In appreciation of being understood; I think it could be rare.

I’m speaking at a conference in October and the organiser asked for my bio and talk overview. I scrambled together some words and sent them to Rod, my editor.

Rod and I first met in 2001 when he was Editor of Construction Manager magazine; he’d heard about my work and rang to ask me to write an article. I ended up doing a monthly column for over a year and we have worked together since on many projects. Eighteen years on Rod Sweet knows me and my work.

Rod is a master with words and at getting to the essence – this is what he returned:

“A civil engineer, Dave Stitt rose to senior management positions in national construction and engineering firms, leading several company-wide culture-change programmes during the industry’s era of reform in the early 2000s. Since then he has coached executive teams and, on numerous big, complex projects he has been in the background, helping teams articulate out-of-the-ordinary goals and collaborate to achieve them.

Dave is a proponent of “radical accountability” and what he sees as the ever-present potential to energise teams that are locked in stasis within existing project or corporate frameworks. His latest book, Deep and Deliberate Delegation, brings together a suite of simple techniques leaders can use to draft in, and sustain, support for crucial unplanned initiatives.

His talk will explore with the audience a humane and collaborative approach to leadership, where the goal for leaders is to create an environment where radical new accountability can spread in a team or organisation, so that great things start happening even if it’s not the leader doing them.”

I really liked this and so did the organiser. My immediate reaction was ‘wow, that’s me, that’s what I do’.

How lucky am I to work with someone who understands me and really gets what I do? Very.