Doug Shaw

Tuning In

Yesterday was a special privilege for me.

I spent time teaching science with the year 3 children at Stanley Park Junior School.

The children eagerly participated as we talked about different things that make sound and then about vibration, the thing that all sounds have in common. The children told me how vibration works – and I showed them how to see sound, courtesy of a tuning fork and a cup of water. In case you are interested, a middle C tuning fork makes water splash a lot better than a fork tuned to A. This great idea was shown to me by the very creative Julia Benbow. Thanks Julia. We also made lentils jump about, we learned how different materials conduct sound, and we twanged and thumped a few instruments and finished with a short song I wrote about sound, vibration, playgrounds and the enthusiasm of the school kids. We all enjoyed our time together and the children appreciated the song very much.

I have never taught at school before and though I had prepared, I was nervous. I needn’t have been. The kids were enthusiastic, innocent, friendly and frank. It was a pleasure spending time in their company and a useful reminder of some great qualities. I’m sure I learned more than they did.

My time teaching and learning yesterday also reminded me of another very powerful learning experience involving children which I participated in recently. I recently wrote about this experience for Michael Carty at XpertHR who kindly published it today.

On that occasion I learned the importance of being straightforward. Of being confident that the kids would handle and respond well to open questions. They responded brilliantly. Just as kids show frankness, they really seem to appreciate, and thrive on it in return.

It’s a shame but too often in the world of work we forget these simple and powerful qualities that children seem to display so effortlessly. I intend to go back to school more often to learn and relearn these things.

Children are great teachers.

A Business Case for Social Media – aka Real Life

Last week I turned up the wick and really focussed on developing connections into relationships. LinkedIn, blogging, Twitter, Facebook, yadda yadda. I love ’em. Great places for making connections. And then comes the privilege of reinforcing interesting online connections into real, handshakey, conversationy, bike ridey relationships. If you would like to read on, this is the story of a journey into, and out of social media and real life. Or if you prefer, it’s a business case, demonstrating a bountiful return on our investment.

Monday

The week started with Alan Whitford interviewing me for his thought leader series of conversations over at RCEuro.com

I met Alan at the recent ConnectingHR Unconference. He’s an encouraging guy and asks good questions. We had a good conversation about fear, honesty, integrity and The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. If you are familiar with me then I’m not sure the interview will reveal anything you don’t already know (Alan refers to my “open kimono” style whilst we’re speaking – which means I’m rubbish at keeping secrets!). If you’re new around here you might want to invest ten minutes and take a look. I’m grateful to Alan for taking the time to make this happen. Alan then kindly invited me to join a panel discussion on social media and employee engagement at the upcoming Social Recruiting Conference. The panel is chaired by Jon Ingham and Charlie Duff will be there too so it promises to be lively.

Tuesday

I met Sarah Matthews for lunch. I first met Sarah at the recent ConnectingHR Unconference (huh, didn’t I just write something….). We had an enjoyable and useful conversation about creating value. Not profit, value. We chatted about how closely linked HR and branding are, how it seems to be that the more people skills people (all people, not just HR – I hate it when I hear folk say “people, that’s HR’s job”. Time to resign) have in organisations, the better the organisations are and will be. And we talked about less concentrating more doing, which prompted us to order lunch. A great conversation, thanks Sarah.

And then I dashed off to help make “Is Bad Behaviour Killing Big Business Live” – come to life. I think it worked.

Wednesday

I met Flora Marriott and some of her colleagues at Yell Adworks. I first met Flora at the recent ConnectingHR Unconference (groundhog day post?). They do stuff at Yell Adworks. Quickly and effectively. A fantastic example of action, inspiration, flow and productivity. I was left breathless by the pace, the action, the subtle visible leadership.

I journeyed on to meet with Jonathan Wilson. I’ve known Jonathan for many years and am proud to call him a friend an associate. We got together at Friends Meeting House near Euston. A wonderful venue for a more leisurely meeting. Good coffee, free wi-fi. Recommmended venue.

Thursday

I attended the inaugural London HR at the Table. There I met Vandy and Katherine. Two people who fill me with optimism and creativity. I also met Claire Walsh again. I first met Claire at the recent ConnectingHR Unconference (you’re kidding me right? No – it’s true). I learned that Claire has more ideas in a lunch break than I have in a week! It’s always exciting to be at the start of something interesting. Thanks folks.

