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Take it outside

Hi – how are you? Did you have a good Christmas, a happy new year? I hope so. I’ve not been around to ask you these questions because of my determination to take a proper break from work. I haven’t written for well over two weeks and though putting the tools down felt odd at first, I soon relaxed into things. Until my Dad bought me a DeWalt drill for Christmas and that led me to toolish adventures of different kinds. More of that another day. Perhaps.

I went for a run with Carole on Friday morning. She runs often and I’ve not done so since leaving school. When I was at school I was one of the saddos who volunteered to do cross country running. Yep – I did it by choice, I enjoyed the grinding muddy trudgery enormously.

Why did I agree to this run on Friday? Well I’ve learned not to say no to Carole 😉 and I thought doing something out of the ordinary would help me get my getting ready for work head on. And those of you who’ve been around here a while will know I’ve done some fairly serious cycling before now. Riding up huge French mountains, 100 mile time trials, that kind of thing. After a couple of nasty moments on my bike a couple of years ago I’ve fallen out of love with cycling somewhat. I’d like to get back, so this short run is the beginning of a return to some fitness. I’ll set me a few small goals and let’s see how I get on – more of that down the road.

What struck me most about this short run was the simple beauty of being outside. OK my shortness of breath bothered me too sometimes, but simply being outdoors is fabulous. The picture above is taken at my outdoor gym. I confess I joined a regular gym once. I hated it. Smelly, impersonal, stuffed with toned and buffed showoffs – I’m never going back.

Did you make any new year resolutions? I hope not – new year resolutions suck. And if you are thinking that a healthy body makes a great double act with a healthy mind then I wish you well. And please – take it outside. Gyms suck your enjoyment and your soul and dump them somewhere unspeakably damp, smelly and horrible.

How did I get on yesterday? Well I made it all the way (3.6 kilometres) without stopping, Carole tells me I did pretty good and that will do for me. Thanks for the encouragement Carole. Hello fitness, I can see you way off there in the distance and I’m coming to get you.

Update: Hat tip to Mervyn Dinnen for pointing out this article in the Telegraph about gym rage.

Update: Hat tip to Jorgen Sundberg from Link Humans for pointing out this article in the Wall Street Journal. It’s a backhanded list of reasons to help get the best out of the gym, I like these two observations:

“Fancy gyms can be seductive, but once you get past the modern couches and fresh flowers and the water with lemon slices, you’re basically paying for a boutique hotel with B.O.

If you’re at the point where you’ve bought biking shoes for the spinning class, you may as well go ahead and buy an actual bike. It’s way more fun and it doesn’t make you listen to C+C Music Factory.”

A letter to you

Dear you

It’s 10.30 am and we’ve only just finished breakfast. Coughs and colds abound and the mood is light and playful. A few work tasks need completing, I’ll get to those in a minute. For now I just wanted to share two things. The first is a silly game Keira has just played with us. It looks like this:

Doug. Dumb. Octopus like. Understanding. Great.

Carole. Crazy. Arty. Right. Observant. Loveful. Exciting.

Keira. Kangaroo like. Epic. Incredible. Reasonable. Adorable.

Shaw. Smart. Hugging. Arts. Wacky.

You might like to have ago yourself, feel free to post the results here if you do.

The second thing I’d like to share is a thank you. Over the past few days I’ve been amazed by how many people are in my thoughts. How much support and greatness and kindness you’ve shared. With me. With each other. These are of course tears of joy, not sadness.

Thank you. Merry Christmas. See you in 2012.

Love from Doug

Employer Engagement

I have an early Christmas gift for you. Bina Briggs from Plain Talking HR has written a super post about an inspiring leader named Frank Pullman. This post fits wonderfully with our Heroes series, and I’m grateful to Bina for taking the time to write such a motivating piece. Take it away Bina, and thanks very much:

Over the last few days, a very popular personality of the Twitter HR Community @NeilMorrison said something like how many Execs REALLY want to know what people think? I think Neil also said something about responsibility and trust between the Employer and Employee in a Tweet discussion last week. That actually got me thinking about Employer Engagement.

In this age of keeping the Share holders happy and having business efficiencies at every level, it seems that the Senior Management expects a lot from their employees; however, often there is no engagement from the Employer. In the words of a man I admire greatly, “I think that one of the greatest weaknesses of the UK is that we focus on short term profit to the detriment of long term and deep rooted commitment that gives a greater return.”  Leading by example has almost become a clichĂ©. Not many Senior Execs command genuine respect and affection/admiration from their employees.

However, there is always an exception to the rule and I and a great number of us working at a small airport called “Luton International Airport” were very fortunate and privileged on the day a new Operations Director came into our lives. On 6th February 1992, Francis Simon Pullman (Frank to all of us) walked on to the airport and charmed us all! Over the next few years, Frank became the Chief Executive of the Airport.

Frank’s tall stature belied his gentle, human, compassionate and genuinely warm nature. He wasn’t Mr Pullman, but Frank. What made Frank unique was that he connected with people at all levels, he listened and he acted on it.

Frank was in work by 0730 hrs every morning and by 0800 hrs, he started his round of the airport departments from the Air Traffic Control to the Airfield Operations, the Fire Service, the Terminal Building, Baggage Handling to the Cargo Centre to name a few. Frank visited all the departments scattered across the airport complex, listening to what employees had to say about every day business, he engaged people into conversation. Frank knew 800 odd employees by name and oddly enough everyone knew who Frank was! People genuinely would wave and call out to Frank as he walked round the airport.

On Christmas day, in those days, the airport wasn’t fully operational, however, it had to be staffed and so Frank used to travel up from North London to Luton, especially to visit every single department and wish everyone who was on duty a Merry Christmas. People looked forward to his visit. On one such day, my hubby was driving down on the M1 a Christmas prezzie for me when having been to the airport, along came Frank in his car in the next lane,  smiled, waved, gave him a thumbs up sign as he drove away! Well, that is another Christmas story!

Frank left the airport some 12 years ago and yet to this day, people remember him with such fondness! Many people cried openly the day Frank left the airport for pastures new.

This Christmas tale has a happy ending. I had been in touch with Frank only a couple of times in the last 12 years, and because I wanted to dedicate this blog to him, I made contact with him last Friday and I received a lovely e-mail from Frank today. The e-mail had all the compassion and warmth I remembered of the past, so here’s to Frank who knows all about Employer Engagement!  Merry Christmas everyone! xx