Stepping into the future - Day 2

Day 2

Thunderbird 2 is International Rescue's heavy equipment transporter. The 
craft's main pilot is Virgil Tracy. It appears in all but one episode of the Thunderbirds  
TV series (The Imposters being the exception) as well as every movie, 
making it one of the most iconic Thunderbirds' machines.

By way of a reminder, the theme for this year's Advent Blogs is "Heartaches, Hopes and High Fives". Please contact me if you would like to submit a post for later in the series.

Today's post was written in 2014 and was crafted by a man with whom I have had the privilege of working with and whose career I have watched rise with admiration and delight. He is doing so much to shape and influence the world of work (and the people within it) for the better. He is David D'Souza, Membership Director at the CIPD. He has been a wonderful colleague and is a valued friend. If it wasn't for Twitter we would never have met and my life would certainly be the poorer. He is a popular and well known voice, in work related and HR communities, (both on and off line); David is bright, passionate, values-driven, knowledgeable, funny, loyal, challenging and keen to encourage positive change (in individuals, organisations and society). He was the brains behind both Books of Blogs and hence many bloggers now can state in all honesty that they are published authors and that their book(s) made it to number 1 on Amazon. 

If you don't yet, you should follow him on Twitter via @dds180 and read his blog. He will make you smile, frequently surprise you and usually encourage you to think. I am indebted to him on many levels - the top image (International Rescue that can go to great depths and lengths to see that the right things occur) is very apt. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank him for his support and encouragement (not just to me but also to many of the readers of this post).

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I've always been absorbed by the possibilities of what might have been. All of the realities that didn't come to pass.

I can't remember the first time I heard about The Butterfly Effect, but I do recall from an early age understanding how mistaken people were to say about football matches 'we would have scored three if we'd put those chances away'.

Because logic dictates that if you had scored the first of those chances then everything would have changed. Everybody would have returned to the centre circle and the patterns, behaviours, mentalities and choices that evolved would be completely different to what happened in the first reality. The romantic comedy Sliding Doors, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow (before she became odd) and John Hannah (before he was in a position to turn down films like Sliding Doors) featured this pattern of thought to its conclusion. What would happen to your day if just one small facet of it changed? In the film it was the main protagonist missing a train that led to the change in her life - in real life we are always just making trains or just missing them. Our days fundamentally change based on those events.

John Hannah and Gwyneth Paltrow in "Sliding Doors"

Unless you travel via Southern Rail in which case you spend most days watching departure boards giving you information on fresh delays...

This never-ending schism of possible realities manifests itself in similar ways with our careers, with our relationships and with every business. The impact of small things often dictates the path of the bigger things. My daughter is a notoriously bad sleeper. If she had slept better on just one night a few years ago then maybe my wife and I wouldn't have cracked and decided we couldn't survive without being nearer family. In which case we wouldn't have moved to the South East. Maybe I'd still be working and living in Yorkshire. And if I was still living in Yorkshire then I wouldn't be writing this blog about having moved to the South East. I probably wouldn't even be writing, I certainly wouldn't know the people that I know now. My life would be poorer for it - I assume. My life would certainly be different for it. That's all I can really know. 

It's A Wonderful Life remains my favourite film and my company was named after Clarence, one of the characters in it. Simon Heath is a person I'm lucky to call a friend and he created a wonderful logo for me based on Clarence that I never got around to using...I wouldn't have met Simon if my daughter was a better sleeper. That's how life works.

The film centres on the impact of a man by an incident outside of his control. The only thing he can control is his reaction to the event, but the beauty of the film is the gradual realisation of how much a difference to other people one person can make. Our worlds are shaped by the people around us. Social media allows for even more random collisions, but make no mistake that our interconnectedness is what determines our lives and always has been. This isn't new.

