Flying the nest

This weekend, I experienced what I suspect will be a profound moment in my life – I helped my eldest son to fly the family nest and move into his own home. The experience made me reflect on the nature of change and the importance of recognising when it’s time to embrace new chapters in life and career. My eldest son moved into his own home the same month the world saw President Biden acknowledge that he should stand down from the US election. Both events, though vastly different, share a common theme: the right time to accept change.

Seeing my son step into his new home filled me with a mix of pride and nostalgia (and yes, a few tears were shed). It’s a monumental step, signifying his transition into true adulthood. For years, he has prepared for this moment— saving diligently, learning to budget, buying useful items, and making plans. As a parent, it’s a bittersweet milestone. We nurture our children, provide them with guidance, and support them until they’re ready to fly solo. When that moment arrives, it’s both a validation of our efforts and a poignant reminder that change is constant and inevitable. I am going to miss waving him off to work in the mornings – he always left the house earlier than me. However, as the saying goes: If you truly love something, let it go. On a more positive note, I am glad not to be loading up and driving a transit van again this week.

On a broader stage, President Biden’s decision to step down from the upcoming election is a pivotal moment in political leadership. Leadership is not just about knowing how to govern but also understanding when to pass the baton. President Biden’s tenure has been marked by significant achievements and challenges. His decision to not run is a testament to his self-awareness and commitment to the greater good. It’s an acknowledgment that new leadership might bring fresh perspectives and renewed energy, essential for addressing future events.

These two occurrences prompted me to think about the right time to accept change in life and career. Here are a few reflections:

1.     Self-awareness: Understanding your strengths, limitations, and the context around you is crucial. Whether it’s moving out, like my son, or stepping down from a role, like President Biden, recognising when your current path no longer aligns with your goals or the needs of those you serve is key.

2.     Preparation and Planning: Change is less daunting when it’s planned. My son’s move was the result of years of preparation (if his lawyer had had any more involvement, it might even now still be an on-going project). Similarly, effective career transitions often come from thoughtful planning and readiness to embrace new opportunities.

3.     Courage to Let Go: It takes courage to let go of the familiar. For my son, it was the comfort of home – laundry, cleaning, a full fridge all laid on; for President Biden, it’s the power and responsibility of leadership. Embracing change often means stepping into the unknown, which requires bravery and confidence in the future.

4.     Openness to Growth: Change often brings growth. New challenges and environments push us to adapt and evolve. By moving into his own home, my son will learn and grow in ways he couldn’t under my roof. For President Biden, stepping aside allows for new leadership to tackle emerging issues with fresh vigour.

5.     Legacy and Impact: Ultimately, the decision to embrace change should consider the legacy you leave behind. My son’s independence is a part of the legacy of our family’s values and way of being (we are all strong-minded individuals). President Biden’s decision reflects his desire to ensure a stable and prosperous future for the nation, valuing the legacy of his leadership.

Change is inevitable and necessary for personal and collective growth. Whether it’s watching a loved one embark on a new journey or witnessing a leader make a selfless decision, these moments remind us that the right time to accept change is when it aligns with our values, readiness, and the greater good.

Here’s to embracing change with wisdom, courage, and a forward-looking perspective. And may Charles be very happy in his new home.

This restless festive season - Day 30

Sunday 30th December 2018

30 teeth can be found in an adult cat's mouth. Cats have 4 canine teeth. The canine teeth, used for
catching and killing prey, sit in beds of sensitive tissue that let the cat feel what it is
gripping. Kittens develop 26 needle-sharp milk teeth which are replaced by adult teeth at 6 months.

I hope you are enjoying a peaceful and relaxing weekend - the last one of 2018. Things are calm at my end - despite a few heated discussions about the seating plan for my son's 21st party. I must confess, not counting the current debate about the party, much of this year has been challenging. We have achieved a lot at work and I have a wonderful and award winning team, but family matters have been tough. I won't miss 2018 - it has had some scarring and serious low points/complications and I dread the early months of 2019, as the dust has yet to settle. Perhaps that is what inspired be to this year's theme for the Advent Blogs - Heartache, Hopes and High-fives. Roll on the high-fives...

