Tag: making work better

Spaces in Your Togetherness

Carole and I will have been married for twenty years come July 18th 2012. Having got this close to the milestone we threw caution to the wind and celebrated a little early, this weekend just past.

We are fortunate to know many lovely people and a lot of them joined us in our celebration. The rain stayed away pretty much all day, which is increasingly a rarity in this year’s British Summer, Marks and Spencer came up trumps with the buffet, and I’m pretty sure everyone had a good time. Put it this way, no one has written me a song to complain about it…yet.

I can recall a few snippets of conversation from the party and I’ll use some of these as sparks for blog posts in the coming few days. The first was provided to me by Andy Foulds. Andy was telling me about a reading he’d heard at an event which included a quote from Khalil Gibran. In particular Andy recounted the line ‘Let there be spaces in your togetherness’ (you can read the full piece here), and we talked a little about the quote in the context of personal relationships. Spaces in your togetherness aren’t the only thing that make a relationship interesting and useful, indeed if the spaces become too big, there may well be no relationship left. But they help, a lot. And they’re just as useful in a work context.

When I worked in BT, I satisfied the need for spaces in the togetherness by sitting and working with different teams. Observing different methods, picking up new ideas, shaking off dull old ones. And now my work takes me all over the place, to different locations and with different people, I enjoy the vitality that comes from those spaces almost without thinking about it. And yet there are times when I need the togetherness too. That’s why I feel fortunate to have worked with a number of associates this year, their critical feedback is something you don’t always get from a client.

I hope you can find some space in your togetherness this week.

photo credit

 

I’m worried

I’m involved in a really interesting project that combines HR, engagement and communication for a customer. We’re all learning loads from it, we’re loving it and together we’re helping to make work better. And I’m worried.

Increasingly people are saying to me things like “if anyone can fix this, you can” or “you can sort this, you’ve got clout around here”. I leave here soon, and an over reliance on me could mean that the good work everyone has sponsored and been involved with goes to waste if people wrongly associate my departure with the end of this stuff. If the customer believes that staff engagement and employee communication are worthwhile I think it’s important that they act to formalise and resource this position quickly, and ideally before I go so that I might share my knowledge and findings with whoever wants to pick up the baton.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to sustain will be the sense of independence the board has lent me and the sense of ignorance I’ve brought with me. I’ve used these, and my natural curiosity to ask “dumb questions”, the kind of questions people forget to ask, or even worse, assume someone else is dealing with.

Becoming reliant on people like me sucks. I love putting myself out of one piece of work and on to the next one and I hate the dependency model many consultancy firms (particularly the larger ones in my experience), peddle. What do you think? How can companies benefit from the ignorance and independence of consultants and not become reliant on them? Or am I worrying about nothing?