On Emerging - Day 23

23rd December 2018

23 randomly-selected people is the smallest number where there will be a probability higher
than 50% that two people will share the same birthday. This is part of the Birthday Paradox;
99.9% probability is reached with just 70 people.

Today I am driving my mother and sister to Bath to meet up with my father and his wife. It will be a chance to have a fine lunch and to wish each other a happy Christmas and good start to 2019. The next time we will all eat together will be at my son's 21st party on the 5th January.

In a way today's post is a sort of celebration, in that, for me, the Advent Blog series is not complete without a post by Neil Usher. I first got to know Neil when he was the Workplace Director at Sky - he was one of the truly innovative property and facilities experts who understood the impact that the workplace has on work, the people within it and the wider environment. He has moved on from Sky to work as a property, workplace and change consultant under his own advisory business - workessence, this is also the best place to read his blogs (he has been writing them since 2011 and there are many gems in his archive). He has also written an excellent book, The Elemental Workplace. It is an interesting read and demonstrates his passion for ensuring that everyone can have and deserves a fantastic workplace. It is a pragmatic and entertaining read by a genuine expert who can demonstrate that he has practiced what he preaches. He will be writing a second book in 2019 to be published in 2020. If you want to know more about Neil, you can find him on Twitter (his handle is @workessence).

Neil is an exceptionally talented and creative writer. His pieces have a flow to them and need to be read without distractions for maximum impact. In consequence, there are no punctuation illustrations.

*********

On emerging

Something was wrong. Something had been wrong before, but never like this. The severance of Lou’s umbilical cord during a spacewalk was calming, a soft suffocation in isolation. She had realised she was the lone passenger on the bus home, just herself and the driver, focussed and disinterested.

The bus slowed at each stop and sped again when they revealed themselves to be empty. It didn’t stop from the pick-up through to the lone bell when Lou only alighted.

Christmas shrieked silently; garish, primary, immediate.

Lou lived across a field. Anywhere else she would have been nervous about walking alone along the main path lit by lanterns made to look old and hiding the scrub in darkness.

There was none of the sound of shuffling feet and snuffling dogs, the exhausted exasperated forced chatter of parents to babies in buggies, the duller half of a dull phone call. No-one whistled anymore, she thought. It was just Lou. The glow from a hundred lounges was at its warmest, the air she breathed in step with her pace at its coldest.

Why was this time so wrong? She ran through a list. She liked lists, when something made it onto a list it was half done, the easy half at least. The list was of stuff she was always told was important, that the vacuously-profiled always posted and shared with unwavering conviction. Solutions are easy on the internet; six things, eight things, ten things other people do that you can do and everything’s alright.

There was purpose. She knew why she was there, she understood what the big idea was and believed in it just like all those around her, she punched the air when the others punched the air when something went well and she frowned and searched her soul when the others frowned and searched their souls when it didn’t. Often, they searched each other’s souls. Usually without asking.

There was no doubt, not a flicker. She knew people who complained that they didn’t have a purpose they and their people shared, and she felt bad for them but comforted that she did.

There was meaningful work. She understood how what she did fitted in, why it was needed and how important it was. She knew that she could do things the others couldn’t, so she felt needed and valued. People would say ‘this is a job for Lou’ and this made her happy because it wasn’t ‘Lou or’ or ‘Lou and’ but just Lou.

She knew that what they were all working towards was better than anyone else had ever done anywhere and so it was special, and this had stopped her stepping off the conveyor belt so many times when she wanted to. Even if it wasn’t true.

She learned and grew, she was better at what she did and knew more stuff and was better able to handle tricky moments and worked things out better than when she joined. She didn’t need to sit in a classroom for this, every day was its own training course with no agenda or discussion of ‘what she hoped to get out of it’, just a randomly-assembled corporate assault course.

She felt resilient, even though at times she could have sworn she was broken yet always found something, enough, to get through it. Then it was forgotten all over again.

Her team were incredible, the most angled and impossible jigsaw fitted together beautifully, and everyone know that without the other pieces they were nothing. She knew she had found many of these shapes and would sometimes stand back and watch and see the completeness playing out before her eyes and wonder just how that could have been possible.

The jigsaw needed her too and she knew that. She had painted the picture on the box lid, at least with words. They had wanted to be part of it. Without her they would have been part of a lesser jigsaw, that you could do with your eyes closed.

She had a life, too. She saw her family, they valued the time spent but all wished it could have been more but knew plenty of stories of absent Mums and consoled themselves that what they had was better than what they could have had, that the grass was green enough right where they stood.

They coped with her morning distance, busied themselves with their own awakening, her flitting eyes elsewhere in a random landscape. Her children drew pictures of what she was like when she came home in the evening, her fuse cropped, her voice drawling, an unwillingness to arrange anything even stuff that was fun, pushing everything away, clawing at peace.