Our contributor today is Paula Aamli, a highly intelligent and inspirational lady who has already done much to make the world a better place. She deserves a high-five just for being who she is. She has a First Class Degree from Oxford in Modern History under her belt and a Masters with Distinction from Hult Ashridge, in Sustainability and now she is a doctoral candidate on the Executive Doctorate in Organisational Change, at Hult Ashridge, where Steve Marshall is her supervisor. Her topic of interest is around organisational change to support more sustainable business and personal lives and she is very interested in creative methods (hence the photography and the poetic writing below - NB all the photos are Paula's own work, except for one taken which was taken by her partner). Given Paula's background one perhaps should not be surprised at her area of academic study...she has worked within the Not for Profit arena as an Appeal Manager for Christian Aid and then the Development Director for The Brightside Trust when the charity was just establishing itself, before moving into Financial Services.  She has championed accountability and ethical conduct at HSBC for many years as well as helping people within the bank to develop and grow. Since June she has been the Head of Governance and Control for the UK Private Bank, working directly with the CEO and the top team. Paula is described by those who know her as dynamic, energetic and possessing a ruthless attention to detail. I am sure that you will enjoy her post. Paula is on Twitter - her handle is @paulettya.

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Photo credit S. Rosbottom

The shape of this year’s holiday break

For the second year in a row, I’m spending nearly full two weeks over the Christmas break tucked amongst the creaky drafts of an old house that stands braced on a hillside overlooking Carmarthen Bay.

I have hungered for this retreat from city crowds and work deadlines, but now that it is here, I resist the slowing that this place calls for in me, with its large horizons and small settlements, the subtle beauty of its muted colour palette, the grey-greens and grey-blues and grey-browns that offer unblinking contrast from the neon brights of Regent Street, where my everyday commute-path so recently took me.

I – did not – expect – this.

I expected to transition effortlessly, gracefully, into unscheduled expansiveness.

It was, after all, whilst hidden here last year that I started really paying attention to how it felt to take time away from my blue-light screens and nerve-end-twitchiness of constant deadlines and to drift, aimlessly purposeful, through that large, cold, damp sand-landscape. Reader, it felt great.

I found a dawning conviction that spending deep, unhurried time in nature changes something in humans (in me!) that desperately needs shifting if we are to move away from lifestyles based on casual, unthinking gouging of the environment that we depend upon and which sustains us. 

As a wanna-be organisational change practitioner, I also had a conviction-that-looks-a-lot-like-a-hope that this change can (and does and will) lead to better decision making, better outcomes and better quality of experiences as individuals and networks and communities and organisations.

So I was looking forward to resuming last year’s cozy communing, but with the benefit of the work and wondering and wandering that I have lived in the meantime.  Apparently it doesn’t work like that; seems that you can’t start where you were, that you have to start where you are.

Where I am, this year, is finding that I unexpectedly miss the un-picturesque little loops of paths, tracks, parks and pavements that I have strolled and traipsed and marched through in my corner of East London in the last twelve months. And thus it came to pass that over Christmas 2018, I have called upon my most precious, efficacious super-power, gifted to me by my Irish great-grandmother by way of my Welsh mother: the gift of bloody-mindedness.

Reader, it has been less of a joy and more of a grind, but I have walked, faithfully, every day, anyway. In the spirit of “eat-your-veg/do-your-homework”, I’m betting on persistence paying off in the long run.

Beach-side high fives

Every day, then, as the sea-water creeps back from the land, revealing the wide expanse of the low-tide beach, I have donned wool socks and plastic shoes, a rucksack or shopping bag, and of course, my faithful iphone to tick off the footsteps (if my app doesn’t track a walk, did it even happen?) and set out. Sometimes I walk alone and sometimes S comes with me. Our front door to St Katherine’s Island and back is a solid 4 miles but can only be completed when the tides permit.

It has become an informal family tradition that we pick up plastic litter from the shoreline as we walk. Every time, I marvel at how an apparently pristine beach yields up so much rubbish once you start tuning in to looking for it. I also bless our fortune, with every footstep, that being situated on a tucked-away corner of the planet that is not opposite the sloppy sprawl of some great city, we are chasing the detritus left by tourists and trawlers but do not have to contend with the plastic avalanche of so many consuming bodies. [But the ghost of the Sea Empress oil spill whispers in the air as I type this.]

Every day has been a walk just for the sake of walking; every day except one. Christmas Eve was my dash-of-shame into town, alone, for some last-minute Christmas presents, but the miles still called me.

I shrugged the loaded rucksack onto my shoulders, clinking with Christmas gin. A large shopping bag in each hand, I set off for the western edge of the beach, one and a half (ish) miles away. I trudged across damp sand, bags flapping when the wind occasionally caught them. Tenby “mist” settled on my face and on the shopping bags as the lowering cloud stooped down to touch the beach – but the bags weren’t heavy and the presents seemed to be coping ok with the gentle overlay of rain.

