It was a Tuesday in November when Jana showed me her calendar. From nine to half past five every half hour was taken, some twice. She led a team at a company that builds software for freight forwarders, and she said a sentence I have heard in almost every company since.

“I only get to work in the evening.”

She did not mean it as a complaint. She meant it as a description. During the day she was reachable, available, present. The work, the thinking, writing and deciding, happened after seven, when the building was quiet.

Over the next two years I spoke to 60 companies. In 54 of them there was a Jana. This book is about why that is, and what the teams who changed it did.