Emily is a career-driven thirtysomething with big ambitions and a young family. She is making an impact as a leader at a tech company, but after being passed up for multiple promotions, she finds herself at a loss for how to improve. Fate answers her in the form of a kindâand surprisingly directâolder man in a coffee shop. A well-respected CEO before he retired, David has deep and rich leadership knowledge. Emily needs direction, and David is the perfect mentor.
Growing Influence offers readers both practical advice on how to develop leadership skills and a relatable account of one womanâs growth by applying the principles in the book. Unlike nonfiction business books or business memoirs, this story is a business fable that is both impactful and transformative.
Emily is a career-driven thirtysomething with big ambitions and a young family. She is making an impact as a leader at a tech company, but after being passed up for multiple promotions, she finds herself at a loss for how to improve. Fate answers her in the form of a kindâand surprisingly directâolder man in a coffee shop. A well-respected CEO before he retired, David has deep and rich leadership knowledge. Emily needs direction, and David is the perfect mentor.
Growing Influence offers readers both practical advice on how to develop leadership skills and a relatable account of one womanâs growth by applying the principles in the book. Unlike nonfiction business books or business memoirs, this story is a business fable that is both impactful and transformative.
Emily watched the barista with growing urgency as he steamed the water and then walked over to a set of three empty glass coffee funnels and decanters. He placed a filter over the middle funnel, tipped the water over the filter, and looked at Emily, pushing his square glasses up.Â
âWe do this to clean the filter,â he said. âMakes better coffee.â She offered a half-smile and checked her watch, which was buzzing from the emails already coming in. Shifting her weightâ her laptop bag felt especially heavy that morningâshe ran a hand through her dark brown hair, twisting it briefly before letting it fall, a nervous habit sheâd picked up in adulthood. She looked out the window. When she glanced back in the direction of the barista, he was steaming more water. With a grimace, she looked at her watch again as he scooped coffee grounds into the filter.Â
Scoop, dump, scoop, dump, scoop, dump. Sigh. He walked to the back counter to retrieve the steaming water and poured it over the grounds with an impressive slowness. The coffee drip-drip-dripped into the waiting glass container. Emily let out a subtle but exasperated breath.Â
âI can bring this to your table,â the barista said. âThatâs what we normally do.âÂ
Now you tell me, she thought, as she said aloud, âGreat.â Emily rushed up the stairs and unloaded the contents of her work bag onto the long oak table. She opened her laptop, set out her notes, and pulled up her presentation file before checking her watch again.Â
Scrolling through the slides, she felt confident. She told herself it was going to go perfectlyâshe was prepared, well rested, and had even gotten a workout in that morning, not to mention the bike ride to the coffee shop. Now, she just needed to do final preparations. But as Emily scrolled to the fourteenth slide, she paused, panicked. The slide was blank. Where was the text sheâd put in the night before?Â
Hastily, she continued scrolling. Slides fifteen, sixteen, seventeenâthey were all blank.Â
With growing panic, she began looking through her handwritten notes. She would have to recreate the presentation. But first, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then another.Â
âHere you go.â Emily jumped at the voice behind her. She laughed nervously. âSmells delicious. Thanks.âÂ
The barista set the coffee on the table to her right as Emily began remaking the presentation she was set to give in an hour and forty minutes. Those slides had taken her nearly three hours to create the first time; hopefully sheâd be able to whip them together before the meeting. So much for the additional prep sheâd planned to do that morning.Â
Emily reached for the coffee, her eyes still on her screen. A second later, hot liquid was all over the table. She scooped up her laptop and notes just in time.Â
âDang it, dang it, dang it.â After relocating her items to the other end of the table, she turned around to search for napkins, nearly colliding with someone. She jumped back as a man extended a stack of napkins.Â
âLooking for these?â he said. âOh, yeah. Thanks.â She paused momentarily before smiling and taking the stack from him. The man went to grab more napkins and then walked over to help mop up the mess.Â
âHere, Iâll take the wet towels,â he offered, gathering up the dripping paper.Â
âThank you.â As Emily finished drying the table, all she could think about was her presentation. She set to work getting her area reorganized.Â
The man returned from throwing away the second set of wet towels. âAll dry?âÂ
Emily looked up from her work space and surveyed the man in front of her. He had neatly styled white hair and wore a button-up shirt, tailored jeans, and brown leather dress shoes. His eyes wrinkled into a genuine smile just as Emily realized how odd it must seem that she was standing there staring at him. She smiled back.Â
âYes, thanks so much.âÂ
He nodded and reached out his hand. âIâm David.â âDavid. Iâm Emily.â She shook his hand. âThanks, again.â âOf course.â He looked toward her ordered workstation. âMay I ask what youâre working on?âÂ
âI have a big presentation inââshe checked her watch and lifted her eyebrows in surpriseââan hour and a half. If youâll excuse me, I need to get back to work.âÂ
âOf course.â David made his way back to his table, which was directly across from hers. He picked up his tablet, returning to the news article heâd been reading.Â
Over the next hour, Emily focused intently on her computer screen, her hands moving furiously. With five minutes to spare, she saved the file three times just to be sure. Finally, she gathered her items, placed them in her bag, and rushed out the door without looking back. She didnât realize David was watching her the whole time.Â
âGood job today,â Mitchell said. The conference room had cleared out, and Emily was gathering her presentation materials. She still felt the familiar rush of an excellent presentationâher mind sharp, body energized, breathing a bit shallower than normal. She smiled at Mitchell.Â
âDo you think theyâre on board with how artificial intelligence can transform our business?âÂ
âItâs hard to say. Theyâve been doing things the same way for years.â âTrue.â The room grew quiet. Mitchell lingered as Emily cleaned up.Â
âYou know, Iâve been wanting to knowââ Emily said. âThereâs something Iâd like toââ Mitchell began. âYou first,â Emily said. âWell, we both know you were up for a promotion.â âRight.â Emily sensed what was coming next. Discussions never start that way when youâve gotten the job. âIâm excited to be considered.âÂ
