Living in the Grey

Life isn't binary. It isn't black and white. It's fractal. It's grey. It's ambiguous. It's messy. 

Yet we seem to be living in an age where everything is polarised, where choice is limited to extremes and where navigation through, amongst and between those opposites feels confusing and overwhelming.

But that's where most of us live, doing the best we can with the information and the resources that we have available to us, while being harangued, cajoled, bullied or, at best, encouraged to conform to one way of being or another.

Sometimes those imperatives are external, imposed on us, and sometimes they are internal, self-imposed. Much of the time, they seem to be at war with each other. And therein lies the cost we pay.

It may not be obvious or apparent at the time.  If you try to live by a set of values and beliefs, try to do the right things by and for everyone and everything for and to whom you feel a responsibility, when you 'push through', those costs get stored up and come home to roost later - in our physical and/or mental health, in our spiritual wellbeing and/or in our relationships.

Perhaps that's where the concept of a work/life balance originated. The idea that we could reconcile those conflicting demands for a fulfilling and meaningful means of earning enough to balance our own physical, spiritual and emotional needs against, and meet, the same needs of our dependent or obligated others. The hope that we can find equilibrium in the ambiguity between.

But it's something to which we tend only to pay lip service. The reality is that few of us think we have the choice to behave differently, to decline the divided path, but to travel lightly and bridge them, until it's too late, the damage is done.  And for some, there is no way back.

I have learned much in the last 14 months. I am not playing binary any more. Look for me in the  messy, grey spaces instead.

Lifted Up

I was invited to host a table at the Speed Learning event, part of the Workplace Learning stream at the Bett Conference in London yesterday. The theme, as articulated in the programme - was "...developing cost-effective, exciting and engaging new learning resources". This was new territory for me - as I effectively only had three minutes to share my 'story' and another seven minutes for discussion and questions, before the participants moved on to the next table and off we go again. No slides, no visual aids, no microphones, no co-speaker, no chairperson... Just me and 8-10 people, up close and personal for ten minutes - five times in one hour!

So, now that that hour has been and gone - and what an intense hour it was - what did I learn from the experience?

Well, anyone who has read any of my blogs or participated in any of my conference sessions previously will be aware that being stuck for words is not one of my areas for development! If anything, it's the opposite and I am constantly challenging myself to be more succinct in both my verbal and my written delivery. (You can take the boy out of acting, but you can't take the actor out of the boy. Someone once said that if the fridge door light came on, I would do twenty minutes!)

I wanted to share our story at FirstGroup of deploying Webex, coupled with our existing voice conference provider, as both a learning and a business communication tool, and to illustrate some examples of the challenges, mistakes and successes. Now, I have touched on this before at a couple of conferences, as a 'work in progress' and as part of a wider usually 20-30 minute talk. I have never had to compact four years' worth of work into three minutes! 

Serendipitously, I had been involved in a conversation at work last week, where the concept of the 'elevator pitch' came up. It's one of those phrases one hears and kind of assumes that one knows what it means, until one is challenged to explain it. I couldn't, but someone else did and we discussed how one would use the time between floors in a hypothetical lift with the Chief Executive, to 'make your pitch', tell your story, etc. and how one would have to focus on clarity and impact.

So that's what I did. On the run, I trimmed my story down to the bare essentials. I focused on a very brief history of how we got to where we are, some mistakes made along the way, why we decided to take the route we took, some examples of success in L&D (Data Protection Training, if you want to know) and one or two 'words to the wise' for anyone considering that approach. I was really challenged by the three minute deadline, but relaxed into the seven minute conversation with the rest of the table, which allowed expansion.

Great timekeeping and framing by Marc Powell ensured that everyone stuck to the timings and some really fruitful conversations seemed to be occurring across the room.  My only regret is that I didn't get the chance to hear my fellow hosts' stories at their own tables.