I was lucky enough to be Best Man at a friend's wedding a few years ago, It's A Wonderful Life happens to be his favourite film too and we now have a ritual of finding a way to watch it with each other every year. He is a far better person than I would ever hope to be and one of those who goes through life constantly making the difference for others. I read out the following quote from the film at his wedding as part of my speech - "Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?". What we don't tend to appreciate is that our lives are influenced not just by those closest to us, but by a network more complex and intertwined than we could imagine.    

When I was travelling to this year's CIPD conference I got talking to the lady opposite me on the train. I don't cope very well in an environment without stimulus and the very best type of stimulus is conversation, so if you are ever unfortunate enough to sit near me on public transport then please expect a conversation. The story of the mystery train woman was a wonderful 'sliding doors' story. She has been working in a special needs school for 7 years. After qualifying as a teacher she had taken a few years out and then found it very hard to get a job in a school. I hadn't realised how many applications there are for each teaching role - it was a sobering experience listening to her describe her job hunt. It is a tough market. Eventually she had give up on a permanent role and settled into supply teaching, but disliked the routine and the lack of certainty it brought. 

One day a teacher at a school on the other side of the city called in sick (sliding doors moment...). The request to get up at short notice and travel to the other side of the city on a rainy day was the final straw that triggered a decision. That decision was to call agencies and say that any kind of longer term contract work would be acceptable. She just wanted a permanent home.  One of the agencies had a role starting immediately. 


Nursery School, Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy, 1898

So this experienced and qualified teacher started work as a Junior IT Support technician covering for maternity leave. Whilst pushing around a trolley full of laptops and freely admitting she knew nothing about IT the teacher got to know the rest of the staff. When the first permanent vacancy (non IT related...) came up she got the job. She is still there now. 

Every career and every life is made up of little decisions. Every decision is the result of the events that shaped the thinking and feeling behind it.

A wise person once said you regret the decisions that you didn't make, but in reality we can never understand how different our parallel lives would have been. We can't change the past, but we can always change how we step into the future. I love the fact that I met someone on a train (thanks to Virgin for allocating that seat) - who has been supporting children who really need support for over 7 years.

I love that this came about because she decided to pretend to be an IT Technician. She decided to do that because she didn't like getting out of bed at short notice on a rainy day. That decision came about because someone she never met was sick - in some ways the most incidental person in the story is the most important trigger for all that went after. I hope that person was sick because they had consumed too much champagne and strawberries having the night of their life. They deserve it. 

Life is rich, unpredictable and full of stories that we never hear. I hope you get to make some great stories this year - I hope I get to hear some of them.

Merry Christmas and I hope you have the best New Year that is possible.

Thank you for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold

Comet Tails and Dust Trails

Day 28 (Monday 28th December 2015)

28 domino tiles make up a standard set. The earliest mention of dominoes
is from the Song dynasty in China. Dominoes were first played in Europe in the 18th century,
it is presumed that the game was brought to Italy by returning Christian missionaries.
The word "domino' is derived from a spotted hood traditionally worn during the Venetian carnival.

For many of us around the world, today is a Bank Holiday to compensate for Boxing day falling on a Saturday. Even if you have not a day off work, I hope that you are enjoying a peaceful period before the start of the New Year and find some calm in which to read today's wonderful blog.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce a new voice to the Advent Series, Siobhan Sheridan, the HR Director of the leading UK charity NSPCC (founded in 1884 and originally called the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children). Siobhan commenced her career in a customer-facing role in retail banking and soon found herself responsible for training others. She transferred into HR via Learning & Development. She has an impressive track record, moving from Financial Services into the Public sector, where she was HR Director for Defra and the Department for Work and Pensions, before becoming a recognised leader within the Not For Profit arena. She has a strong moral core and a great sense of humour. Siobhan is active on social media. You can follow her on Twitter, her handle is @SiobhanHRSheri.

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Comet tails and dust trails... 

'Will you write me a post?' 