It’s a long and, relatively speaking, featureless expanse of beach that serves as part of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, after walkers drop down from the clifftop path on Giltar Point. People travelling in opposite directions can see each other approaching across the full length of the beach, slowly expanding from small dark distant specks to fill out human stature as we finally draw towards passing each other.

An older couple were walking towards me, well-kitted-out for the weather conditions. Mindful of the season, I made eye contact as we reached a passing point; then, to my reserved, British astonishment, the lady started towards me, smiling. “I just wanted to say”, she said – “what a surprising, lovely sight you make. A lady who has done her Christmas shopping and is carrying it home along the beach, looking for all the world as though she is heading off into the middle of nowhere. Well done, you.”  A smile and a brief exchange of Christmas greetings and she is gone. “High five!” she didn’t add – but I can see how, in another context, that would have been the obvious sentiment.

It was a memorable moment for me, not just given the shock of experiencing two British strangers finding it in themselves to chat, unprovoked, to each other, in public, but also because I was genuinely taken aback to be seen as doing anything out-of-the-ordinary. Just me, just walking home. Just carrying my hasty last-minute shopping because I’d been too disorganised to do it sooner and bring it down by car. Of course, I had the advantage of knowing that there’s a village just beyond the sand dunes at the non-town end of the beach (assuming that the lady I was speaking to isn’t a Pembrokeshire local).

Hope and heartache mingling on the sea edge

I suppose the other thing of note here is that – chore or otherwise – I don’t really experience the beach as empty or ‘other’. This beach seems full – teeming with sea-life, sure, but also full of hints and vestiges of the long life-story of the earth that has created it.

I look at the sand of the beach and I remember the long ages that ground rocks to make it – and the longer ages before that where the rocks themselves were formed from the ancient life of the more ancient seas. I see generations of living things cycling through millennia to this moment, and cycling away from now into a vast, remote final future.

I find myself to be tiny and brief in context of this tremendously enduring earth history, which is immensely humbling of course, but also strangely comforting, somehow, that after all that has happened – that human consciousness exists at all, that I, specifically I, have arrived into my moment in the story, along with my friends and family, community and nation, and the wider nations that surround us.

Our problems are significant, but the earth will endure (until, in the very far distant future, it doesn’t). Maybe there are ways I can’t see yet that will enable humans to endure and continue along with it.

The edge of the world (January 2015)

I went down to the edge of the world to watch the passing of this age.

The sun spills amber liquid on the wet cleg underfoot.

I feel the hug of the ground.

I hear the soothing shrieks of feathered sentinels overhead.

I see the end of days written on the rock teeth that still seek to consume,

Clutching at Caldey in the maw of the sea.

I see a time where the stars burn up and the clouds sigh into nothing,

For there is no more rain, and the pale blue atmosphere has boiled into the black.

I see how vast my now-beach is, and how tiny,

wrapped around with waves, and cliffs, and birds, and stones, and shells.

It contains the tiniest moment

And yet the whole big universe is here with me, also

Waiting on the beach for night to fall.

All together, we wait – witnessing.

[As stated above, all the photos are Paula's unless otherwise indicated.]

Room At The Top

This morning I had a brief discussion with a friend who is a senior HR manager in Cairo.  She is brave and knowledgeable, with the ability to understand Western best practice (having grown up in the USA, as well as having held senior roles covering the Middle East for one of the world’s leading global brands) and she also values and appreciates the nuances of Islamic and Arabic life (she is a devout, Arabic speaking Moslem and proud of her Egyptian heritage).  She knows when to apply conventional international HR approaches and when to adapt to accommodate local and cultural requirements.  Understandably, she is concerned by the current conflict in Egypt (in many ways it is worse than prior to the overthrow of Mubarak), her family home is near the presidential palace, where there are fierce demonstrations (to date six people have died and over seven hundred been injured); the recrimination and bitterness in Egyptian society is almost tangible.

Anti Mursi protesters outside palace in Cairo - Reuters

The issues in Egypt seem to be rooted in disagreements over governance, the same could be said of Syria – where the problems are deepening and the potential ramifications (such as the use of chemical weapons) are terrifying.  It is believed that Syria has significant stocks of sarin – a foul chemical, used by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds and by the doomsday cult in Japan to kill innocent people on the Tokyo subway in 1995; it attacks nerves and paralyses muscles around the lungs causing people to suffocate.  Something, given my recent medical experiences, I understand a little about and I can imagine how dreadful a way it would be to die.  http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-comments/past-issues/volume-18-2012/august/unease-grows-over-syrias-chemical-weapons/ Should these chemicals get into the wrong hands the impact could be devastating.  If President Assad is persuaded to leave Syria, in an attempt to create peace, this could leave a power vacuum, which might result in ongoing civil unrest (as has occurred in Egypt and Lebanon).  Good governance is crucial at all levels in society, just as it is in business.

