Derek Draper - Create Space: How to Manage Time, and Find Focus, Productivity and Success

Create Space

Derek Draper has worked as a leadership consultant, business psychologist and executive coach for nearly fifteen years. He is the co-founder and CEO of CDP Leadership Consultants and was previously Managing Consultant and Head of Business Development for the UK and Europe at the global consultancy YSC.

He has assessed and developed senior business people in around twenty FTSE 100 companies and in some of the largest privately held companies in the world. As well as working in the UK he has worked with businesses in Germany, the Nordics, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Africa.

Prior to this he worked in politics, as chief aide to Peter (now Lord) Mandelson, and was the founder of Progress, the centre-ground think tank. He was also an entrepreneur in the marketing and communications sector helping build and sell a public affairs consultancy to Omnicon and then co-founding an advertising agency which was sold to Cello.

Today, as well as leading CDP he has a small psychotherapy practice in Bloomsbury and is a Governor of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. He is an active member of the Association for Business Psychology (ABP). He lives in London with his wife, the TV and radio presenter Kate Garraway, and their two children, Darcey and Bill. He tweets @derekdraper and you can sign up to receive his regular newsletter at www.derekdraper.net/signup.

This is a stimulating, thought-provoking and valuable guide for those who are serious about being the best they can be. It blends research, considered insights and storytelling to offer a very practical framework to take control and make space for reflection, learning, possibilities and being. It will act as a useful coach in all aspects of ones life and at all stages in ones career.

Valerie Scoular, former Group HR director at Barclays, British Airways and Dentsu Aegis Network

What I most like about Create Space is the twelve stories at the heart of the book. They bring to life the ideas within it in an engaging and entertaining way. Whether you are at the start of your career, enjoying your first management responsibilities, or sitting in the C-suite, this book has lots to offer. I highly recommend it.

Henry Birch, chief executive of the Rank Group plc

Create Space is coming at the right time. Leaders today are always on, and operating in environments which are rapidly changing. So figuring out how to get the space to think, learn, decide and grow is a very high-leverage piece of help.

Austin Lally, Group CEO, Verisure

This book sets out in a very well researched, practical way how you can create the physical and mental space to make better decisions, build deeper professional relationships and get the things that really matter done. Whether you work in business, the public sector or the third sector, if you aspire to master the art and science of leadership, this is a great guide.

Gavyn Davies, chairman, Fulcrum Asset Management, and former chairman of the BBC

No matter how busy you think you are, find the time to read this book. Packed with far-reaching insights and simple steps for wresting back control of your diary and your career, Create Space is a must-read for thoughtful leaders looking to take their performance and the performance of their teams to the next level.

Sarah Wood, founder and non-executive chair, Unruly.com (part of News Corp)

Derek Draper will do something for you that no politician can; he will help you take back control.

Robert Peston, ITV political editor (former BBC business editor)

Im moderately successful but permanently playing catch-up. Im late for everything. I struggle to prioritise, and even to catch my breath. I juggle with only mixed results. Im glad I stepped back and created enough space to read Derek Drapers original, clever, practical book. Space to think is the most basic necessity. Draper has shown me, for the first time, where I can find it.

Euan Rellie, co-founder and senior MD, BDA (Business Development Asia)

I see loads of business books and they can often be one idea stretched out to fill a book and a little bit too ivory tower. This books different. Each chapter takes a vital skill and digs deep to really understand it, through very lifelike and funny stories. Theres then a tonne of practical suggestions that will resonate with anyone who works in business. If youre serious about your career, grab this now and get reading.

Ian King, business editor, Sky News

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

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Copyright Derek Draper 2018

The right of Derek Draper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

All reasonable efforts have been made to obtain copyright permissions where required. Any omissions and errors of attribution are unintentional and will, if notified in writing to the publisher, be corrected in future printings.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

eISBN 978 1 78283 447 2

To my wonderful wife Kate, who created the space for me to come truly alive, and Darcey and Bill who fill our space in such captivating, joyous and hilarious ways.

This book is entirely built on the experiences I have had working with hundreds of talented people from a large number of UK and global businesses. I thank them, their colleagues, their bosses, and their HR partners. It was a pleasure and an honour to work with every one of you.

I wouldnt have found my way into leadership consulting if I hadnt met Gurnek Bains. He became my boss, my inspiration and my friend. To make a good living doing something so inherently interesting and worthwhile is a blessing. I thank him and his then business partner Ken Rowe for welcoming me to YSC.

There I met some great people. Early readers of my drafts included Kylie Bains, Rani Bains, Francesca Elston, Anita Kirpal, Georgia Samolada, Jane Anderson, Jonathan Bloom, Nik Kinley, Georgina Cavaliere, Kevin Bright, Emmett Gracie, Chris Rawlinson and Stuart Schofield. In particular Susannah Yule, David Longmore and Lara Menke have become close friends and each contributed a great deal to my thinking.

I left YSC to set up CDP and my partners Sarah-Jane Last and Paul Jeffrey, along with Joanna Floyd, Rob Davies, Gerard de la Garde, Susie Orbach, Juliet Rosenfeld, Susan Kahn, Orla Coughlan and the rest of our Associates deserve thanks for putting up with me being distracted from our new business for the best part of a year. Our UCL based researchers Alex Farcas and Felix Schmirler provided valuable research help in the early days. Thanks also to the CDP designer Mike Hughes, our finance manager Chriss Goodey, our accountant Marc Jason, our lawyer James Harman at Simkins and my Executive Assistant Claire Acfield.

My leadership consultancy rests on the foundations of the psychology I learned at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California and at the Tavistock Clinic in London. My erstwhile US psychotherapy supervisors Jessica Broitman, Laurie Case, Peter Silen and Mike Rubino, and my UK ones, Brett Kahr and Susie Orbach, but above all my psychotherapy patients, have over the years enabled me to develop the capacity for the deep psychological thinking that informs my corporate work today. As did my US BFF Caroline Date.