Walking and Looking

Today I went for a walk in West Sussex with a pal, to somewhere I've not been before, Burton Mill Pond.  It was (is, still, as I write) a beautiful, warm, if windy, Autumn day. We walked in sunshine and in dappled shade, a gentle level(ish) walk of only 3.5k. And I loved it.

Along the way, I took some photos on my mobile phone, a habit I've developed when I'm out and about. I've shared some already on facebook and Twitter.

Folks who know me here or through social media, will be aware that I've recently taken to arriving early in London for professional and/or networking events and, using an app called 'WalkIt', have been meandering the byways and hidden paths of London as a reflective and non-stressful way of getting there and, more importantly, arriving, calmly and mindfully.

I've also taken photos on my mobile during these walks and posted them on Twitter as I journeyed on, using the hashtag #LookUp. This has become something of a mantra for me, more so since my heart surgery and subsequent events. But it's not new. I first suggested that people would benefit from 'looking up', lifting their eyes from the pavement or just eye level itself, and looking around or indeed, up, in a blog post in July 2011 called Things Are Looking Up!, inspired by a holiday in Northumbria.

 

Nowadays, in our rush to get somewhere, or in our inability to lift our eyes from our mobile devices, we are diminished by not connecting with each other or with our immediate surroundings. Granted, British streets can generally be a bit samey, a bit mundane; the same shop fronts, fast-food outlets, newsagent chains etc.

But when we look up above, we can see history in architecture, lives in windows and beauty in nature.

An ex-colleague and valued friend, James Dalton (@jimdalton) posted a piece on LinkedIn this afternoon, Connecting to Reality, wherein he commented about how disconnected from each other and our surroundings we seem to be, and he encouraged everyone to go outside, sit in the sun, Look Up, feel the warmth of the sun and the breeze on our faces. I couldn't agree more.

But I will suggest here that the mobile phone camera may also be a way of reconnecting - with our surroundings, with our environment, with other people - by taking and sharing your photos. What did you see when you looked up? What spoke to you? What was revealed to you when you did that?. How did you feel? Who would you like to share that with? How would you like to share it with them - Twitter, facebook, a blog post?

Don't let tech become the excuse for disconnecting. Use it to see things differently, from another perspective, connect with that moment, that place or that thing, even if just for the few seconds that it takes to shoot the picture or shoot that video clip. It will remind you of that moment when you revisit them. And, if and when you share them, you will be offering some of that experience, that reflection, that learning, to others.

That's got to be a good thing, hasn't it?

P.S: Those photos are also a resource bank for that next presentation you have to give.  Instead of using clip art or stock photos, give your presentations authenticity by using your own photos as the visuals or the slide backgrounds. Reinforce your messages with images which speak from your heart. Make your audience Look Up!

Giving Voice

I've been been banging on about 'customer voice' for a while now, particularly in terms of Learning & Development and the places where we meet and discuss improving what we do. I've said for some time that the danger is that we talk to ourselves in an echo chamber, second guessing what works and what doesn't, without the input of either the commissioners of our work or the recipients.  We may very well do that within our individual service provision, but we rarely hear it in open debate with and from our customers. And it's the 'critical friend's' opinion that's missing, in my view.

I was reminded of this by a couple of personal and unrelated experiences recently where my voice was heard and I was able to influence outcomes.

Where I live, alongside a busy rail line, we have a small plot of land behind our garden, owned by Network Rail. In July we were advised that they planned to build a new electricity sub-station, comprising some four different structures and ancillary equipment, directly behind our fence line and overlooking our gardens and rear living rooms, and which we would overlook from our upper floor bedroom. Three properties were going to be directly affected, our's being the middle. No planning permission was required apparently, as it's their own land. However, we wrote to the Council and NWR itself and raised our objections, were invited to a neighbours' open evening and discussed the impacts with them and their contractors at some length. And there was the first hint that perhaps this wasn't a huge behemoth riding roughshod over their neighbours - they brought plans and talked us through them, they put personable, knowledgeable and articulate people forward to engage us in discussion and they listened to our concerns. Maybe this wasn't quite the fait accompli that we feared.

(As it happens, the build didn't start on the previously advised date and we never got any explanation). And then, last week, out of the blue, we received an email advising that they had taken many of our concerns on board and offering a second, revised plan, moving the structures away from our boundary and putting the largest of them furthest away from us. And we were invited to meet again to discuss the amended plan. We had that meeting this morning and, whilst there is little doubt that the sub-station will still be built, I was surprised at how amenable and creative the contractors were prepared to be in further working to soften the landscaping and visual impacts. We'll see how this all plays out in reality, but I am pleasantly surprised at how we have been seen and heard in this process, when they could so easily have just gone ahead without consideration of or discussion with their neighbours.

