Connections

Months of planning, fund raising and preparations are now over. I have a very heavy suitcase packed with toys, clothes, medical kit and educational aids – all donated by friends, family and contacts. 

I am particularly indebted to the reception team of Charles Stanley - I have never seen so many glittery little girls’ sandals being donated to a great cause. Myself, I have a small handbag with a few clothes and some mosquito lotion. Over the next nearly fortnight I am to be part of a group of HR professionals referred to en masse as “Connecting HR Africa” and we will be based in Uganda working with street children, trying to give them better childhoods and futures.

We also have an evening schedule arranged for us that will see us linking into the local HR and business community in Kampala. We will be working alongside professionals from the specialist charity Retrak, for whom I have been raising funds. People have been hugely generous and every penny has gone straight to Retrak. It’s not too late to donate, if you would like to, I have a JustGiving site that would love to hear from you.

Our journey began on Friday, with six setting out from Manchester (Ian – the brains behind the expedition, Alice, Amy, Helena, Lisa and Sophie, and the remaining three of us departing from London. We are to be joined by the tenth member of the group, a photographer, in a day’s time. Two others had been signed up to join us, but have had to pull out for family reasons – I hope that their lives calm and they get the opportunity to attend next year. So much thought and planning has been done by all.

However, sometimes things don’t go according to plan and the past 36 hours fit into that category. After a four-hour delay at Gatwick (due to the plane needing to refuel at Heathrow – what’s that all about?), we finally arrived at Dubai when it was too late to make our connecting flight to Entebbe. After a lot of queuing and questions, we discovered that there is only one Emirates flight per day to Uganda and that the flight to Nairobi, from where we might have been able to make the short hop across Lake Victoria to Uganda, was fully booked, hence three of us (Katrina, Donna and myself) found ourselves stranded in the UAE.

Katrina, Donna and I originally met via social media, before being selected for Connecting HR Africa. Donna, a leisure industry HR expert who now runs an excellent consultancy, has written for the Advent Blogs series that I host annually - she is a well known voice on various social media and traditional HR channels - and Katrina is a globally recognised social media expert, teaching individuals and organisations on how best to source and successfully recruit highly desirable candidates.

There are some silver linings – spending over four hours together at Gatwick, waiting for a quenched plane to arrive, allowed us, the London trio, to start forging stronger bonds – we persuaded the staff of Lounge One to print off an email attachment to enable one of us to have the complete set of hardcopy paperwork required to get past Ugandan entry officials; we held an impromptu Meantime lager 

and gin and tonic tasting, once we became aware that we had at least another two hours to wait – for the record, Edinburgh gin (served with juniper berries in the glass) has delicate quite sophisticated notes that were enhanced by the juniper, Portobello Road (served with pink grapefruit) packs a punch, as does Broker’s (served with a wedge of lime), Caorunn is surprisingly subtle, as is Bombay Sapphire, both slip down with ease when served with a slice of orange.  Our time together certainly helped the three of us to start getting to know each other, finding areas of shared experience, humour and interest. A week of connections had begun…

By the time we were called to board it was looking increasingly probable that we would miss the connecting flight, and also that, as a result, we would need to spend time in Dubai. I have worked in the Middle East, indeed I nearly relocated to Dubai a few years ago, and I have friends in the region. It seemed sense to make positive use of the time, even if we were unable to be part of Connecting HR Africa on the first planned day in Uganda. Before the plane had started taxiing along the runway, I had sent messages to various contacts in the UAE. The prospect of being trapped in a soul-less hotel close to the airport was not appealing and we had a golden opportunity to form a new Connecting HR chapter – Connecting HR Middle East.

View from my hotel room window

I am indebted to the wonderful Craig Austin, recently appointed Group Head of Talent Management and Learning and Development (L&D) for Rakbank, for being the first person to respond to my message. Despite having not seen me face-to-face for over a decade (we used to work together in London), he welcomed all three of us into his home and gave us a taste of Dubai life. It was a pleasure meeting his wife, Amanda, having heard so much about her over the years, and watching an astounding gymnastic display by his youngest daughter. As you can see from the below photo, a tough time was had by the “London ladies” sitting round the pool. 

