Not Moving On...

We have just returned from a week's 'holiday' in the North East of England. "Why the quotation marks around 'holiday'?", I hear you ask. The purpose of our break was two-fold - one, to have exactly that, a holiday, and two, to seriously investigate the Newcastle-upon-Tyne area as an early, pre-retirement, life-change opportunity. Recent events have made Mandy and I question how sustainable our current lifestyle and commitments are over the next few years.  Saddled with a draining mortgage and other outgoings (all of our own making, I hasten to add) which require us both to work and earn no less than what we're currently earning until 2020 at the earliest, coupled with some health issues and work uncertainties, have made us wonder how long we can keep going like this.

So we have started to investigate selling up in the South East, paying off the remaining mortgage and, as cash buyers, relocating somewhere else.  Not downsizing yet - we still have two young adults in further education - but relocating to find an equivalent family home without the burden of a monthly mortgage repayment hanging over our heads.

Anyone who knows us will be aware that Mandy has been studying for the last three years to become a Transactional Analysis Psychotherapist. The plan was for her to stop working as an IT Training Manager within the next couple of years and start practising as a Counsellor/Psychotherapist either from home or rented studio wherever we ended up. We have holidayed in the North East/Northumberland area and loved it. We wondered if the more urbanised Newcastle-Upon-Tyne area would fit the bill. I will still need to work and be able to get to National Rail and Airport locations for work travel.

So we booked a week in Newcastle, with the intention of spending three days investigating areas that had been recommended to us, talking to estate agents, and touring around where likely property was suggested.  Then we would have a few days off and just holiday on the wonderful Northumberland Coast and surrounding areas...

And now we're back home.  Long story short... We're not moving to the North East! Everywhere we liked, the estate agents - kindly - suggested that our anticipated buying power was insufficient for us to achieve our objectives of housing equivalence, urban transport, convenience, culture etc (in other words, Brighton up North!). Everywhere we looked, we ended up travelling further out to large 70s, 80s or in some cases, 30s(!) residential estates, with no centre, soul, or decent public transport links.

Now, this is not, I hasten to add, the end of the world.  We currently live in a fantastic area, which satisfies all of our work, living and family criteria. Emotionally, we have no desire to move. We would love to retire and live out our time in Brighton and Hove, if we can.  The burden is the mortgage.  The imponderables in the equation are our continued health and our ability to work and earn the living required to keep that whole ship afloat.

Call it niaivity, call it 'Southern' arrogance, we honestly thought that we had started to see some light at the end of the mortgage/work tunnel and that our 'selling power' in the South East would give us the wherewithall to maximise our 'buying power' elsewhere. On this experience, it would appear that we were mistaken and will have to rethink our plans.

However, let me put the question out to you, dear reader, who may live in or know well other areas of this glorious country of ours which might 'fit the bill'.  Where else should we consider for our life-changing move? We make great neighbours! All suggestions welcome, so please comment. Thanks.

All that said, we spent the remainder of our holiday, doing just that - having a holiday!  And we had a great time, spending time in Newcastle and Gateshead, walking the Northumberland Coast at Druridge Bay, visiting the Beamish Open Air Museum and the National Trust's Wallington House and Gardens.  See some photos here.

Getting the Get-Together Together

You might remember that I'm organising a 40-Year Drama College reunion in Edinburgh in September.  If not, well, I am. Moving on...

I've mentioned before about how different this experience is being/was going to be since I organised our 20-Year reunion in '93, thanks to the wonders of social media, most especially facebook. 

But those already on facebook are in different groups, different event pages and different friends lists; some people are only on Friends Reunited. And here's another thing - News Flash! Not everyone's on facebook, or Friends Reunited, or email... I know; who'd have thought it? So it's been a bit more challenging to track people down and to get as many people as possible invited. Oh, and the college alumni office was a total waste of time and energy - two phone calls, two emails asking for some support and I heard nothing back, not even an acknowledgement.

 

So, I've delegated those who have engaged on facebook or with whom I'm already in touch via email or telephone, with tracking down as many others as they could. And, as a result, I've had a fair number of email addresses, phone numbers and facebook page referrals. Today, I did a round of mails, calls and facebook messages and it looks like we have a quorum. We are good to go!

I also delegated (well, begged for help on facebook) the task of finding a venue to those still living/working in the Edinburgh area.  And one or two did, with one person in particular - step forward Evelyn Langland - putting some real effort into narrowing it down. So today, I was able to finally book our venue and announce same to the facebook community.

Now I just need to encourage everyone to make sure everyone else is aware of the details - date, time, venue - book my own travel and accommodation, confirm final numbers with the restaurant nearer the time - and my work is done.

And my learning from this? Social Media is not the answer to everything. Sometimes, it gives the impression of connection, when in fact, all you've got is a name on a list. If you ain't talking, you ain't connecting.  Just as face-to-face #tweetups and #unconnect conferences bring my Twitter professional connections to life, so this reunion is bringing my ex-college, 40 year old, virtual connections into focus and reality.