Friday

I wrote a song about writer’s block for Callum Saunders (yeah, I first met him at ConnectingHR etc etc)

I took my daughter Keira to ballet class

Saturday

I enjoyed a lovely bicycle ride with two good friends, Marky Mark, and Lord Ingram. I enjoy cycling and yet since my off eighteen months ago I’ve lost my bottle. If you want to learn more about that, feel free to watch the dodgy rap video my daughter and I recorded to mark the occasion. Where previously I used to enjoy blatting along dual carriageways time trialling at speeds (sometimes) in excess of 40mph, I now crawl timidly along the lanes and byways. I get scared every time I ride, and I keep going back for more and getting a teeny bit less scared (well most days at least). I’m encouraged by the support from my clubmates.

In the evening I joined more friends from the world of cycling for dinner to help celebrate a birthday. Most, if not all of my cycling fun is arranged online first.

Sunday

Spent a lovely day with Carole and Keira, and then went with them to enjoy a 21^st birthday party.

Flow

I have been privileged to be in the moment many times recently. Flow is hard work, and enormously rewarding. And it beats the crap out of work life balance every time.

Return on Investment

Folk often ask me, so where’s the return on your social media investment? Return means different things to different people so all I will say is there is a lot of value being created by the interesting people I meet who motivate and inspire me. And if that ain’t a good enough business case, well tough luck buddy – we approved it at our last board meeting and we’re doing it. Now.

Cards on the Table

Custom Made Business Cards — Custom Made Business Card

Cards on the Table

The coming together of a thriving online network. Connections developing into relationships. I’d been looking forward to our Is Bad Behaviour Killing Big Business knowledge share event for weeks. So much so that even when I got a call from the venue on the day to say there was a power failure and so we’d have no lights, I just thought – thank goodness for candles.

We had encouraged folks to design and make customised business cards to bring to the discussion. And we weren’t disappointed. In addition to the beautiful water colour cards designed by Vandy, we were treated to more unique ideas by Ian Price, Peter Burton, Peter Reid, Ian Sutherland and Quentin Kopp. I like them all and I’m particularly inspired by Ian’s jigsaw puzzle idea. We also received a lovely example from Esmé Davies from Itinerary Tours. Although Esmé couldn’t join us I wanted to share her creative card with you.

' Itinerary Tours Card — Esmé Davis’ creative business card

Long Distance

Among our guests were Ian James and Kerry Hastings, who had travelled down from the West Midlands to be with us. And Quentin Kopp journeyed down from Chesterfield. We were also joined by Shereen Qutob, and her husband Cristiano. I’ve known Shereen for over 18 months. We’ve met on a number of online networks but never in person. Shereen and Cristiano were over from Dubai on business in Europe and I was very excited that they chose to pop in en route from Paris to Edinburgh to spend an evening with us.

Structure?

We deliberately didn’t set any agenda for this meet up. We used the grid model, so successful at the recent Connecting HR Unconference, and asked people to populate the grid with conversation ideas. We had loads of ideas and loads of good conversations. I didn’t do a very good job of keeping things on track but when interesting people meet other interesting people it can be hard to stop the conversation.

Down to Business

Here is the rough cut of what we talked about. Needs work? Absolutely and I hope that by putting this out in raw form, people will be encouraged to add to the melting pot.

• People behave to fit the system
• Do a good deed every day
• Can you balance organisational values with personal values?
• What is the opposite of honesty? Silence!
• Success is all about preparation and practice, talent is overrated
• Organisations know how to behave well yet they frequently choose not to. It’s often counter cultural to do the right thing. People who do often leave (eventually feels too much like hard work) and the organisation reverts to what it was before. Someone referred to this as the work equivalent of social dieting, love it!
• Being aggressively busy causes bad behaviour
• Unselfish is important
• Posed the question online asking for examples of inspiring/inspired change leaders. Got lots of me me me, I’ve done it, but only one recommendation of someone else doing it. Yet when we ask other questions we get more generous answers. So there seems to be a lack of inspiring change leaders – is leadership too homogenised these days?
• You get what you measure – so be very careful what you measure
• There is no such thing as an organisation, only people

Because You’re Worth It

This event felt like visible leadership (despite the dimly lit surroundings) very much in action. Thanks to everyone who stepped into the unknown and helped make this happen. We’ve run a number of events now but none quite as fluid, and easy going as this.

I’ve had some lovely feedback from our guests since the event and in response to a number of requests we will run another in Spring 2011 and hopefully build our initial conversations into something more, both at the next get together, and importantly, between now and then too. So – to those kind people who came along and invested time and energy into the conversation I ask you – what could we do differently next time? And to those of you who didn’t or couldn’t come this time – what might encourage you to join in second time around?