As the afternoon progressed into night, we spoke about HR and L&D and the most effective methods of enabling change across the region and at home; we pondered the cultural differences between the UK and the Middle East; and looked into ways in which we can support and learn from each other going forwards. Craig really liked the Connecting HR approach – Connecting events enable networking and the cross-pollination of ideas in an informal and friendly environment. I regularly attend Connecting HR tweet-ups and meetings in London – they are broadcast on social media platforms such as Twitter, and the Manchester group is enviably active. So now Connecting HR Middle East has been born, 

Craig is committed to expanding the group and it will be fairly easy for him because he has already been building up a network of HR and L&D professionals, who discuss issues as an informal group (it is a shame that, although well known HR professional bodies have a presence in the Middle East, and their qualifications are well regarded, the region seems to get little direct support or encouragement to justify expensive annual membership fees – although I believe that the CIPD is working to address this).

HR, because its focus is on how to get the best out of people and create optimum workplaces, is one of the few professional disciplines that is capable of crossing sectors - it is perfectly possible to have a meaningful discussion between HR professionals from pharmaceutical or engineering businesses and a person based in financial services. In fact, one can often gain great new ideas and insights by speaking to a wide circle of connections.

By the end of our night in Dubai, Donna and Katrina had made new friends and I had renewed a valued relationship with a man I have always liked and respected. The discussion flowed with ease and vigour and it was amazing to find how many connections and experiences we had in common. The drive back to our hotel, under a shining moon, initially past sand dunes and then into the dramatic urban landscape with twisting roadways and the sparkling lights in the spectacular modern buildings, shining like festive ornaments, will be memorable for the three of us and provided a perfect end to our day.

As well as having an excellent time in Dubai, we missed the earthquake that hit Tanzania, killing at least 11 people, and which was felt by our colleagues in Uganda.

In our own ways we are trying to move the world and through connections enable positive outcomes.

It has been a great Day 1.

Armchair Astronomy - Man on the Moon

Day 9 (Wednesday 9th December 2015)

9% - the amount water expands when it freezes

Today's out-of-this world post comes from Niall Gavin, a much respected learning and development specialist who came into the arena via technology, after a period as a professional actor. Niall writes a great blog, "A Little About A Lot". Niall has had a tough 2015 - including a significant life-saving operation, followed shortly thereafter by being made redundant, so I am very grateful that he has found the time to include a post in this Advent Series. He is active and popular on social media - you can follow him on Twitter via @niallgavinuk. I would like to stress that the following post is NOT a nod to the John Lewis Christmas advertisement (this is much more inspiring). Niall, partially due to his own experiences, is an advocate of the need for lives to have a meaning and purpose.

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Being something of an armchair astronomer (you need to know that I know a little about a lot…), I was recently asked to write a short, 300 word piece, on the subject of ‘The Moon’, for a local community newsletter. That was the extent of the brief; so I wrote and submitted the following:

TITLE: "There is no dark side of the Moon really..."

Towards the end of Pink Floyd's seminal 1973 album, Dark Side of The Moon, a character can be heard saying "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact, it's all dark." Sounds deeply mystical and meaningful, doesn't it? But it's wrong.

We assume that, because we always see the same 'face' of the Moon turned towards us, the other side must be dark. 

However, we see the different phases of the Moon each month - New, 1st Quarter, Half, 3rd Quarter, New - when the sun illuminates it from different angles as it orbits the Earth every 29 days. 

And remember, when we have an eclipse, the Moon comes between us and the Sun and blocks it from view for a few magical moments. At that point 'our' side is the dark side and the Sun is shining fully onto the other side.

Partial lunar eclipse

We also assume that the Moon doesn’t rotate like the Earth does (our 24hr day). But it actually rotates one full turn during those 29 days!

Don't believe me? Draw a Man in the Moon face onto a ping-pong ball (your ‘Moon’), turn it to face another larger, spherical object (your ‘Earth’), and then, WITHOUT TWISTING your hand, move it in a circle round your Earth. You'll see the 'face' eventually turns away from the 'Earth' until, half way round, it has turned its back and faces away from the Earth altogether! To keep the same 'face' towards the earth, you HAVE to twist your ‘Moon’ round so that by the time you return to the starting point, you have rotated it by one full turn. Our Earth Month is one Lunar Day!

