um almost gamify it, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

To find a way to work through. And look, that's why I asked the question because I think it's really interesting. You know, we know there are people who just block out like and go to writers' retreats or whatever, but it's uh it's such an interesting journey for the individual author as to the writing process. I think it really helps understand your work in the background. Leah, you um there's lots of ways to connect with you and connect with the book. So, do you want to point us in the direction of your socials? I'll put that in the show notes to make it easy for anyone. Uh, you're on Instagram, your website, but you tell us where we should go.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yeah, so the book is available as an audiobook, paperback, and an e-book. So however you like to consume your books, you can find it. It is me narrating it if you get the audiobooks of both versions. It's available at all online retailers, so go there. However, you want a personally signed copy. If you do buy through my website, I write in every book I sign them and I give you a little note along with it. So I love um connecting with my audience that way. So if you want that personal touch, go there.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Awesome. Well, Leah, I'll put that in the show notes to make it easy for anyone to connect with you. Um, do you think you'd write again? Like, I'm sure, you know, like is there only reason I ask is you're welcome back because I I've really enjoyed today and hearing about your book and your journey.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Thank you so much, and absolutely, um, there will definitely be a couple more books to come.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Awesome. Like I thanks very much. All the best. Thanks for having me. Cheers.