I fucking love it.
Photo from a OneTeamGov event https://flic.kr/p/29sQtuS
A potted history
I had my first touch of government in 1995 when I worked in Braintree District Council for 6 weeks on a work placement in the Environmental Monitoring Team. My next encounter with turned into a full on condition of government was when I joined DDDDDDDCM and also S back in 2000 when it was just DCMS. I was the lead policy advisor for finance in sport in 2004 when I left to join Defra. I failed my first interview with Defra because the only response I had to how to do team building was ‘go to the pub’ it’s ironic that that’s now in part what I help people do.
The programme I joined was making electronic questionnaires for farmers, at some point during that roller coaster we had a choice of what profession to join. I decided not to join the policy profession, my heart was in service creation and delivery and after 13 years in what one would now call DDaT in January this year I joined Defra group’s fantastic Organisation Development and Design Team which is in group HR (Human Relationships – if I had my way). So that I could spend 60% of my time working on things OneTeamGov. Now I’m not quite spending 20% of my time doing OneTeamGov stuff.
How did I get involved?
Well I was involved from the near ish the beginning, and have stuck around, which means OneTeamGov is a bit wrapped into my DNA. More than I thought it would be when I first got involved, I was just standing in for James Arthur Cattell when I answered Kit Collingwood call – https://link.medium.com/wnYssyAjG0
So why do I love OneTeamGov?
So it’s simple. OneTeamGov for me can be summed up in a quote.
the whole is other than the sum of it’s parts
I love that if you have an idea the doors are open, if you want support it’s there, if you want help someone will offer it, if you need money someone will help you find it, if you want all of those things if you want more and you reach out and are open and giving then you will make stuff, do stuff and good, positive energising stuff. And you don’t need anyone’s permission, you just need a magic ingredient called time, and there is an endless eternity of that.
In return your find connection, a wider more diverse, more supportive more loving connection than you could possibly hope for.
And when you have connection you can make changes together not as an individual with one idea but as a collective, a community, a network with many different ideas and sooner or later because it’s reality you’re hit a bump in the road, but when you do you will have more friends to support you not just outside of work but in work as well.
As I said at the start I fucking love it. I’d love more people to have what I now have, and what I know is that OneTeamGov makes that possible, you just have to start. Take that first step - ask for a lanyard.
Quote https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Koffka