The truth is there is no dark side of the Moon really. Full Stop. (End of article)

So why am I sharing this article with you? What has this got to do with comets and coal, and my professional life and interests - or indeed, yours? Well, the clue is the last paragraph, where I suggest a practical exercise to explain the concept. It’s not a theoretical exercise. I wanted to make an out-of-this-world scientific fact into something tangible. Having read up the science bit (fttp://www.universetoday.com/19725/lunar-day/), I did it myself to be sure I fully understood the principle, and then I talked my son through doing the same thing with a grape and an orange, to check that it was an understandable - and do-able - practical exercise. He learned something he didn’t know about our Moon, without us getting bogged down in complex discussions about orbital dynamics and tidal locking.

You see, I’m not a book learner; I need to do and see things for myself for them to make sense. That’s how I developed as an IT trainer many years ago, by learning to use software for myself. For example, any time I had to write a new word processing course, I used the actual software itself to write the course materials – Word, WordPerfect, AmiPro etc. - so I could walk the talk when it came to sharing with my students. It's how I'm learning to blog!

My limited knowledge and understanding of astronomy came initially from buying a pair of binoculars over 20 years ago and pointing them at the moon (I was really trying to see Halley's Comet - never did). I subscribed to an astronomy magazine, which really whetted my appetite to see more. So I bought a telescope and hunted down some of the planets - Mars, Venus, Jupiter - and I will never forget the thrill I experienced the first time I saw the Rings of Saturn for myself through that telescope. Theory became reality by translating it into action, discovery and by looking closer.

Rings of Saturn (as seen by Hubble, NOT via Niall's telescope)
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

That’s how I learn, and I’ve used that approach with many others over the years in IT Learning & Development. Make it real, make it challenging, make it fun and they'll be with you all the way. Don’t, and they won’t.

What are your techniques for keeping your training alive for your learners?

Illuminate Your Stars and Let Your Diamonds Shine

Day 6 (Sunday 6th December 2015)

6 shells have a special significance for the Yoruba of Nigeria.
If a man is attracted to someone he sends 6 shells (the Yoruba word efa
means both "six" and also "attracted" or "to draw near or close");
if the object of affection is favourably inclined they respond
with 8 shells, to say ejo meaning both "eight" and "I agree".

The wonderful post for today has been provided by Donna Hewitson. It is a positive and uplifting read, emphasising the importance of appreciating and nurturing potential. This theme should come as no surprise, given Donna's day job: she is the interim Director of People for Bel and the Dragon country inns until the end of December 2015. Donna has a genuine love for people and hospitality. She is inspirational; she spent her childhood in foster care and commenced working in a pub at the age of 15 - this has lead to a successful career in bars and restaurants; she has created her own path and she oozes enthusiasm. To her people really matter. Donna runs a People Consultancy, People Stuff Matters, dedicated to making her clients exceptional employers. You can find Donna on Twitter, and, hardly surprisingly, given her roots and love for the hospitality sector, her handle is @pubdonna.

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This year's Advent Blog theme is the very beautifully creative "Comet Tails and Coal Dust".

I took to the tinterweb to frantically research such things and discovered that, according to Wikipedia, "Comet tails are features visible in comets when they are illuminated by the Sun".

NASA photo of double tail of Comet West. Credit: Oberservatoire de Haute, Provence

I liken this description to the emotions that are fired up and behaviours displayed when people feel invested in and developed by their company. In my head, when I read the article, I translated it to, "Passion, belief, a can-do approach and enhanced performance are, among others, features visible in people when they feel valued"

Valued

In the majority of businesses, people are given the opportunity to progress and develop. Logically thought out career paths are presented and shared amongst the teams to stimulate interest which, in turn, helps to populate the succession plan. Often, I've found, the programmes on which they can embark are called things like "Rising Stars", "Reach", "Discover", "Time to Shine". They create the perception that you can, indeed, achieve your aspirations. The prospect of learning and progressing your career creates excitement; it generates new personal goals and opens up a whole new network which will provoke and evolve your thinking.