 

I realised afterwards, on the train home, that I had had a unique opportunity to put theory into practise. I had an understanding of the concept of the elevator pitch beforehand, but had now had a real chance to walk the talk in the session, learn from each of the five conversations, and refine both the technique and my story, for real. Invaluable.  So what will I do differently in the future? As I articulated in my tweet last night, I'll be aiming for focus, clarity and impact in my communications in the future.

My final learning point - if there's ever another Speed Learning hosting opportunity, I'll make sure I've got a bottle of water with me. I was parched by the end of the hour! Still talking tho'...

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Recent Reflection #2 - A Responsibility

What did I do?

We have just held our internal 2013 HR Conference.  Back in January, I volunteered to help with organising this event.  My boss immediately put me in charge (that'll teach me!) and suggested I assemble a planning and co-ordinating team of HR Business Partners from across our various companies.  Four of our HR Directors nominated one of their HRBS each.  In the early days of planning, I held virtual meetings via Webex and Conference Calls with the team, as we put together the basic requirements - dates, times, location, venue, content - and allocated tasks accordingly.

As we got nearer to the dates, we were struggling to find a suitable venue in the Manchester area and, despite the efforts of individuals in the team to investigate suitable sites, we were in danger of not being able to hit the dates already selected and pre-publicised with the HR Leadership team across the business.  Eventually, I called our hotel and conference booking service and passed the task to them.  Within 24 hours, they came back with a proposal which fitted all our requirements and I made the booking.

We were then able to concentrate on the programme and on a couple of visits to Manchester, we firmed up our proposed agenda, which, whilst approved in principle by the senior HR team, was tweaked and changed right up to and including the days of the conference itself.  This led to some frustration on the initially enthusiastic organising team's part, whilst I had to take a more pragmatic view.  I managed to handle a degree of frustration with the team to keep everyone on track to deliver what was required.  Ultimately, the team were great - all admin and preparatory tasks were completed and they ran the check-in and people management tasks faultlessly and with enthusiasm and humour.  I could not have done it without them.

Late in the run-up, I got the full-time assistance of our HR Programme Manager, who quickly pulled the remaining plan together and held us all to account on the tasks required.

As it happened, the arrangements worked and the conference went well. Some 95 HR staff from across the UK, travelled to, stayed at the hotel and attended our 2013 HR Conference in mid-June.  Speakers spoke, key messages were delivered, presentations were displayed, workshops run, discussions had and feedback captured.  We are now in the process of collating the materials for distribution and compiling the post-conference evaluation questionnaire.

What did I learn?

Sometimes a democratic approach isn't always the most effective - sometimes you have to take control and be very directive.  This may not always suit everyone, but management is not a popularity contest.  By the same token, it's important to acknowledge commitment and effort and to say 'thank you'!

There are more people and resources available to assist within our organisation than were immediately apparent.  Lots of people came up to me during the conference itself to ask why I hadn't asked for their help.  I didn't know that there was experience and resource which I could have called on.  Equally, good people and event management with your chosen venue is essential. The team at our venue were fantastic; they anticipated and reacted to our needs before and during the conference and helped make it the success it was.

Good audio visual support is essential and needs to be slick and unobtrusive.

Flexibility and adaptability before and during an event, thinking on your feet and making snap decisions is part and parcel of this kind of event.  That said, rehearsal of key points and speaker sessions would have prevented some slight hold-ups and resulting impact on timing.

What am I going to do with this learning?

I will organise a 'lessons learned' session with the Programme Manager and Planning Team, to capture their feedback and build into a resource pack/project plan template for anyone running future similar events.  This will also be informed by the feedback we get from the attendees via the online post-conference evaluation survey.

If I am organising any such event again, I will start the planning and get the fundamental arrangements - date, location, venue, speakers - made and booked as early as possible.

Also, now that I know it exists, I will not hesitate to ask for support and resource across the business as early as possible, get it booked and in place at the appropriate time and place.

I will ensure that any and all audio visual provision is of the highest standard and reliability.

Finally, I'm going to be very careful about what I volunteer for in the future!