 

My other experience of customer voice being heard was today, when I switched our energy supplier via a comparison website which did all the hard work for me. By entering our post-code and our current use and expenditure on gas and electricity, the website was able to offer a range of alternative suppliers and charge plans, all of which showed larger to smaller savings over a year, and on a month-by-month basis. Actually making the switch was just as easy, merely adding a few more details, and they take care of everything for you.

So here's a great example of the customer being able to exercise informed choice in what was once a complex supplier market and convoluted process, enabled by the application of user-friendly technology.

Customers, consumers, passengers, neighbours, clients, learners, stakeholders - call them what you will in whatever field - nowadays expect and deserve to be heard and to have their needs and requirements met in hassle-free, relevant and personal ways. What are the implications for L&D? Are we listening? And, as importantly, are we capable of flexing accordingly?

It's Permissable

Last week, I attended the excellent two day 'LearningLive' conference in London, hosted by the Learning and Performance Institute - great sessions, great speakers (especially the two - yes TWO - keynotes, Elliot Masie and Richard Wiseman), great company, conversations, dinner and learning. 

If you were an attendee yourself or if follow me or any of my PLN (Personal Learning Network) on Twitter and other social media you may have noticed - or indeed, contributed to - a lot of the resulting online sharing and comment. I won't re-present that stuff to you here. If you wish to access a comprehensive curation of the event, then follow this link to David Kelly's excellent blog site The 2016 Learning Live Backchannel: Curated Resources #LearningLive

No, what I wanted to talk about was something that's been very much part of my live learning (see what I did there?) recently, and was a recurring theme in many of the discussions in and out of the conference sessions - that of 'permission'. Who thinks they need it, and from whom? For what? Why do so many of us think that we need permission to do stuff or to do stuff differently? Is it the way we've been brought up? Educated? Trained? Inducted? Managed? And what would happen if we didn't seek permission, but went ahead anyway and sought forgiveness afterwards? What's the worst the could happen? Could we even be using not having permission as an excuse not to try, but to play it safe?

Many conversations at the conference revolved around changing our approach to learning and development, by applying technology, by developing new skills and by changing the relationships between the traditional provider/methodologies and the emerging self-aware, self-managing learner. For me, a  recurring and resonant theme throughout was about what permissions we feel we need to have to be able to choose and follow the paths of change.

I've been giving these questions a lot of thought recently, as I have allowed myself to start considering the possibility of no longer pursuing full - albeit self - employment, and perhaps even semi-retiring. Regular readers and other friends will be aware of my turbulent year last year, with heart surgery, followed by redundancy and my subsequent setting up of an independent L&D/Learning Technologies consultancy.  To cut a long story short, I found that my heart wasn't in it, that I didn't feel able to put in the hard work that was required to make a viable and growing business of it, but that I had to press on, despite how I felt.  But I also felt that I needed permission to take the decision to slow down, to take my pensions, and to try other things - permission from my wife, my children, my friends, my peers, ex-colleagues, PLN, clients and other professional associations.

Well guess what? They all - to a person - gave me their blessing, their permission, to follow my heart. And in opening myself up to sharing my thinking about a future without the pressure to 'do stuff' and 'make money', it turns out the only individual who's permission was being withheld was myself. It was my own perceptions of self-worth, credibility, usefulness which was holding me back. I am so grateful to my family, but also to my friends and PLN for the conversations we have had recently online and face to face at last week's conference. I know it's going to be OK; different, but OK.

Always needing permission to do stuff, or to stop doing stuff, or to do stuff differently stifles enthusiasm and creativity. But working out loud, sharing ideas and exploring possibilities, looking up and asking 'what if...?' opens up a world of opportunities. Maybe Learning & Development should give itself permission to at least try to do that.

P.S: I'm not burning all my bridges tho'. I continue to be fascinated by L&D, LearnTech and social media, just not to the exclusion of everything else. I'll still turn up at the tweetchats, the conferences and the unconferences. I'll still be mouthing off in social media. I may be doing more writing. I'm continuing to work with my existing clients and am open to any other opportunities which emerge.