'Comet tails and dust trails is the theme' she said... I was struck by the beautiful melody of the title, my instant slightly magical desire to grab the tail and take a ride across the night sky and perhaps more importantly, by the fact that I know nothing about either comets or their tails.

Somewhere in the far recesses of my memory I recalled that comets often appeared in ancient stories as 'harbingers of doom' or as 'portents of great events.'  Inspired by recent conversations about traditional stories with Geoff Mead and Sue Hollingsworth, I set off in search of where this view of such a beautiful phenomenon might have started in storytelling terms. 

Fairly soon after I began to forage, I was intrigued to stumble across not just any story, but what is claimed to be the world's oldest work of literature: The Epic of Gilgamesh. I won't trouble you here with the telling of the whole tale itself. It is, as you would expect, quite long.

Gilgamesh and the Star of Anu that falls on him

In summary this famous poem, which apparently dates back to 2100 BC, tells the story of Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, and Enkidu, a man created by the gods to stop Gilgamesh from oppressing the people of Uruk. My interest was piqued not only by the poem itself, which I had never heard of, but also by the story around it. 

First discovered in 1853 it caused a bit of a stir due to containing a number of similarities to The Bible, including a Garden, a Man being created from the soil and of a Great Flood. Dating of the oldest fragments originally concluded that it was older than the assumed dating of Genesis at that time. This lead to a great deal of debate about who borrowed what from who and when.

In 1998 a new discovery revealed the first four lines of the poem. At that stage almost 20 percent of the epic was still missing and a further 25 percent of it was so fragmentary that it could be only partially understood. Translations of the poem though were remarkably consistent and had remained so for about 150 years. 

Just this year however, researchers discovered a new tablet which added 20 previously unknown lines. Not a great deal of additional content when one considers the overall length of the poem but they appear to have a relatively significant effect on the story overall.

Tablet discovered in Sulaymaniah Museum in 2015 resulting in a correction in the
order of chapters and completion of some blanks in the Epic of Gilgamesh

The new section added more detailed descriptions of the 'Forest for the Gods' which completely changed the interpretation of what the Forest was like. They reveal the inner thoughts of the protagonists and describe their guilt at some of their actions, previously unknown emotions. They redefine one of the characters as less of a monster and more of a King and finally reveal that two of the key characters had in fact been childhood friends. The story is now different from that which existed before. 

Gilgamesh and his childhood friend Endiku, by modern artist Neil Dalrymple

Stories are everywhere in our lives. We use them to help us to make sense of many things; of ourselves, others, our work, the world and much, much more. We use them at their best to share wisdom, connect communities, inspire teams and to delight our children. Humans have been doing so for many thousands of years. As Ursula Le Guin said 'There have been great societies that did not use the wheel but their have been no societies that did not tell stories' 

And yet they are of course, stories... 

Becoming aware of a new story can change our perspective of an older one. Our brains have the amazing capacity to create complete stories from incomplete fragments without us even knowing that we've done so. Two people having the same experience can create entirely different stories about it. Before long we can start to feel that the stories we have created are in some way 'right.' Stories have the ability to keep us stuck in an old groove, not realising that we are in some way imprisoned by our own fertile imagination. 

And yet, the addition of a few words, the consideration of a motivation we hadn't realised existed, the discovery of a fact we don't know about or the opening of our minds to a different kind of ending, can quickly change everything. And suddenly what we thought we knew isn't quite so clear anymore.

So whilst the stories that we hold dear, about ourselves, our organisations  and the world, deserve to be held dear and honoured. Its helpful perhaps to also be able to be open to holding them lightly, seeing them change or reinterpreting them in order to allow ourselves and others around us to grow and move forward.

Stories are a truly wonderful creative force in the world, offering  a delightful opportunity to look at the world, our organisations and ourselves in new ways.  As Geoff Mead writes in his book 'Coming Home to Story' 

'The magic of storytelling is an essential and timely contribution to the re-enchantment of our disenchanted world'

Christmas Story Telling, A Winter's Tale, 1862
by Sir John Everett Millais

I hope that your Christmas creates the kinds of stories that you will want to tell for many years to come and that you all have a thoroughly magical and enchanted season of goodwill. 

