I noticed something some time back, something that I did and I’m very thankful that I’m not taking that approach now. I’m getting ready for not being around the laptop (lets call it work), not ready for being at my place of work (my desk at home) but instead up hills and on the beach.
The thing that I don't do is suddenly get all crazy and finish absolutely everything I feel I could do. This week though there was some of that, causing more work for people which irritates me when I do that. But I mainly didn’t I found the thing that was holding me back the thing I was worrying about and made a conscious choice not to push for it to happen, and this freed up a lot of space mentally.
I started telling people even more that I am going away and stated making sure anything that needed covering while I was away was indeed covered — there only seems to be one thing — the Programme Update Show and Tells and even those we don't have any yet scheduled for August — and I’m not going to run around to make it happen anymore than I have already.
On Monday
I supported the Senior Management Group in having their first awayday (3hrs on MS Teams) as I mentioned last week we had some pre-session chats. The session was in the afternoon and so this left me the morning to finalise what we were going to do. The really good steer form Janet and Lynne about it was helpful — enough without being too much. I got out quite a few books of the shelf to help me think about things — it was rather calming which was also helpful.
Over the weekend I had found
which helped me keep an eye on time — I really didn't want to run over, and we didn’t but it mean I cut something short, so everyone could check-out but we can come back to it.
We started with a Check in based on these questions
How am I arriving?
How am I in this moment?
What is my offer to the group?
Then Everyone in the group shared, using this question
What 3 events in your life shapped you?
And then we had a break
The bit that came after felt clunky to me that transition for personal to group too member of group to group is hard and we went beyond some of the questions I had developed, but it still felt productive — I changed the easy retro in the moment and then brought us back into it to start to capture operating principles and elephants — which is where we left it, which is no bad thing this is an ongoing process, though I’m very aware that the group will need actions as a group outside of the meetings to feel as though it’s progressing or indeed to see a plan.
Still it was I think a good session that touched hearts and this along with considering if it was a group or a team and if they are leaders or managers was a good start. Hopefully I return in September to the now FFCP Senior Team
And other things
This was Rebecca’s second week, she has had a stellar week, she is very much a self starter and that makes my job of supporting her and managing things (not sure what to call it — it’s not so much the work but the flow of it) at one point on Wednesday I got a little panicky about if we were making best value of her time, if she was getting enough from other people — Wednesday was a day where I was all over everything, one of those days and I really shifted through my backlog… or created lots of work for other people. The early half of the week was like that — I calmed down by Thursday.
People Survey — with that hat on I started working on the team codes, which felt good and the other David B really helped.
FFCP People Plan — some great feedback form the Senior Team, whcih I captured and will comeback to post leave.
Programme Leadership Forum — new thing, Janet floated the idea with the Senior Team, generally positive and some questions so I’ll be bringing into a paper for comment — probably next week.
I also wrote down a list of everything I have on, as I have a chat with Charles next week — have I mentioned Charles or who he is? He leads/coleads/not like that at all — up the Organisation Dynamics Team more on that another time and why.
And of course there were lots of other lovely chats, some of which involved communiteams and some tea tanks and many others. There were also things where I mainly just listened.
But Finally as I sit and type this is Buddy (on the left… Daddy will you stop yet?) but I cant just have Buddy so here is Rosie appearing from under the bed — which is in our room of requirement, where I have my desk. I’m so fortunate to have them and this space.
