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"The Fifth Discipline would never have turned out as it did without
Art's help. He is, in my experience, a unique combination of writer, editor,
and coach - with a genuine commitment to helping people find their own
voice."
- Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.
"Art's contributions [to a book] are profound. The quality of the
writing and the structure of the book are far better."
- Peter Schwartz, Inevitable Surprises
"A star name in the ghostwriting pack is the writer and researcher
Art Kleiner. His credits are many and varied."
- Stuart Crainer, Guardian and Across the Board.
Clear, compelling writing is a different skill than speaking clearly on
a stage or running a great class or meeting. Words that ring well in the
air may not register clearly on the page. And great consultants are frequently
extremely pressed for time. That's why publishers often try to pair up
their business authors with consulting editors ("ghost-writers")
who can shape books professionally. Perhaps that's why most business books
tend to sound alike. Most business writers need a different kind of help:
a cogent thinking partner who can help them to refine their ideas, uncover
good stories to tell, and recognize the needs of their writing audience.
In addition, business writers frequently need a way to get started. They
need someone who can show them how to organize their material, distinguish
key themes from dead ends, shortcut the "blank page paralysis"
and jump to a form that lets them put their own unique contribution onto
paper quickly.
Over the past 12 years, while developing a practice as a consulting editor
to management writers, I have learned how to create books of high quality
and high sales. I have also learned how to impart the requisite skills
to many people I've worked with: including more than 150 contributors
to the various editions of the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Thinkers whom
I have worked with as a consulting editor include Peter Senge, Peter Schwartz
(The Art of the Long View), Kenichi Ohmae (The Invisible Continent), Arie
de Geus (The Living Company), Charlotte Roberts, Joseph Jaworski, Juanita
Brown, William Isaacs, former Shell Oil CEO Philip Carroll, and Douglas
Engelbart.
I am now offering a customized two-to-six-day workshop to help business
writers propel their published work from good to great. Topics we cover
include:
1. The flow of thinking: Creating an overall strategy for a book-length
piece of work.
2. Translating circular "systems thinking" into the linear form
that books demand.
3. The "five-element method:" a way of organizing chapters and
articles so that they can be written quickly while maintaining a distinctive
style and quality. (The five elements are a "curtain-raiser,"
a "nut graf," a closing, exposition, and an articulated plot
line.)
4. Four forms of loyalty: Balancing your focus among research, story,
audience, and purpose, without losing sight of any of them.
5. A practitioner's guide to story-telling, with exercises for bringing
out your long-lost story-teller's voice.
6. Varieties of plot lines, and which type of plot fits your purpose.
7. The right detail: Mastering an eye and ear for the critical bits of
data on which the reader will grasp your point.
8. The elegant art of having something to say - and learning to recognize
when you haven't fulfilled the potential of your thinking.
9. Graphic formatting for clarity: Effective use of bullets, images, captions,
sidebars, and cross-references.
10. The publishing game: The advance, the deal, the choice of whether
to publish it yourself, and the role of promotion.
The goal of these sessions is to enable business authors to become their
own ghostwriters: For the book they most want to write.
These sessions are custom-tailored to the needs of the particular audience.
Fees are based on the length and complexity of the engagement.
Art Kleiner is the author of The Age of Heretics (runner up for
1996 Edgar G. Booz award), and Who Really Matters (to be published
in October, 2003; praised by Jim Collins for uncovering "a central
truth about the way organizations work.") His articles have appeared
in The Harvard Business Review, Wired, Across the Board,
the New York Times Magazine, and many other publications. He is
a columnist on "culture and change" for Strategy & Business,
the research director for Dialogos (a consulting firm in Cambridge, MA),
and a faculty member at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications
Program (where he teaches courses on writing for new media and scenario
planning). He co-developed the "learning history" method for
evaluation and oral history at MIT's Center for Organizational Learning.
A graduate of the Journalism School at the University of California at
Berkeley, and a former editor of The Whole Earth Catalog, he lives
outside New York City.
To inquire further, contact Art Kleiner at art@well.com or 914-738-9365.
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