I'm off to grab a hold of the tail of that comet and see where it might take me...

And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After, Which Was Fine - Day 54

Day 54 (January 23rd 2015)

54 is the number of independent countries in Africa, created during colonial times.
Before colonial rule Africa comprised up to 10,000 different 
states and autonomous groups with distinct languages and customs.
Africa has approximately 30% of the earth’s remaining mineral resources.
Africa is the second most populous continent with about 1.1 billion people 
or 16% of the world’s population. 
Over 50% of Africans are under the age of 25

The 2014 CIPD Annual Conference was an excellent event, with some exceptional speakers. However, for me, Paul Taylor was the highlight. His passion, wit, knowledge and authenticity are infectious. Paul is an Assistant Director, responsible for Organisational Development, at NHS Employers. He is active on social media (follow him on Twitter via @NHSE_PaulT) and always keen to connect and share. Paul is naturally creative and comfortable challenging the status quo, to ensure a better outcome for all. Paul's energy and drive can be seen outside as well as in the workplace - he is a multiple marathon runner and fund raiser for great causes. Paul is a man with vision and compassion - a rare combination and I am honoured to know him.

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Isn’t childhood weird? I mean, not childhood itself but some of the things that happen early on. We are raised on stories of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. 

Stories themselves become part of our daily lives and night time routines. I wonder how many times we hear ‘once upon a time’ and ‘happily ever after’ as kids? They’re powerful promises of a beautiful start and perfect ending. The ideal path is set out for us to follow.  As grown ups we are still asked to buy into the ideas of dream holidays, and fairy tale weddings. Happy ever after is a goal to be pursued.

But the thing about happiness is it’s impermanence. Being happy is a finite state that comes and goes, ebbs and flows. Yet our narrative about happiness frames it as something that can be solidified, permanent and attainable in perpetuity. We use phrases like “life is a roller coaster - full of ups and downs” as if the downs are to be avoided and despised, when actually those are the best bits of the ride. 

We’re led to believe that a steady state of happiness is the only way to live; that it’s a straight path from birth to death and the aim is to achieve optimum happiness at all times. What’s the point of riding a flat roller coaster?

It’s not surprising though, for what are the alternatives? There’s things that are supposed to be avoided at all costs. Embarrassment, awkwardness, rejection, humiliation, pain, sadness. Who’d want to live in a state of constant cringing and crying. But often those feelings give us the richest experiences to learn from. They give us moments of despair that transform over time and take us to deeper places of understanding when the sting wears off. They make us search our hearts and ask ourselves questions. They turn the sky dark and our thoughts red hot. They make our heart pump and our blood boil. They help us to change and to move on. They remind us what it feels like to be really alive. If it was possible to achieve a state where you could be happy all the time, who would ever change? And isn’t change ultimately the point of life?

And this, dear reader, is where I’m going to pause the blog, break the fourth wall and look you straight in the eye to say “Hello”.  I wrote that first part of the blog a few weeks ago and I just couldn’t work out how to finish it. I ran dry. I thought the ending would be something like…. “Why not accept that life is both beautiful and horrifying at the same time, and that’s ok. Happiness is one emotion in an unlimited range of responses that may not be so pleasant but will all teach us so much more than the blissful-eyes-shut face of happiness. Nobody lives happily ever after, and that’s fine.” But it just didn’t happen.

Then two days ago my cat died.
  

Robbie was 16 years, 3 months and 8 days old. For his first fifteen years of life he was a handsome, confident, cheeky presence in our lives. He was the captain of his own ship and like a miniature pirate in a black fur coat he stole our hearts and gave us many adventures.

Illustration from The Ship's Cat,a narrative poem by Richard Adams
illustrated by Alan Aldridge, 1977

Just after his fifteenth birthday he was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism which more recently led to renal failure, hypertension and blindness. This week we acknowledged that the time had finally come to say adieu to mon capitaine. 

I didn’t think it was possible to cry so much.  I thought the vet might need to hook me up to a saline drip in case I just dehydrated and crumbled into powder on the floor. Robbie lay in our arms as we stroked him, kissed him, squeezed his paws and told him how much he was loved. As he fell into his last sleep I felt my heart break.

Our flat is now so still and quiet, apart from the random and unexpected guttural sobbing that breaks out when one of us thinks we’ve seen him behind a curtain, or when we look at the place his food bowl sat. I heard someone laughing outside yesterday and I thought, how dare they find anything funny.

I am in the middle of what feels like one of those massive metal hamster balls that you see on american tv stunt shows, the ones filled with blokes on motorbikes criss-crossing each other and narrowly avoiding impact. It’s like I’m sitting on the floor at the bottom of the ball while they spin around me. Thoughts, memories, feelings, ideas, questions...zooming by in a blur.  How am I supposed to make sense of anything? How should I feel? What do I do now? What happened to my happiness?

Well, it actually helped to go back to the beginning of this blog and think about what I was trying to say in the first place. Life is amazing and frightening and delicious and dangerous and exhilarating and exasperating and every single thing you can possibly imagine. Isn’t that what makes it so vivid? Just a week ago, when I felt like I was sitting on the top of Happy Mountain, I couldn’t find words to finish this blog. As I recently read, “Happiness writes in white ink on a white page”.

We set out on our life path hoping that we’ll be happy ever after.  It’s good to be happy. I truly believe that. I also believe that the journey we take on our life should not just be signposted ‘Destination Happiness’. Despite the alternatives being, at times, much more raw and rough, I’d rather be walking along an unexpectedly bumpy path with occasional stones that trip me up.

Life is a bumpy path

Sitting on the ground feeling like the wind has been knocked out of you gives you the time to stop, breathe, look up, think about what you’re doing and then shakily stand up, dust yourself off and keep walking. Nobody lives happily ever after, and that’s fine. Just keep walking along the path. Just keep walking.

Harry Lauder singing 

"Keep Right On till The End of the Road" in 1926

Robbie

New Paths - Day 27

Day 27

27 Club is the term that refers to a significant number of singers
and musicians who died aged 27 (a statistical spike). The list
includes Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ron McKernan (Pigpen), Brian Jones,
Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain.

Today's piece is written by the talented Matt Ballantine, who is currently the Interim Product manager for the UK Government's Digital Service. Prior to becoming a consultant, respected writer (he is a regular contributor to CIO magazine) and digital guru, he was the former Head of IT at brand marketer Imagination and had also worked as an enterprise and solutions architect for the BBC. Matt crosses the divide between Technology, Management and Marketing and has a keen interest in collaboration, connections and content. He writes an interesting blog on the topics that interest him. Or you can catch up with him on Twitter (his handle is @ballantine70)

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In December I’m running an event for a HR group in a big telecoms company on the theme of modern career paths and planning. It’s been an interesting commission - an area in which I’d claim interest and active practice, but not necessarily “expertise”. And that’s one of my main points for the day - in a world of unknowns, looking for “experts” is a natural human instinct, and deeply flawed. I hope that they’re not expecting me to give them all the answers.

The idea of a career path is something that has changed, I believe, pretty radically in the two decades in which I’ve been working. When I started in the 1990s there were still a many in the workplace who thought that they had an anchor in “job for life” working. That decade saw the last phases of the dismantling of the nationalised industries, and the rise of the global corporations. The social contract between employee and employer was broken, but with expectations of loyalty and trust remaining on both sides.

Times have changed
LS Lowry's Coming From The Mill, 1930
Picture credit to estate of L.S.Lowry

Technological change has also radically altered the workplace in those 22 years. Work is no longer necessarily a place where you go, and can be anywhere. The same technology has shaped and formed the nature of jobs along the way - swathes of clerical and administrative staff no longer exist, yet new roles have replaced them. Not one of the job titles that I have had since 1997 would have existed when I had careers advice at school a decade before. But to be fair, some of the dafter ones I have made up…

One of Matt's job titles is Angel of Disruption!!
Picture: Angel of the North, by Anthony Gormley

In this world developing a career path that involves job titles is a risky business. The next one might be there for you, but having a sense of direction much into the future becomes a challenge. I spoke recently to a friend Matt Desmier who has been living a free agent career for a few years now, and when I asked how he described what he did to others he said he took the lead of another mutual connection John Wilshire in outlining:

• The last thing I did;
• The current thing I’m doing; and
• The thing I have on the horizon

That helps in answering the “What do you do?” moment at a dinner or kid’s birthday party, but doesn’t provide anything more substantial to plan one’s life around. Maybe that’s it - maybe we can’t plan in the ways that we traditionally have done. Do we need to throw ourselves to the wind and see where our careers take us?

Tibetan "wind horses" (called Lungta): pieces of paper, decorated
with a bejewelled horse, tossed into the wind for good luck.

That would be a reckless approach.

I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that what I need to help us through this dark maze is a narrative, a story. A personal career story that spans my past, my present and sometime into the future. The nice thing about stories is that whilst they might not necessarily be completely factual (and anything into the future by design isn’t factual), they can contain truths that give us anchors around which to make decisions in the future and make sense of our past: a path trodden and a path ahead.

My own story starts with some of my grandfather’s achievements, which in turn tie into some of my earliest childhood memories. They then in turn weave into the education and training that I have received, the jobs I have taken, and why some of them worked and some of them didn’t. Looking forward I have some aspirations that in turn become the way in which I assess what pieces of work I should take both in terms of short term needs and longer term goals.

In sharing this story with others, funnily enough I’ve found a wonderful prop in that very 20th Century corporate artefact, the business card. On one side of my cards are contact details. On the other, a photograph. A photograph I can use to be able to tell my story in a way that hopefully makes sense to whomever it is I am talking. Telling and retelling the story helps me to navigate through the maze.

Longleat House maze, UK - photo BNPS
Google Earth, technology is helping people navigate faster than a decade ago

What's your story?

Trying to UnSquiggle - Day 7

Day 7

7 - Poster art for the film "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) (a film about 7 gunmen 
hired to protect a Mexican village from bandits - it is based on 1954 film The Seven Samurai)
Many things come in 7s - Seven Wonders of the World; Seven Ages of Man;
Seven Sisters; Seven Levels of Hell; Seven Days of the Week; and Seven Dwarves. 

I have had the pleasure of working with Trevor as a colleague (of his own choice he left my current employer in August this year) and also I am proud to call him a friend. Trevor is complex, a true Polymath - an accomplished artist; financial markets expert; story teller; visionary; qualified actuary; yoga bunny; blogger; connector; continually curious and a thinker. He is always a pleasure to spend time with. Trevor is currently, deliberately, taking time out to pursue his passions and we can all learn from his experiments and journey. Follow him on Twitter @trevorblack or read his blog to learn more about his exciting adventures http://www.swartdonkey.blogspot.co.uk

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Once you know that the squiggles on a page are not squiggles but words, you cannot unsee them. It is impossible to ignore their meaning. Sticking to a well-known, well-loved path can be comfortable. Most of what we believe is based on stories constructed to help us make sense of what is going on in the world. All stories require a suspension of disbelief to enjoy. They require leeway to weave their magic. I love stories and have, since I was very young, really wanted to believe in the stories. I had a habit of seeing squiggles with meaning that I didn’t want to see. I had a habit of finding and diving into inconsistencies, trying to reconstruct a story that I could really believe in. A habit of walking off track.

