Ideas in the Wild: Monique Maley is Helping Entrepreneurial Leaders Understand the Truth About Turbulence in Their Organizations

When change intimidates others, leaders embrace it. Metrics inspire them and a bold vision drives them. They’re entrepreneurial leaders—they thrive with rapid growth.

But what happens when growth slows, plateaus, or even declines? What if the structure becomes unstable? Turbulence is the culprit, and it’s capable of impacting everything from outlook and productivity to retention and sales.

What happens when the cause of that turbulence is the leader themselves?

In Turbulence, Monique Maley shares the insight she’s gained from years of working with entrepreneurial leaders to help readers identify the most common ways that turbulence disrupts their organization. She provides leaders with the tools and strategies they need to create an iterative cycle of leadership that begins with them. I recently caught up with Monique to learn what inspired her to write the book and her favorite idea she shares with readers.

What happened that made you decide to write the book? What was the exact moment when you realized these ideas needed to get out there?

I have known for years that I wanted to write a book, not because everyone was telling me I “needed” one for my business, but because I wanted to reach people I might never meet or work with. But like many people, I found lots of very valid excuses to put it off:

“I need some time off to do research.”

“I want to have something fresh to say.”

“I’m a talker, not a writer.”

And the ever-popular, “I don’t have the time at the moment.”

The truth is (as a friend has always told me), that’s bullshit. It was the tapes in my head that got in the way and the shift I made for myself and my own business is what happened to get me writing. I talk about this in the book. We talk ourselves into and out of things every day. The conversations we have with ourselves can define so much of our success.

For me, it was a conversation with my son that shifted my internal dialogue. It was his junior year and he navigating online school (not his thing) and working on a very important essay. He kept putting it off because, he was tired or busy but the truth was, he finally admitted, that he was not a “good writer.” Since I knew he would never believe me if I told him he was good, I used an exercise I use with clients. It helps clarify the tapes in our head that get in the way. It separates those which are truths and those which are beliefs (i.e. what feels true).

As he worked through the exercise, I realized I needed to follow my own advice and I did the exercise too. Putting those mental narratives on paper clarified my priorities, and the next day, I took the first step in the process of writing my book.

What’s your favorite specific, actionable idea in the book?

Always Start with Them. I say this so often, I should just make it a bumper sticker. I know it sounds basic, but as we progress in our careers, the basics are often what gets left behind.

No matter what goals or type of engagement I have with my client, this strategy is usually the starting place. If someone is giving feedback to a team member, they have to Start with Them. If a founder is pitching to an investor, they have to Start with Them. If a client is speaking at a conference, they have to Start with Them. Human nature is to prepare or engage in conversation based on what we want to say. Sometimes it is just about what we know and want to share and sometimes it’s what think others want to hear. This always ends in a mess.

Effective communication must begin with knowing and understanding your audience (whether that’s one person or a thousand). It takes time to do homework and figure who will be in the room or what challenges someone is bringing to the conversation. It takes time to edit and edit and edit until you are left with just the right information to help you get buy-in or inspire and motivate. It takes time to listen to what they communicate verbally and non-verbally.

Time is not something most of us have in abundance, but if we take the time in advance to Start with Them, the outcome of every conversation or interaction will net us the rewards we seek.

What’s a story of how you’ve applied this lesson in your own life? What has this lesson done for you?

I am pretty good at identifying the needs and disposition of a client or audience before I engage with them. I tailor my content, my energy, and my strategies to their needs. It’s what makes me good at my job. However, in writing the book, Starting with Them is almost impossible. How do you create focused and meaningful content when you have no idea who will be reading it?

I have told a few colleagues that writing the book is the most vulnerable thing I have ever done professionally. I’m putting my ideas, my work, and my writing out without the ability to customize it to each reader. However, it has been fascinating to work through this process by thinking of just one person I was hoping to reach. It is so counterintuitive to write a book with just one person in mind, but I realized that it’s the only way to leverage my Start with Them strategy.

Like the broken grocery cart that always wants to pull to the left, I kept finding myself thinking about everyone as I worked on the book. Then I had to stop, edit, and often rewrite to focus on my one person. It was more time-consuming but it allowed me to build a new muscle. As I write this now, it doesn’t feel hard. I am writing it with one person in mind. I hope they get to read it.