Week 29
Work
Work is intense. The client team is much bigger now (more people = more communication = more work); the new directors have their feet under the table and are keen to engage on detail (all at once); and team holidays coinciding with scheduled and delayed tasks have meant a bumper workload. But - only three weeks left. Reflection: We’ve reached the point in the project that truly kills me. Where you’re focused on pulling together your final deliverables - but you can also see just how much more value you’d blatantly have been able to add if only you had more time. The torture of what might have been, just out of reach. Kudos to the delivery manager types who keep me on task when that feeling kicks in.
Finally made it into the new office. It’s lovely. I have a 25 minute walk from Euston to Holborn - which was glorious in the sunshine. Headphones on, sun on my face, breeze through my hair…it was all I could do to stop myself singing and dancing along the road. (Without my social inhibitions my life would for sure be a musical). It was so nice to see everyone. Is it a little worrying, though, that I got the last remaining desk available in the office we’ve moved to in order to accommodate the growing PD brood? We had our CEO update, we said goodbye to an amazing colleague and welcomed some fantastic new ones, and there was pizza. Reflection: I work where I do because I want to be surrounded by really talented people I can learn from and grow alongside. It is nice to have smarter digs, but really I’m all about the people. It did get me thinking, though, about what a challenge growth is in an organisation like PD. How do you keep the best of the culture we have whilst evolving it to create something that reflects and includes everyone who joins? How do you make everyone feel involved in strategic decisions when the days of everyone regularly being together in one room are far behind you? How do you develop policies that feel fair regardless of where you are in the world, in your career, or in your life? How do you recognise depth and diversity of experience and skills without creating unnecessary hierarchy? I have to say I don’t envy our HR director - we’re an opinionated bunch of people who care deeply about this stuff. Doesn’t make having those discussions easy. But I guess the most worthwhile stuff isn’t easy.
Home
Editing a podcast on optimism. Was nice and quick - and I hope enjoyable for everyone when it’s released. My interviewee is gonna listen to it/review the transcript and then I’ll publish. If you have views on optimism in public services, leadership or digital transformation, and you’d like me to interview you for my podcast, hmu. Reflection: I definitely went with 80/20 on the editing. I’m comfortable with the software so it was super-quick. And thought I know I could have spent a lot more time on it, I’m not convinced that i would want to spend that much time on every episode. Consistency is important to me - so I’m levelling down rather than setting an unsustainable standard for the series. Also, life is too short. Have a listen when it’s out and let me know if you think I should have spent more time removing ums and likes…
Swimming nearly broke me this week. My normal swimming instructor told me my front crawl technique is solid - his stand-in this week showed me it really isn’t. I swam 4 exhausting lengths before I got the quality of feedback I needed - the biggest issues are that my head is too low in the water, and the movement of my upper leg isn’t enough. As soon as I corrected these two things, swimming a length suddenly became less tiring. It really does make all the difference, high quality feedback. Reflection: there’s something here about getting feedback from fresh eyes, essentially from people who haven’t been invested in your journey so far. I got the impression that this instructor is much more experienced too, which is very welcome. Do we get - and give - this quality of feedback in a work context? We might look to line managers to give feedback - but do we seek it from others? As leaders, are we confident in giving helpful feedback to people we see around us? We might feel a little awkward in the moment, but if it is genuinely helpful and sensitively delivered feedback, they’ll thank us for helping them grow.
I had my hair coloured today. The colorist put the dye in, and then handed me over to a new starter at the salon. Who proceeded to wash, condition and dry my hair with the vigour you might expect a dog groomer would handle a wire-haired terrier (truly my hair isn’t that coarse). I flinched a few times with hair pulls and by the end I was trying to hide my watering eyes. Reflection: I should have just told him to be less rough. I didn’t want to discourage a newbie on their first day in a new job. He seemed so keen, it would have felt like kicking a puppy. BUT - it’s a lesson he needs to learn, and I could have done him the favour of letting him hear it from a customer who didn’t make a big deal of it. Because who knows how customers this week will react to such a rough handling. As flagged, I see that this sits entirely at odds with my previous reflection - yes I am a giant hypocrite. Though now that I’ve realised this I can give him the feedback next time I get my hair coloured. Better late than never.