I had a real dip this week and really wasn’t myself. Even worse sleep than usual, feeling disconnected from things. I started acting out on other people. At one point I went into a ‘red mist’ kind of rage on listening to a presentation about using tracking data for personalisation, which (let’s be honest) really isn’t worth getting even slightly peeved about. Apologies were made after, but still…
After reflecting on a few things this week I think I found a possible cause; I keep looking to fix problems. And given there seem to be plenty around at the moment it gives this addict with a fresh supply, daily.
Obviously sorting out things that aren’t going well is a natural thing, and (as a manager) absolutely something you need to be focused on. But I think I’d switched into permanent solution-making mode rather than trying to work with others to help them find their own solutions. Leadership isn’t just about pointing and saying, “we’re all going that way”. It has to be about letting others reach that conclusion or finding that direction together.
Always fixing problems is a problem in itself. Reflecting on a few events this week made this a bit clearer to me.
The week started off really badly with a data breach coming out of our work area.
I’m obviously not sharing any details here, but going into full-blown crisis mode made me chase my tail and get pretty cross about my failure to know all the answers and put things right immediately. It was only when I got through to the other side of the crisis (i.e. the problem was fixed, thanks to a rather fabulous Information Services colleague) that I was able to look at this more rationally and see it more for what it was, identifying opportunities to learn from it.
With a bit of luck, the next steps may even help me achieve another goal of lifting a particular admin burden the team is saddled with. Watch this space.
I got asked this week to do a quick intro for a staff forum session looking at service design around learning and development. Would I talk to them about problem statements, was the request.
While I thought I knew a little bit, I defaulted (sensibly) to hitting up James Symonds for his help, and of course got something wonderfully useful in the form of a whole presentation on the subject. As usually happens with me, preparing for a presentation is as much a learning experience.
What really stood out from it was the phrasing of a problem statement; being more of a “what next?” that saying “we should do this”. And also the fact that it’s a natural reaction to leap to a solution (as so many people did during the session) rather than explore the possible options. This felt really powerful and as I think about it now using this in day to day decision making could really help.
The remarkably simple but excellent problem statement template
Hands up here; I’m not a mentor or a coach, but I’ve slipped into a regular informal conversation with a colleague to talk through work stuff and see if anything helpful emerges. As well as the person in question being an absolute delight, I’m realising I really enjoy this form of interaction.
The little I do know about coaching is that you don’t look to jump in with solutions, instead helping the person you’re working with find their own way by asking the right questions and feeding back what you’ve heard to them.
I still think I’m pretty bad at this, but a couple of things that came out of it this week felt like they may have helped, and it really feels good working in this way.
I make no apologies for including a whole YouTube video of Janet Hughes doing a talk on applying digital to everything. Three reasons;
Watch this even if you think you don’t need to
What particularly jumped out at me was Janet talking about the ‘Yapp triangle’ by Chris Yapp and how she applies it in her thinking. It explains what happens when you try to implement a policy Now, Everywhere & with Agreement. TL:DR it’s impossible, you can only achieve 2 of these at once.
My inclination is to always jump to the NOW end of the triangle, as that fixes the problem, doesn’t it? Thing is, that requires imposing rules and forcing people into change, which might fly for legislative issues, but not if you want to create a different culture in an organisation.
So suddenly changing our organisation to adopt a content design approach, as I’m looking to do, isn’t going to work through setting rules and changing workflow. It’s going to take a long time and involve talking to lots of people.
I finished the week off in a social event organised by Placecube to introduce their customers to each other. Each council is at a slightly different stage of deployment with the platform, and each doing something really interesting with their ‘cube of choice’ so the chance to re-use each others thinking.
The fabulous Lorna Perry had spent far too long working on a quiz in three parts; local knowledge, films and ‘scary waxworks’ (the latter being too awful to describe).
As well as meeting potential future collaborators I learned:
Some other things that happened this week: