"A genuinely novel way to think about leadership that works at every level. Jon has created an accessible and inspiring guide for anyone aspiring to be a great leader" - Rich Sugarman, Software Engineering Director, NVIDIA

"Clear, practical and consistently engaging, WHWYANITR builds a compelling model for leadership with wit and humanity.  This is a book you'll be returning to on a daily basis, a coach to support you and your teams, work, learn and deliver together.

Jon's experience infuses every page.  Through stories, observations and hard-won lessons he shines the light on leading in a world where you cannot be everywhere at once.  This is someone who has been in more than a few rooms.  More importantly, he understands what happens after he leaves them.  Read, pause, consider and benefit from that understanding" - Stuart Wallace, Director, Financial Services, AI & Data, EY 

"I wish I worked in a world where everyone had read this book! Leadership is not (only) hierarchical: it is something that everyone can practise - and improve. Jon's book helps to crystallise the concepts that matter, and how to think about them. Every chapter provides at least one lightbulb moment that invites the reader to reflect on how you yourself turn up to work each day. It is testament to the quality of writing that, despite their gravity, these lessons present as obvious and intuitive." - Mike Forster, Head of Engineering, Lean Technologies

"I don't read many management books. But this one grabbed me, partly because of how honest Jon Berger is about his own journey from "clueless first-line manager" to VP, and partly because the writing is so refreshingly light on its feet. Instead of an implausible one-size-fits-all prescription, the book hands you a toolbox which covers an impressive range without ever feeling bloated: agency, psychological safety, micromanagement, strategy, culture, how to tell the difference between a criminal and an idiot on your team. And it's genuinely funny in places. Whether you're a first-time manager or several layers up, there's something here that will make you think differently about what you're doing and why." - Charles Humble, Conissaunce, former Editor-in-Chief InfoQ

"Jon builds models that really click. The kind you find yourself reaching for in conversations, weeks, months, or years later. This book packages a career's worth of them: leading yourself, teams, leading at scale. What makes it rare in the genre is that it's so tightly written without being hard work. I find dense, high-signal leadership books are almost punishing to read, but this one gets the information across and gets out of your way to let the ideas land. Thoroughly useful and a pleasure to read." - Ed Pringle, Executive Coach, EPK Consulting

"What Happens When You Are Not In The Room is about an uncomfortable truth. There is nothing whatsoever that we leaders can do personally to hit that delivery or meet those targets. 99.9% of the work happens when we're not there - out of the room. Jon Berger's excellent, funny, engaging book offers a toolkit of leadership techniques to help us all navigate this reality and lead better." - Jon Rowland, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Alianza 

"This book distils Jon’s wisdom and does so through the lens of his own journey. It will sound familiar to some. To others, it will be a god send."  - Jamie Dobson, Founder Container Solutions, Author of Visionaries, Rebels and Machines

"This isn’t a book about the latest management trend—it’s a book about enduring principles that help you become a better leader.  The concepts are practical, memorable, and grounded in decades of real leadership experience. Thoughtful, insightful, and refreshingly easy to read, it’s the kind of book you’ll come back to because it changes how you think, not just what you know." - Martin Lund, CEO CspeedIO, Former Executive Vice President Cisco

"Leadership is about using less direct input from yourself while still executing at scale - something that's even more important now that everyone can have a host of AI subordinates at our fingertips. How do we know that what we've asked for is actually being executed successfully? Jon Berger's principles are invaluable for people leading teams of humans, teams of AI or a combination of the two." - Yanqing Cheng, CEO Tollens.ai

"You could go out and buy all the management books in the store. Or you could just read Jon Berger’s ‘WHWYANITR’ and have all the key lessons distilled for you, delivered along with relatable anecdotes from Jon’s own three decades of success (along with a healthy dose of failure) in technology management." - Andrew Randall, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft

"I don’t read a lot of business books. I’m not even that interested in management or leadership. But ever since I read an early copy of this book I’ve been itching to buy copies to give to the leaders in my company. I think it will make them even better leaders, which can only be good for me!" - Phil Pearl, Principal Software Engineer, Ravelin Technology

"Jon Berger has packed a career’s worth of leadership learning and insight into an easily digestible read. He provides mental models that are easy to understand and remember, but powerful even when thinking through complex leadership challenges. The writing is direct and succinct but without ever feeling heavy or dense. It’s a pleasure to read through cover to cover, but also a reference you’ll want to keep coming back to. Great for leaders and managers at any level, but also for aspiring leaders and anyone with influence within or across teams." - David Parker, Head of Technology, London

"During my career, I was lucky enough to have first-hand experience of Jon Berger's leadership.  As one of the most inspiring leaders I worked for, he helped me get the best out of myself and my team, further my career and enabled me to achieve my goals.    

What Happens When You Are Not In The Room explains the leadership strategies and motivations that Jon instilled into his teams and colleagues, bringing them to everyone.  As I read through, it brought back many of the lessons and discussions we had - for example, I still remember sitting in his office, discussing the concepts of Criminals versus Idiots (chapter 14!) and realising where I (and my colleagues) sat on that spectrum.

This is not just a book for CEOs, VPs and high level managers.  The concepts here are equally applicable to those with leadership aspirations and those whose goal is to get the most out of themselves and their managers." - Ed Harrison, Managing Director, Quilcroft Consulting

"This book really shows how leadership grows in the spaces we don’t see. Jon Berger’s shift from resisting management to understanding influence is honest, relatable, and genuinely useful." - Kavita Kapoor, Director of Digital Products, Imperial College London

"A book practical enough for Monday morning and philosophical enough for Friday evening. A great map of the territory of modern management." - Greg Hawkins, former CTO and current Senior Advisor at Starling Bank 

“If you aren’t writing, you only think you are thinking”  is a quote by tech legend and mathematician Leslie Lamport. If anything underlines the value to me of writing my own book, it’s that. It never even occurred to me to get ChatGPT or any other AI to write my book for me.  Not because I’m anti-AI, I think it’s a very useful tool, but because it would go against the entire point of the exercise.  

I wrote the book to force me to THINK.  To get my thoughts straight about what I had learned the hard way through a 30 year career, and share those straightened-out thoughts with others and with myself.

It was hard. It was fun. It was valuable. AI couldn't do that for me. 

Jon Berger, 2026