Trevor in his studio

Some squiggles become words. Some are just meant to be felt.

The stories we tell ourselves are path-dependent. The plot depends on where we are born, our level of wealth, the story of our family so far, and the people and experiences we stumble across. One of the challenges we face in the world is that we forget how we learnt what we have learnt along the way, and we are more comfortable speaking to people who have had similar experiences. We are so convinced of the soundness of our logic that we struggle to understand how good people could possibly disagree with us on the really important stuff.

Advent is a story of waiting and preparation for a celebration. I am an optimist. I believe the world has made tremendous progress in conquering some of the bigger challenges we face. We are chipping away at ignorance. We are learning to listen to other people’s stories while suspending our own disbelief. We are starting to hear the music behind the tales of others. Each chip made, story heard, and song felt is a step closer to celebration. We don’t need to break down other people’s stories if they aren’t hurting others. We do need to break down stories if they are. The bigger story is one of multiple interlocking paths.

Relativity, M.C. Escher, Lithograph, 1953
(c) The M.C Escher Company - the Netherlands. All rights reserved
Used by permission. http://www.mcescher.com

Jonathan Haidt’s book ‘The Righteous Mind’ on why good people are divided by Politics and Religion really got me interested in the path of becoming a better story teller. To become a better story teller we need to get better at really listening to others' stories. This is not just about listening to their logic before pointing out the holes, it is about making a real effort to un-see the writing you have learnt to view in the squiggles. It is about letting go of your context, to see the music, art, dance, drama and poetry behind why people believe what they do. We all need to do this. Then when it is your chance to tell your story, others will understand.

Exciting times.

Stepping into the Future - Day 4

Day 4

International Rescue's Thunderbird 4
30ft long 11t wide
Propulsion: 6 electrically driven reversible axial-flow turbine impellers
Max speed 160 knots underwater and 40 knots on the surface
Piloted by Aquanaut Gordon Tracy

Today's post is from a man whom I have had the privilege of sharing much of the past year with, David D'Souza. He has been a wonderful colleague and is a valued friend. If it wasn't for Twitter we would never have met and my life would certainly be the poorer. He is a popular and well known voice, in work related and HR communities, (both on and off line); David is bright, passionate, values-driven, knowledgable, funny, loyal, challenging and keen to encourage positive change (in individuals, organisations and society). He was the brains behind both Books of Blogs and hence many bloggers now can state in all honesty that they are published authors and that their book(s) made it to number 1 on Amazon. 

If you don't yet, you should follow him on Twitter via @dds180 and read his blog. He will make you smile, frequently surprise you and usually encourage you to think. I am indebted to him on many levels - the top image (International Rescue that can go to great depths and lengths to see that the right things occur) is very apt. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank him for his support and encouragement (not just to me but also to many of the readers of this post).

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I've always been absorbed by the possibilities of what might have been. All of the realities that didn't come to pass.

I can't remember the first time I heard about The Butterfly Effect, but I do recall from an early age understanding how mistaken people were to say about football matches 'we would have scored three if we'd put those chances away'.

Because logic dictates that if you had scored the first of those chances then everything would have changed. Everybody would have returned to the centre circle and the patterns, behaviours, mentalities and choices that evolved would be completely different to what happened in the first reality. The romantic comedy Sliding Doors, featuring Gwyneth Paltrow (before she became odd) and John Hannah (before he was in a position to turn down films like Sliding Doors) featured this pattern of thought to its conclusion. What would happen to your day if just one small facet of it changed? In the film it was the main protagonist missing a train that led to the change in her life - in real life we are always just making trains or just missing them. Our days fundamentally change based on those events.

John Hannah and Gwyneth Paltrow in "Sliding Doors"

Unless you travel via Southern Rail in which case you spend most days watching departure boards giving you information on fresh delays...

