Dear KR Connect Reader…
Happy New Year. It’s not too late for this greeting, we’re just three weeks in, and especially if you’re Chinese…February 8; Year of the Monkey. Happy New Year. I’ve taken a break from KR Connect for the past month or so, as I’m rescheduling my business life around my focus as Head Coach of Publicis Groupe, and because 2016 means stirring the mix and becoming a little more serendipitous. The main reason for the break is that I’ve been putting the finishing touches to my new book due in June. It’s called 64 Shots: Leadership in a Crazy World.
64 is a magic number. There are 64 squares on a chess board; 64 positions in the Karma Sutra (but you knew that!); the country calling prefix for New Zealand is 64; 1964 was one of the great years; and there are 64 lessons in leadership that I’ve accrued during my life.
“Wow, 64 sounds a lot, leadership must be complicated,” you might be thinking. But it’s not, partly because I’ve written this book to guide you (!). And I don’t hear chess players wanting less squares or practitioners of the sensual arts calling for less possibility. 64 is a ‘just right’ number, in the same way author Douglas Adams proffered the meaning of life in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (it’s 42; go figure).
Over the next few months I’m going to preview parts of the book on KR Connect, but for today I simply want to announce it, and recognize a couple of people with me on the journey. I’m delighted to be back working with PowerHouseBooks of Brooklyn New York – Daniel Power and Craig Cohen. We made Lovemarks together in 2004 and the book is now in its 10th printing, 18 languages…and I’ve teamed up again with the Saatchi & Saatchi Design Worldwide team in Auckland under the leadership of Derek Lockwood. I want to single out senior designer Kane McPherson whose elegant creativity is matched by a calm temperament – handy when you’re designing books! This is Kane’s fourth or fifth book for the Saatchi & Saatchi library. Whereas Lovemarks screams “let’s shake this joint up,” 64 Shots is black + white, pared back, stripped down, inspirational I hope but also with a terse economy to the narrative.
There is an Amazon page up for the book, check it out, and stay tuned.