Then you learn that you are in a lottery. 

You may be lucky and strike the jackpot (full on learning, development and real promise of progression). Equally, you may only get 2 numbers and win a lucky dip (a day out of the office and a free lunch). There is only so much budget allocated to L&D and, generally speaking, it's never enough to meet demand. Decisions, therefore, have to be made about how people are selected. Cue, assessment centres, panel interviews, project work, presentations, profiling, personal preference. The list goes on.

So what do you do to increase your chances of winning the jackpot?

Picture this. 15 places on a programme. Like X Factor deciding on who goes to Judges' Houses, decisions can be made based on gut feeling, appearance, the last interaction, how they communicate, confidence, how well they answered the (almost always) predictable interview questions, whether their face fits. Are the decisions based on ability and potential?

You get the call; you've been selected. BOOM! Radiance is shining from your very being. You're glowing; about to be expedited through an unknown space leaving sparks in your wake.

But what of those who didn't have a winning ticket? Perhaps they were not as confident or well presented. Didn't fight hard enough to be seen and heard at the assessment centre. Were not as fluid when answering the questions during the interview. Maybe they were just not liked. It happens. They return to their role and, if they are lucky, feedback will be given. For many, it's just back to the grind and continue as they did before. But what if, upon their return, they are celebrated, empowered, supported and coached? What if meaningful, true, honest feedback was given and acted upon? How different the end result could be.

You may not have the comet tail burning bright in the night sky, like the chosen few, but if you had the potential to be selected in the first place; someone saw a glint, something shimmering under the surface that suggested a potential diamond of the future. You, too, should be polished, cherished and, in the right setting, encouraged to shine.

Diamond in the rough

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you and yours have the most fabulous time. Until the next tweet / blog in 2016....

Stepping on to the Path of Choice - Day 55

Day 55 (24th January 2015)

55 years of marriage = Emerald Wedding Anniversary. 
Emeralds are one of the four "precious stones" (with diamonds, rubies and sapphires).
Most emeralds have internal fractures and particles; a pure emerald is very rare.
It is common practice to "oil treat" fractures (usually by allowing cedar oil to permeate
into the stone disguising flaws). However, if internal characteristics are attractive
they are referred to as "jardins" and can add value to the stone.
Illustrated the Gachala Emerald - 858 carats

Gina Chapman Gina Chapman and I first became acquainted on Twitter (her handle is @ChayneDaisy). She is consistently encouraging and an active and popular member of the L&D community. She lives to the west of London (on the Berkshire Buckinghamshire borders) and currently works for a respected local consultancy. Prior to becoming a consultant she was employed by one of the world's leading computing and technology businesses. As well as being an excellent trainer (both design and facilitation) Gina is learning to look after herself - she is an aspiring yogi and keen on gardening and wildlife.   

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I have been blown away by the quality of the Advent Blogs - not just the quality of the content, but the quality of the sharing - people have shared some very personal experiences with us all and I for one am very touched by that.  I feel that a great deal of thanks needs to go out to the lovely Kate for curating this year’s series.  Upon the second time of asking me if I would like to contribute and join in, how could I not when she has given so much.  Dear Reader, I have never blogged before and my writing is nowhere near as eloquent as yours - you have been forewarned!

Gina takes to blogging like a duck to water...

“You cannot do this job” was on permanent play in my head for a good 10 months when a change of command happened within our L & D Team.  The team needed to move from L & D partnering within a business unit to working within a practice model as L & D Practitioners.   I am not going to bore everyone with the detail of the various guises this took in the early days  and am going to fast forward to where it ended up.  What I will say is that, as a remote team we became incredibly close and supportive of each other.   We needed to be as we’d been on a hell of a journey, it hadn’t been pleasant and there had been the inevitable people casualties along the way.

Difficult journey

Fast forward 8 months ..... The practice model was still in place and more change was ahoy, due to another change at the L & D helm.   We had a choice of two roles – Content Designer or Deliverer, as our workshops were now to be designed and delivered in-house.  As happens in all change initiatives,  a whole raft of emotions were experienced by all the team.  This is when the permanent play in my head - “You cannot do this job”- stepped up a gear.