This never-ending schism of possible realities manifests itself in similar ways with our careers, with our relationships and with every business. The impact of small things often dictates the path of the bigger things. My daughter is a notoriously bad sleeper. If she had slept better on just one night a few years ago then maybe my wife and I wouldn't have cracked and decided we couldn't survive without being nearer family. In which case we wouldn't have moved to the South East. Maybe I'd still be working and living in Yorkshire. And if I was still living in Yorkshire then I wouldn't be writing this blog about having moved to the South East. I probably wouldn't even be writing, I certainly wouldn't know the people that I know now. My life would be poorer for it - I assume. My life would certainly be different for it. That's all I can really know. 

It's A Wonderful Life remains my favourite film and my company was named after Clarence, one of the characters in it. Simon Heath is a person I'm lucky to call a friend and he created a wonderful logo for me based on Clarence that I never got around to using...I wouldn't have met Simon if my daughter was a better sleeper. That's how life works.

The film centres on the impact of a man by an incident outside of his control. The only thing he can control is his reaction to the event, but the beauty of the film is the gradual realisation of how much a difference to other people one person can make. Our worlds are shaped by the people around us. Social media allows for even more random collisions, but make no mistake that our interconnectedness is what determines our lives and always has been. This isn't new.

I was lucky enough to be Best Man at a friend's wedding a few years ago, It's A Wonderful Life happens to be his favourite film too and we now have a ritual of finding a way to watch it with each other every year. He is a far better person than I would ever hope to be and one of those who goes through life constantly making the difference for others. I read out the following quote from the film at his wedding as part of my speech - "Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?". What we don't tend to appreciate is that our lives are influenced not just by those closest to us, but by a network more complex and intertwined than we could imagine.    

When I was travelling to this year's CIPD conference I got talking to the lady opposite me on the train. I don't cope very well in an environment without stimulus and the very best type of stimulus is conversation, so if you are ever unfortunate enough to sit near me on public transport then please expect a conversation. The story of the mystery train woman was a wonderful 'sliding doors' story. She has been working in a special needs school for 7 years. After qualifying as a teacher she had taken a few years out and then found it very hard to get a job in a school. I hadn't realised how many applications there are for each teaching role - it was a sobering experience listening to her describe her job hunt. It is a tough market. Eventually she had give up on a permanent role and settled into supply teaching, but disliked the routine and the lack of certainty it brought. 

One day a teacher at a school on the other side of the city called in sick (sliding doors moment...). The request to get up at short notice and travel to the other side of the city on a rainy day was the final straw that triggered a decision. That decision was to call agencies and say that any kind of longer term contract work would be acceptable. She just wanted a permanent home.  One of the agencies had a role starting immediately. 


Nursery School, Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy, 1898

So this experienced and qualified teacher started work as a Junior IT Support technician covering for maternity leave. Whilst pushing around a trolley full of laptops and freely admitting she knew nothing about IT the teacher got to know the rest of the staff. When the first permanent vacancy (non IT related...) came up she got the job. She is still there now. 

Every career and every life is made up of little decisions. Every decision is the result of the events that shaped the thinking and feeling behind it.

A wise person once said you regret the decisions that you didn't make, but in reality we can never understand how different our parallel lives would have been. We can't change the past, but we can always change how we step into the future. I love the fact that I met someone on a train (thanks to Virgin for allocating that seat) - who has been supporting children who really need support for over 7 years.

I love that this came about because she decided to pretend to be an IT Technician. She decided to do that because she didn't like getting out of bed at short notice on a rainy day. That decision came about because someone she never met was sick - in some ways the most incidental person in the story is the most important trigger for all that went after. I hope that person was sick because they had consumed too much champagne and strawberries having the night of their life. They deserve it. 

Life is rich, unpredictable and full of stories that we never hear. I hope you get to make some great stories this year - I hope I get to hear some of them.

Merry Christmas and I hope you have the best New Year that is possible.

Thank you for Being a Friend - Andrew Gold