âYouâve been wowing everyone on this Asia project, myself included, with your hard work. Honestly, youâre one of the best Iâve seen.âÂ
âWell, thank you. This past month has been a good challenge.â âAnd youâve tackled the challenge head-onââhe paused, looking at the table before raising his eyes to meet hersââbut I donât think youâre quite ready for the next step.âÂ
âWhat?â She startled herself with this response. Get it together, she thought.Â
âWeâve given the promotion to Stan.â Stan? Stan, the same guy sheâd started her trainee program withâthe one whoâd just received terrible ratings in his latest customer response survey and showed up late to meetings? Seriously? âI see. Thanks for letting me know. So if I can ask, what am I missing?âÂ
Mitchell stretched his mouth into an attempted smile. âItâll be your time soon. I meant what I said. Youâre doing great.âÂ
âI appreciate that.â âOK, then.â Mitchell knocked lightly on the desk twice. âSee you at 2 p.m. for our team meeting.â âSee you.âÂ
Emily hung back in the conference room. She sat at the head of the table, her elbows on the surface, hands together in a fist and forehead resting on her hands. Then she leaned back and stared at the ceiling.Â
This was the third promotion sheâd been passed over for. She thought about the people whoâd received promotions over the past two years: James, Kyle, Stan. She had gone through the same manager trainee program with themâtheyâd all been hired at the same time, started on the same day, and were deploying different parts of the same product. What gives?Â
Over the past month, sheâd been watching the companyâs monthly metrics. Her team had far surpassed Stanâs in customer acquisition, retention, and satisfaction. They launched updates faster with fewer bugs, while Stanâs team had been slowing down with launches and reporting more issues with their code. Her direct reports consistently praised her leadership, and while she liked Stan, sheâd heard the rumblings of dissent within his team. It had been a similar story with James and Kyle. And yet they had gotten promotions and she hadnât.Â
The last time this had happened, a good friend had suggested it might be because sheâs a woman. Emily had rejected the idea at the time, but now she wasnât so sure. She wanted to believe her confidence and intelligence outweighed centuries of bias, but she also didnât want to be naĂŻve. It seemed there were too many signs to ignore.Â
Sheâd worked for nearly a decade at this company, and now she felt stagnant. After missing the last promotion, sheâd even gone to the lengths of conducting her own version of a 360 review, in which she solicited anonymous feedback from nearly a dozen people on her team and in her network. A few comments had stungâtwo people said she was too direct and unemotional, one said she had trouble fully delegating projectsâbut otherwise they were overwhelmingly positive. She couldnât identify anything serious enough to be holding her back from getting promoted, and sheâd been actively working to improve on issues called out during the review. One of the other managers had even made a comment about how well sheâd delegated on a recent project, which had given her confidence that she was improving.Â
Emily shifted her attention to the ten executive chairs askew in the room. She sighed, then stood and walked to each chair, pushing them in. Three dirty coffee cups were on the table, and she gathered them one at a time. Someone had spilled a dime-sized coffee puddle, and as she retrieved a napkin from the beverage station at the back of the room, she stopped.Â
She stood there, three coffee cups in one hand and a napkin in the other. It had been ten years since sheâd been the new manager trainee, and yet here she was, cleaning up after her colleagues and bosses like their mom. She did enough of that at home with her own child.Â
Emily walked around the table and set each coffee cup back where it had been, then made her way over to the beverage station and returned the napkin.Â
âI have begun my own quiet war,â she whispered, reciting a section from her favorite book, The House on Mango Street. âSimple. Sure. I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.âÂ
She looked at the spilled coffee on the table with defiance, slung her bag over her shoulder, and walked out of the room.Â
As I read, I appreciated the narrative woven between the astute leadership tutelage. In this way, the reader doesn't feel as if they are reading dry nonfiction self-help - they're seeing the applicable instruction put to use through the plot's central conflict. I think it's very clever of Price. Many children's books do the same for the purpose of learning, so why not expand that technique into adult novels? With a central focus on discrimination against women in the workplace, it's an excellent way to discuss an important and often heated topic in a thoughtful, intelligent, and professional way. For a male author to tackle a feminist subject in such a manner - I think it's genius.
Additionally, the information about influence, leadership, collaboration, and personal development is clearly explained, as using the characters, there are plenty of examples to help understand the concepts. I definitely took many notes and highlighted many passages (and diagrams!) that I would like to incorporate in my own personal development tool box.
I especially was interested in the definitions of influence or influencer. Though Emily and David were discussing the terms in the corporate world, I kept thinking about how it could apply to social media influencers and bloggers. It may seem like different veins, but as outlined, there's three types of influence: control, collaboration, and concern. If I was to consider myself as a social media influencer and a blogger (which I do, as I do want to influence people on what books to read and buy), then the first type of influence I have is control over what content I put out to my audience (you, my fellow readers), the second in collaboration with publishers and fellow influencers (those who want to promote specific books), and the third area is concern over if my reviews will actually interest and influence you enough to check out those reads.
Overall, Price has impressed me with this book, his writing, the discussion, and the overall plot, and I really enjoyed being a part of Emily and David's chats. I can easily see myself recommending Growing Influence to many of my friends, and I'd love to get a personal physical copy to mark up and reference as well! If you're looking for great advice on workplace discrimination and company leadership in a palatable read, this would be a great go-to.
Thank you to Reedsy Discovery and Greenleaf Book Group Press for providing this DRC in exchange for an honest review.