 

I can't wait.

Recent Reflection #3 - A Challenge

What did I do?

A week ago today (Tuesday 18th June) I took part in a session at the Learning and Skills Group Summer Conference at Olympia in London. The idea was that three L&D professionals 'compete' in public to showcase our proposed learning design solution for a piece of compliance training on Data Protection. The session was coordinated by Julie Wedgwood and Chaired by Alan Bellinger.  The contenders were myself, Matt Brewer and Craig Taylor - stiff competition!  We had 10 minutes to present our idea and 5 minutes to be grilled by the audience.

Straws were drawn, Craig went first, me second and Matt third.  Alan was a firm timekeeper and it all ran to time.  The audience voted and the results were declared - and I got first mention! 'Cos I came third. Craig took second place and Matt was the well-deserved winner. By all accounts, the session was a great success, by putting up three real-world practitioners - not theoreticians or experts - to share our thinking and the realities of developing compliance training within the context of our own organisations and experience.

What did I learn?

I learned loads!

1. Beware Don Taylor inviting you onto a 'panel discussion' - it might not be quite what you thought it was going to be!
   
2. Competition - albeit friendly - and tight timelines don't half focus the mind, the attention and the effort, both in the preparation of and during sessions.
   
3. Bravery will get rewarded.  Matt had timed his presentation to the second and had his slides on auto-advance, leaving himself no room for waffle.
   
4. There (is/are?) more than one (way/ways?) to skin a cat (my wife and kids will hate that analogy).
   
5. Make it Visual.  Both Craig and Matt had some great ideas and tools for using and enhancing graphics as part of the learning offering - either online or for printed/presented materials.  I really liked the cartooning tools and the use of Infographics as a communication medium.
   
6. Keep it Real.  All three of us contextualised our learning propositions based on our organisations and our knowledge of our own audience, their tolerance for innovation and the technologies available to us.  Hence, whilst we all came up with different solutions, we also overlapped on several key concepts and ideas - Campaigns, Branding, Engaging, Visual and Sticky.

What am I going to do with this Learning?

I'm going to walk the talk. I had deliberately not shared my proposal with anyone at work, because I wanted to treat the challenge almost as a 'thought experiment', to try out some ideas that we haven't used before.  We are already running Data Protection training at my company, and I built my challenge proposition based on the work we have already done and what we still have to do. But now that it's been aired in public, I'm going to throw myself under the scrutiny of my stakeholders - the Data Protection Sponsor, Legal Expert, DP Subject Matter Expert and my own team of trainers, to see if they think it has legs.

It needs some work and the application of some of the ideas and inspiration I got from Craig and Matt, and the review and input from all of the above.  It may well not end up as I presented it at conference last Tuesday.  And that's a good thing.

And that's why I'm glad I took part.

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!

Recent Reflection #1 - An Opportunity

This is the first of the promised "quick and dirty" blogs arising out of my previous blog Reflection? I don't have time for reflection wherein I undertook to blog more often and more quickly, on three different topics.  This blog captures my quick thoughts on a recent personal management development opportunity at work. 

What did I do?

I recently took over resonsibity for the delivery - and the team leadership - of our Management Development training and, in doing so, amalgamating the MD Training team with my small Learning Technologies team at the same time.

This is as a result of a temporary (18 months) reorganisation of our HR leadership team responsibilities, to enable each of the HR Heads to to focus our efforts on better supporting the organisation's key strategic objectives.

 

What did I Learn?

By meeting with the MD Team Leader regularly and speaking with each of the team members individually, I have learned that there is a wealth of knowledge, talent and enthusiasm in the combined team. Individually and collectively, they have expressed excitement and/or interest in exploring how we can deliver a relevant and effective learning programme in support of the strategic objectives - by working and training smarter - and in further developing their skills to be able to do so. 

 

What am I going to do with this learning?

Both teams bring with them a previously agreed set of objectives and a delivery plan, which has to be honoured while we finess the integration into one cohesive team, the upskilling - where necessary - of the individual team members therein and we identify the 'quick win' opportunities to develop and deliver learning that's relevant and accessible to the business.  I will lead the team quickly through this forming/storming period, ensuring that everyone is engaged and empowered to participate and collaborate.  I will carefully manage my own workload and calendar and ensure that I pay attention to my own health and wellbeing during this period as well as monitoring that of the team. By the end of the calendar year, we will be 'normed' and performing.

P.S: On another 'lesson learned' note, I previously updated my social media feeds about my new responsibility in such a way that it could have been interpreted that I had been promoted at someone else's expense, and this led to some awkwardness for another colleague and some guidance for me from my own line manager.  I am pleased to say we have cleared the air around this and I have clarified the temporary nature of the reorganisation. I learned to be more sensitive to the impacts of discussing internal matters externally where there may be ambiguity, and I will self-check more attentively before posting in the future - this blog being part of that process.

Reflection? I don't have time for reflection!