 

Earlier this week I participated in an interesting meeting between HR directors and academics, to look at the issues of governance within organisations (and most specifically the role of board members).  We heard a great case study in which a CEO needed to be replaced at very short notice.  It reminded me of a time when I was in a business where the CEO was asked to step down, an interim CEO (a senior executive from within the business) held the reins until the new CEO was appointed and commenced.  Individuals who had joined because of the chemistry and rapport between the former CEO and themselves found the new regime very challenging and business was adversely impacted, whilst employees’ focus was on internal matters, rather than customers and revenue.  Some senior executives chose to leave the organisation and the company was not pleased to see all of them go.  It’s not always rats that leave the ship.  Better communication prior and during the period of unrest probably would have helped to retain good people, but it was a patriarchal business that felt that information should only be provided “on a needs to know basis” and most of us were not deemed worthy of needing to know.  Times of change are, understandably, potentially destabilising for those involved, even when they have been well briefed, and can have a significantly adverse impact on performance and public reaction to a brand.  However, the reverse can also be true, if change is handled well a brand and business can benefit. 

According to Sir Win Bischoff (Chairman of Lloyds TSB) and Edward Speed (the Chairman of the eminent global search firm, Spencer Stuart), both of whom spoke at a recent live event hosted by the Financial Times, less than 20% of interim CEOs are appointed to the permanent role (so press speculation that Paul Dempsey is unlikely to become the full time CEO of BBC Worldwide is likley to be true).  Traditionally interim CEOs have came from inside the business (the argument being that they are familiar with the organisation and its people).  Given the probale brevity of their tenure, it is not surprising that many interim heads of organisations usually are loathe to introduce any radical policies or approaches that might need to be overhauled by the permanent appointee.  Yet, the reason for the original CEO’s departure might be because of the need for appropriate action to be taken swiftly to stem a problem (such as occurred in the recent situations at both the BBC and some subsidiaries of News International).  To better facilitae these times of change, a growing market for professional “interim CEOs” has developed.  They can offer the unusual skill set required to manage a crisis situation, as opposed to having solely the day-to-day operations of the company.  It is infrequent that an interim head meets the requirements for the role going forward – it can be done, witness Colonel Richard Harrold OBE, who stepped up to steer the Tower of London through a difficult period after his former boss, The Governor, was asked to leave following adverse coverage in the media and internal ructions.

 

Although organisations usually find a way to cope when disaster strikes, it is prudent to avoid the need for an emergency replacement for a CEO and/or at the least, to have a known and understood plan for interim governance.  A plan should exist to enable a smooth transition if, for example a CEO’s to be taken ill (as occurred at Lloyds TSB in 2011, when Antonio Mota de Sousa Horta was signed off with stress).  It is not usual for a Chairman to make it common knowledge as to whom he has lined up as the CEO’s successor.  When John F. Welsh announced his intended retirement, GE was rumoured to have commenced a rigorous internal search for a new chief executive.  Reportedly, it was a three-horse race and all there individuals knew that they were contenders.  When Jeffrey Immelt’s selection was made public he commenced a year of working closely with Welsh, so that he understood the requirements of the role – an effective induction to ensure continuity and stability.  However, GE lost two good employees (namely Robert Nardelli and James McNerny) when they found that they were not the chosen one.  Senior leaders are ambitions and can easily feel slighted if they are seen to come second.  What’s more, the head-hunters will circle like sharks if they know that good employees are feeling disgruntled and can therefore be enticed into considering external opportunities.

 

A good relationship and mutual understanding is required for a Board to be truly effective.  Clearly the rapport between the Chairman and CEO is crucial, however it must not be too “chummy” – the Chairman needs to feel comfortable challenging the chief executive and the CEO must appreciate that he and the other executive directors are under scrutiny.  Increasingly Boards as a whole are undergoing psychometric and other forms of assessment, to ensure enhanced awareness of their strengths and capabilities of the team as well as to improve the way in which individuals interact with each other.  At times this is taken further – I am aware of one instance where a subsidiary wished to make a representation to the Board for a significant amount of funding.  The Board had been quite open about the Myers Briggs types within the team.  The subsidiary’s leadership team decided to trial the planned presentation on individuals whom they knew were similar in type to the main board members - this enabled them to anticipate the issues that might be of interest or concern and have prepared responses.

Summary Of Myers Briggs personality types

 

Being well prepared goes a long way towards winning the battle.

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