work – Page 7 – The Consulting Artist

I Before We

Putting yourself first to make work better for all of us.

Over the weekend my attention was drawn to a list. Not one of those top 100 most boring people in HR lists which cause so much angst and hand wringing, but a simple list of thoughts and ideas to live by. It was written by Stephen Waddington on the occasion of his 45th birthday, and is made up of a thought or idea for each of those 45 years. I really enjoyed flicking through it, here are a few of my personal favourites, and I encourage you to check the whole thing out too.

I find myself agreeing with a lot of Stephen’s thinking, and not all of it. One idea in particular is causing me discomfort.

Banish personal pronouns, we not me, and us not I. At first glance this feels like it makes perfect sense. When I worked in big organisations I spent a lot of time thinking about how I and the people I worked with could be a great team. For example, when I led a sales team I insisted that our targets were aligned so that if any member of my team failed, I failed too. They could cross the finish line separately as individuals, and as their manager, I needed them all to succeed in order for me to, too. This method of setting targets was not the done thing at the time, and I had to work far too hard to make it happen, and happen it did, and succeed we did. All of us.

Since setting up my own business, I have continued to work mostly in large organisations, helping people make work better, together. We not me, and us not I. As time passes, and I think more intentionally about well being, and more deeply about the craft that is my work, It becomes increasingly clear that this aspiration, this hope of making work better together, cannot be achieved until first and foremost, I am in the best place to be of use to you. As my customer, you pay me to facilitate and consult with you – you have every right to expect me to be fully present, at my best, and I believe I should expect the same of each of you. To that extent, for us to do something great together, I, indeed every I in the room and on the project, has to come before we.

Experiments in Wellbeing

Integrating wellbeing into a productive working life.

Wellbeing is a subject which interests me, it’s something that gets a lot of airtime, and it’s a broad brush heading under which sits lots of different stuff. I first realised this when I was asked to give a talk on the subject for Morgan Lovell and their clients back in 2013. As part of my preparation, I asked people on Twitter: ‘When you hear the term wellbeing what pops into your head?’ The answers were many and varied, and included words like ‘belonging’, ‘balanced lifestyle’, ‘flow’, ‘good health’ and much more besides.

Busyness

At the event we discussed the subject of presence, and found that over two thirds of people in the room read and responded to emails whilst away on holiday. Overall, people didn’t think that working while being on holiday was a good thing, yet they felt compelled to do it. We talked about other aspects of work life balance and flow, and a strong feeling emerged that busyness gets in the way of wellbeing. I can relate to that notion and yet it also feels a bit like an excuse to me. ‘I’m too busy to look after myself’. Really?

‘Our People Are Our Greatest Asset’

Rarely does an annual report and accounts get published that doesn’t make some grand statement about the importance of ‘our people’. Do we really mean it? The prevailing culture and behaviours at work often have a lot to do with how, and even if we can weave wellbeing into our day to day habits. I’ve always found it odd that we persist in being OK with taking fifteen minutes out of the day at regular intervals to kill yourself, sorry – I mean smoke a cigarette, but the notion of going for a walk for the same amount of time, to clear your head, or think through a few ideas, is somehow seen as skiving on company time.

Maybe this recent piece in The New York Times, which talks specifically about some of the benefits a group of volunteers (for a study at the University of Birmingham) derived from regular 30 minute lunch time strolls, will help persuade the more cynical among us? Maybe, and yet it is worth noting that:

…tellingly, many said that they anticipated being unable to continue walking after the experiment ended and a few (not counted in the final tally of volunteers) had had to drop out midway through the program. The primary impediment to their walking, Dr. Thogersen-Ntoumani said, had been “that they were expected by management to work through lunch,”…

Is it only me smiling at the thought of management expectations being described as an ‘impediment’?

It’s Easy For You To Say…

By now you might well be thinking, ‘it’s easy for him to pick holes in the way we work, he doesn’t have to actually do this stuff on a day by day basis’. And to some extent you are right. I appreciate that as a consultant, I am not bound so tightly to the hamster wheel of seemingly endless back to back meetings, and some of the other things which become expected in a larger workplace, and I also appreciate, from my own experience both in corporate life and beyond, that there are times when work is really busy. I like being busy. I like deadlines. I like getting stuff done, just not all the time. I simply can’t be useful, and productive, and good company all the time, and I don’t think you can, either, can you?

What Next?

In the Autumn of last year, I came to a decision. I will make a conscious effort to integrate the practice of wellbeing into my life through a series of small experiments, and see what I can learn from this. I will share my learning openly, and you can ask me anything you like about the experiences I share. My intention, in addition to understanding and hopefully improving my own wellness, is simply to explore the idea that wellbeing, and meaningful, productive, even busy work, are not mutually exclusive. More to follow soon…

Half Way To The Hundred

Some of you might remember that at the beginning of December, I shared my early thoughts on my experience of #100HappyDays. 100 Happy Days is a simple commitment to share a photo of something that makes you (or in this case, me) happy, every day for 100 consecutive days. Here’s what I noticed when I first wrote, after day 14:

Happiness is indeed elusive, and when found, best left to purr quietly in the background. Don’t make a fuss or it’s likely to move on again.
Experiences trump things.
Family and friends – when they’re happy, you are more likely to be too.
Belgian Beer is lovely, but on a Monday night, maybe not so much.

Today is day 50 for me – I’m half way to the hundred. Here are a few of the photos in my collection, taken around Christmas time. If you click the image it will take you to my Instagram feed where I’m keeping the photos.

The challenge of finding something that makes you happy each and every day is proving interesting, particularly on days when I don’t feel particularly happy. For example – I had a bout of manflu in the run up to Christmas and had to resort to a photo of slippers, tissues and packets of cold remedies one day!

Having got half way to the hundred, I am now less surprised that so few (only around a quarter) of the people who start this challenge, finish it. Keeping stuff going is tough, and I know I often set out to achieve things that fall by the wayside. Do I feel happier as a result of this experiment? I feel like my mood has lightened overall across the time invested so far, and I am starting to enjoy an occasional quick flick through the photo album as well as continuing to contribute to it. I am currently mindful to turn the experiment into a hard copy photo album if I can find a suitable, inexpensive way of doing it.

I’m currently working on a number of regular, repeatable ideas with a general wellbeing theme, in support of my small things make a big difference philosophy – and this is one of them. Keep on Running is another, and although that experiment concluded on New Year’s Day when I walked my 111th mile over 36 consecutive days, it has now folded into something new, more on that soon. I’m not yet sure where all this is taking me, and I am sure that I’m learning a lot and enjoying most of it.

Happy Friday to you.