Or do I?  I've been a bit quiet on the social media and blogging front recently, due mainly to work and other professional activities, some of which mean significant change and others, working out of my comfort zone, but with a high profile.  As a result, I've been pretty much 'full on' and haven't found - or made - the time to sit back and reflect on impacts, lessons learned or, indeed, just to 'be' in a quiet place.

So this blog is my statement of intent to do just that - to make the space to reflect on recent activities and to look for the learning, links and opportunities arising from three separate events. I will write several quick blogs - one on each - using a model I like, and a concluding blog which will pull it all together. This is also an opportunity for me to practice something which I previously identified as an area for development - blogging faster and more often.

For consistency, I'll use the model of:

1. What did I do?

2. What did I learn?

3. What am I going to do with that learning?

So I invite you to challenge me if you do not see some quick and dirty blogs over the next couple of weeks, reflecting on a) a management opportunity at work, b) organising and running our internal HR conference in Manchester and c) speaking in the Design Challenge session at this week's Learning and Skills Group Summer Conference at Olympia in London.

Just the Job!

As my children approach the end of another academic year -Tash, Yr2 at University and Sam starting his A Level exams at 6th Form College - and as Mandy has recently started another new job with a Law Firm in London, I've been reflecting on what getting, having, doing and keeping a job really feels like nowadays.

I've been with my current employer for 7½ years now, was with my previous employer for

8½ years, and the one before that for 2½ years.  Previously, Mandy and I were in business with another couple, running our own moderately successful IT Training company.

But neither of us ever intended to be doing those things.  We met at Christmas 1982, doing panto in Stafford.  We were actors.  That's what we had trained for, had been doing for years (but see below) and intended (hoped) to be doing for the rest of our lives.

If you have read any of my social media bios, you will no doubt have noticed the number of jobs I have had.  This was not from choice, but rather from the choice I made to be an actor.  In a professional career of some 12 years, I probably worked as an actor for about 4.  The rest of the time, I was 'resting', as they say (a crappier euphemism I have yet to see - I wasn't resting, I was bloody surviving!).  These other jobs were fill-in roles, just part of the deal when not acting, to ensure the rent was paid and that I could eat. 

But that's where my previous education, personal & learned capabilities and professional experience paid off.  I could type (SCE 'O' Grade in Audio Typing), so I temped in offices; I could drive (passed my driving test when I was 17), so I drove delivery vans and lorries; I could read and deliver a script, so I did some telesales work (lasted two weeks - hated it!).  Bottom line, I managed to keep the wolf from the door because I had some life skills and had learned some stuff along the way to enable me to develop further.  I took this to be the norm and it was at a time when jobs like that were many and available.

However, when Mandy and I (still actors) became a couple and later married, this situation was no longer tenable.  We both took on more structured, permanent roles, found ourselves working with what we now call 'information and learning technologies', but back then we called 'computers', 'word-processors', 'spreadsheets' and 'computer-based training' - and the rest, as they say, is history...

But the landscape's changed now.  I've been lucky to keep my jobs until I was ready to move on (except being made redundant once, 16 years ago), but  in the last two years Mandy's been made redundant once, had to leave her next position due to a clash of understanding about organisational culture and, most recently, her last contract was unexpectedly terminated early and at very short notice.  This is not a reflection on her skills or abilities, but the knife-edge, short-termist economics stalking the business world today. Many of our friends and colleagues have found themselves in the same situation and not always been lucky enough to find other work!

I'd suggest that NO-ONE can rely on a job for life any more.  It seems to me that no long-term career planning is  possible - that we are ALL actors, moving from one job to another, having to prove ourselves time and again to yet another numpty (I had another word lined up here, but good taste prevailed) and starting afresh with new colleagues, work practices, rules, values etc.  In itself, this is no bad thing - much learning and growing to be had and done - but it's the longueurs in between, often of several months or even years, while the coffers slowly empty and the debts begin to mount that really take their toll.

So, as the children (young adults) start to look at further education and career-wards beyond that, what lessons have we learned from this that we can share with them?  What challenges have they got ahead that are the same as - or are very different from - our challenges? What does the world of work look like for Graduates and young people today?

The UK Guardian newspaper reported only last week that a UN Agency, The International Labour Office International Labour Organisation said that young people across the world continue to be almost three times more likely than adults to be unemployed. There are 979,000 unemployed 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK, after a 20,000 rise in the three months to February The Guardian 

How can we help prepare our young people to survive in this environment? 

I'd suggest that there are some essential 'life' skills required nowadays, over and above the academic. When I needed them, I relied on my communication skills, my typing skills and the fact that I could drive to keep me in work. Today, I would add to/change those skills, thus: articulacy and good verbal/conversational skills (a key differentiator in my opinion), good written and digital communication skills, driving, curiosity, flexibility, tenacity - and patience.  All these to underpin any other skills they may have or develop.

I'd love to grow that list to pass it on to our young people, maybe with some resource links to assist them.  What other essential skills would you suggest to enable them to enter the world of work with the best fighting chance?