Thought Learnership

Yesterday, for no apparent reason*, I had a  sudden idea "I'm not a thought leader, I'm a thought learner". And without giving it any more thought, I tweeted it. Some people liked it. One or two retweeted it.

My initial reason for tweeting the idea was that I thought it made a pretty cool 'tweetbite', and I thought it might resonate for some of my network, followers and #PLN (Personal Learning Network). But since then I've been reflecting on the idea some more.

The label 'Thought Leader' does not sit well with me for some reason and I'm trying to work out why that's so.  What makes someone a 'TL'? How is it 'earned'? Who decides? Who applies it? Leading who's thoughts? On what? In what spaces and in what media? Do we need to have our thoughts led for us? Are we sheep? "Who made you God?", to coin a well-used phrase...

I think it's something to do with the singularity of the term, the implication that only one person has the knowledge and wisdom and that they dispense it to the rest of us (the masses) as a gift; that we worship at the feet of the guru, the all-seeing one...

As you might have guessed by now, I'm not one for the cult of the personality or for the elevation of one person over another, unless there's very good evidence of their worthiness for such status. And I have still less time for those who describe themselves as 'Thought Leaders'.

And yet, it's a term that is used lot in social media and in my professional arenas of HR, Learning & Development and Learning Technologies. And, indeed, there are many in those spheres to whom I look for inspiration, wisdom and guidance, many of whom make up the bulk of my aforementioned #PLN. I would, however, be astounded if many, or indeed, any of them, thought of or described  themselves as 'Thought Leaders'.

I accidentally came across a new (for me) tweetchat this afternoon, #Bufferchat, hosted by @Buffer.  One of my #PLN had tweeted a response to one of their questions and I felt the need to wade in, referring them to my original tweet of yesterday and then amplifying what I meant. In so doing, and during the rest of the tweetchat, where debate followed and others agreed with me, my thoughts clarified and have resulted in this #blog.

So, here's where my issues sit with the adoption - whether imposed by others or self-assumed - and use of the label, 'Thought Leader' - The arrogance. The assumption of status. The lack of humility. The self promotion. All the things which the tweeps in my #PLN DO NOT DO!

My #PLN shares, works out loud, challenges, gets into gnarly conversations and arguments, meets online and face-to-face in structured and unstructured, informal social and learning exchanges, with humility and compassion, and is authentic and human. They do not aspire to the status of, nor do they describe themselves, as 'Thought Leaders'. And yet, they influence, challenge and inspire not only my thoughts, but much more importantly, my behaviour and actions.

Now seriously, do your 'Thought Leaders' do that for you? Maybe it's time to drop the label and value our interactions with those who actually walk the talk.

* Perhaps I was subconsciously channelling Kandy Woodfield (@jess1ecat), who posted this tweet yesterday, unbeknownst to me...

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.

Why Tweetchat?

Friday's @LndConnect-hosted #LDInsight Tweetchat on Twitter was framed around the question "What’s the toughest thing about being in L&D?"

Does that first sentence mean anything to you? Or am I talking goobledygook?

Do you use Twitter? Do you know what a Tweetchat is? Do you know what I'm talking about when I refer to @LnDconnect or what these funny @ and # symbols actually mean?

For some people it will indeed be gobbledygook; they are not interested in, and do not use, Twitter, and they will move on without concern. Others may well be aware of Twitter, but may use it in it's more 'social media' sense, connecting informally around people and topics of general interest. Others may use Twitter in a professional capacity, to listen to and learn from other people in their field. And others will use Twitter as an extended Personal Learning Network, with whom they actively engage, discuss, share and learn from.

In each of the above cases, the numbers involved get correspondingly smaller with each group, until finally, we arrive at the participants in the regular (every Friday morning) @LndConnect-hosted #LDInsight Tweetchat. It's a loosely moderated conversation on Learning and Organisational Development topics, which is grouped by the use of the #LDinsight hashtag into a stream which keeps the interactions, comments, questions etc nicely gathered together for ease of discursive flow. 

But there aren't that many people who regularly join in. A recurring theme recently has been about bringing more views and opinions into these conversations, both from within the L&D/OD community itself and from outside - the 'customer voice', if you will. Two conversational streams emerged today - one challenging why non-L&D/OD people would be interested in the first place, and the other about why more L&D/OD people don't show up in this chat, never mind why 'outsiders' don't.