Things are not looking good

“Gina, we know you’ll be a great facilitator”….. the choice I thought I had was taken away – too many people wanted to design!  Now, don’t get me wrong, as an L & D Partner, of course I’d delivered workshops; I’d also researched and designed workshops and they were favourably received by the business units I looked after.  They knew me, they trusted me and knew I understood the challenges they had on a day-to-day basis.   On reflection, it was cosy and nice - not many mean people on my patch!    

My new role would be a whole different ball game.  A change of CEO and a corporate-wide change initiative was reverberating across the Company and the word on the mean streets by the coffee machines was not a positive one ..... My role, should I choose to accept it, was to deliver workshops designed by my colleagues, across the whole business, to some pretty unhappy peeps!   The message needed to be consistent and I was told “you cannot change the content - it needs to be delivered as written”. 

  

“You cannot do this job”  - it was still there, that niggling gremlin, whispering to me.  For a time, though, the reality was I could do the job, although my gremlin was constantly on my shoulder, telling me something to the contrary.

The devil whispering in Maxentius' ear
Peter de Dene window, York Minster

The feedback from workshops was public to all within the L & D Team and published each month.  I used to steel myself to open the spread-sheet and search for my name, to read my course feedback.   Sometimes people said great things, but sometimes people were tough with their comments – par for the course and you can’t please all the people all of the time ….. but in my head, I wanted to please them, I really wanted to help them and even more so, I wanted to be perfect - “winging-it” was not in my vocabulary but “You cannot do this job” was still in my head.  

Sleepless nights started  – I would fall into bed, each night, totally exhausted, but my mind would be racing, unpicking what had happened during the day and replaying what should have happened.   I started cancelling weekend arrangements, because I needed to rest.  I didn’t.  I spent weekends reading facilitator notes which would, in some instances, run to some 100 pages and then I would anticipate possible questions - lots of them.  I wanted to be perfect and expected myself to know everything.  I felt totally out of control and I asked for help each month from a remote and faceless SMT who demanded we complete a ‘Happiness Survey’ each month.   Eventually I was working with a mentor - one of my adorable experienced colleagues - who threw a lifeline of hope to me. Workshops were then being scheduled into my diary automatically by a remote admin team and, if I wasn’t delivering,  I was on the road; if I wasn’t on the road, I’d be reading and preparing for the next day!

It came to a head when I looked in my diary to see I was to deliver two workshops, back to back, to a group of Future Leaders - the facilitator notes which were normally OTT with detail were scant to say the least and no-one was available to talk me through the facilitator pack.    Blind panic set in and my niggling gremlin was now shouting at me - “YOU CANNOT DO THIS JOB”! I got through the first day only because the adrenalin pumping through my body kept me going.  I had no time to gather my thoughts during breaks, as there was always someone wanting to talk with me about their challenges. I knew my evening would consist of grabbing something to eat and spending an evening working out how the hell I was going to run the next day.  I could not think straight and the next day did not happen - I had completely broken down and my boyfriend held me and said “you have to stop”!

Reaching breaking point

..... I was signed off work for 3 months with chronic work related stress.  My Doctor told me I wasn’t to look at a computer screen for at least two weeks and I needed to rest.  My adorable mentor went over and above what she needed to do.  She contacted our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) and a lovely lady called me and I went through weeks of counselling. Through our conversations, she guided me through to a path I had not been able to see during my very dark days - it was the path of choice.  

Choose your path

They say the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result and my choice was not to return to a regime which had taken so much from me.   

After 11 years with a Company I had initially loved working in, I left my role seven months ago and it was so the right decision for me.   I am now working part-time for a small consultancy - still in L & D - and giving myself some breathing space to reflect and to continue my own personal  learning journey. A couple of months ago I was asked to design and deliver a Stress Awareness workshop to a group of schoolteachers - it was well received, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and they want me to work with them some more.

 

My self-esteem has returned and I am now looking forward to what 2015 holds.

 Chariots of Fire, theme tune