In my experience, some L&Drs find the very idea of a Tweetchat intimidating and/or they lacked confidence of 'public speaking' in an internet-wide forum, whilst others feel that they have nothing to say or contribute to the discussion. We did a quick self-examination of the timeline to check for jargon, of which, reassuringly, there was little (although some later tweets today have cautioned that one profession's jargon may mean something completely different in someone else's!).

But if the future of learning is digital, collective and social, as we are so often told, and are trying to move ourselves towards, why are so many in the profession so reluctant to show up in such an informal and rewarding space? Is it down to timing of the chat? (clashes with the commute); is it fear of saying the 'wrong' thing? (what exactly is the 'right' thing anyway?); is it unfamiliarity with the medium/channel (bet they use facebook in their private life); is it corporate policy? (thou shalt not use social media); is it concern about being seen and engaged with by peers and customers? (can't afford to be seen not to have all the answers, gotta preserve the mystique); is it reluctance to change thinking and practice? Or are Tweetchats just seen as self-congratulatory/self-sympathising chatter for the self-elected 'elite' in the profession?

Those same questions could be asked about why non-L&D/OD people don't join in L&D Tweetchats. And, as importantly, why we don't involve ourselves in other discipline/professions' tweetchats; questions about perceived relevance, value and availability perhaps? What do you think?

I'd suggest that the very fact we felt able to think about how we could engage a wider church, in the chat itself, speaks volumes.  I'd encourage everyone to dip their toes in the water. If you're in L&D/OD, try out #DLinsight (https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ldinsight) every Friday morning between 08:00-09:00UK, #Chat2Lrn (https://twitter.com/chat2lrn?lang=en-gb) or #lrnchat (https://twitter.com/lrnchat?lang=en-gb), or search the Internet for other unrelated, but relevant to you, topics of interest Tweetchats. There's rich learning to be had in all these spaces, folks.

And if I can help you find your way through the social media clutter, don't hesitate to get in touch.

Responsible & Accountable

This morning's #LDinsight tweetchat on Twitter posed the question "How do you respond when things go wrong?". Having earlier woken up to the news that the Great British Public (well, 72% of those who could) had decided by majority vote that the UK should leave the European Union, this struck me as a clever question which got me thinking. For me, the result of the referendum felt like it had 'all gone wrong'.

 

This was my response.. Shortly thereafter, my more considered reflection, aided by discussing 'how I am today' with my counsellor, and in drawing parallels with my heart bypass surgery last year, has led me to the conclusion that I need to take more and better responsibility for things like this. In my recovery period from surgery, I reflected on how I had to fess up to being responsible for my heart condition, how decisions and actions I had taken - or not taken - had led to arteriosclerosis and angina. I concluded that I couldn't undo any of that, that my intentions had been for the best, but that, with a little more attention and listening to my body, I might have avoided my condition. Now, however, after a significant "Oy! You!" kick up the pants, I was going to - and hopefully am - living more mindfully and carefully, paying attention to these things.

When my counsellor asked me how I was this morning, I told him I was sad, depressed, angry and a little scared about how the Euro vote had gone. In no particular order, I felt angry that 28% of those who could have voted and expressed an opinion had failed to do so (people died to give us the right to vote - that's why we have a democracy!), I was sad that the tone of discussion had been so polarised, negative and frankly xenophobic, depressed that as a nation we were now about to disassociate ourselves from a wider, more inclusive community and, finally, scared of the political, social and economic chaos and volatility which will follow.

But this led me to realise that, in the same way that I have had to 'own up' to my heart problems and surgery, I have to assume some responsibility for the outcome of the Euro Referendum.

Yes, I exercised my democratic right to vote, I put my cross in the box. But I had also taken a pretty hands-off approach during the run up to the vote. I had deliberately avoided conversations and discussion with others, I had kept my opinions and views to myself (I am, by nature non-confrontational); I had also pretty much assumed that my idea of common sense and fairness would be the prevailing and ultimately winning decision.

It was not enough - and I have to hold myself accountable, question what I could have done differently, what I have learned as a result and - critically - what I am going to do about it now.

It's clear to me that I cannot go off and sulk in the corner while others pick up the pieces and reassemble our culture, politics and international relations. I need to take more responsibility for what happens now and help to shape the future that we are going to be leaving our children. I don't have a plan for how I'm going to do that yet; it's early days in the political, economic and social maelstrom in which we now find ourselves.

Of this I'm sure. I won't be passive. I'm listening. And I will find a better way, or ways, to 'show up', to influence and to support all communities in our increasingly uncertain global future.