That was the list. Everything was okay, the pieces were in place, it should all be right. But instead she was lost.

The abandoned bus and field and path suggested she was still searching as she resolved that it could not go on. That was one conclusion, far too late, at least. She would resolve that when the string of tiny lights was back in its shabby box.

She flicked through the days past like vinyl records in their whitewashed wooden boxes, stacked, ordered, regular, inspecting some, passing over others.

Perhaps, she mused, if there weren’t other agendas playing out then the charcoal of her dolour might have made sense: the entirety of the diaphanous mesh of unarranged meetings hurriedly held, whispers loud but indiscernible, comments clumsily coded, laughter lurched and suppressed, ideas made flesh before disclosure, papers hurriedly scooped and folded, glances without words, and shallow reasons for having to go. She was there, but not always, included, but not always, visible but not always; a life, almost.

With that, it made sense. It was not what she had been looking for, but what she had been looking through.

The front door opened, the warmth prickled her face, and familiar voices scrambled to be heard. Her own voice was clear, her mind was clear. It had lifted.

Fighting Fit

People keep telling me that I am “glowing” and noticeably relaxed, having just returned from a fortnight holiday. Although we have been home for nearly a week, memories of India still crowd my mind – the sizzle of spices frying in a pan; the scent of crushed ginger leaves underfoot as we walked through the spice plantations; the panicked flight of parakeets and pigeons over the palace in Madurai as an eagle swooped to catch its lunch;

and the harsh clash of metal and sparks flying as two men with swords and shields tried to defend them selves from the other’s onslaught. I now know what it must have been like to be a spectator at a Roman gladiatorial fight. On a local contact’s suggestion, we went to watch a display of Kalaripayattu – the traditional martial art of Kerala (a beautiful region of Southern India). The demonstration was varied, ranging from group warm-ups and stretching, which resembled a yoga session combined with modern dance;

carefully choreographed fights that would not have been out of place on the stage or in a Bollywood film;

displays of skill and dexterity; and

high impact demonstrations of bravery and timing, which at times rivalled anything presented by the world famous Cirque du Soleil.

In India Kalaripayattu is known as the “Mother of Martial Arts”- it is certainly an ancient skill that came into being before the 11^th century AD, during a period of extended warfare between two Indian dynasties, the Cholas and the Cheras.  It was formally taught in places of learning “Kalari” (which translates as “school” or “gymnasium”), prior to the introduction of the modern education system – not dissimilar to the Ancient Greek approach. (“Payattu” means “to fight” or “to exercise”.) During the colonial period the practice of martial arts was discouraged, but the practice, which was practiced by devoted followers from a range of castes and religions, was not stamped out.  Today the Kalaris are still treated as places of worship, with a shrine and offering lamps lit when they are in use.

The dedication, fitness and determination of the men demonstrating their skills to us were impressive – if only I could inspire similar degree of focus and effort from my children at home or employees at work.

India was a wonderful holiday. There is no doubt that taking a break, away from the constant flood of emails and incessant demands, has been good for me; I am confident that my thinking is clearer, my ability to prioritise is more effective and I am not letting day-to-day pressures get to me as much as they did a month ago.  Long may this continue…

Chalk kolam on pavement outside family home
for prosperity and good fortune
Pondicherry, India

Given my current state, I can understand why French unions and employers, in the high-tech and consulting sectors, have formed a labour agreement enabling workers to establish a set period during which they have an “obligation to disconnect communication tools”. Various organisations are encouraging their staff to switch off their smart phones and Blackberries and take a break – the German car and truck maker, Daimler, has installed “Mail on Holiday” software, which permits employees to set their out-of-office response systems so that all incoming emails are deleted, with the sender notified and offered an available alternative contact in case the matter is urgent. This means that employees can return to work refreshed and without the time-consuming distraction of an over-flowing inbox. Other organisations, primarily those in the financial services sector, are introducing policies to control email and phone usage for employees while on vacation. Deutsche Bank allows staff to monitor emails, but forbids them from conducting business or influencing transactions, and Barclays permits emails but bans the receipt of or response to phone calls.

For many years Compliance and Risk specialists have advocated employees taking an uninterrupted fortnight’s vacation, as that length of absence is usually sufficient time for fraudulent activity to come to light. In my opinion it is good now to see organisations beginning to be more mindful of the health, wellbeing and effectiveness of their people, instead of being solely focused on corporate risk. I am aware of one CEO who banned all internal emails for a week – after a degree of initial shock and resistance, employees realised that email is most effective as a means for delivering supporting documentation and not a tool for project managing or getting things done (other than simple admin such as diary coordination). For many employees, email takes up significant hours of their working life, without it people found that they had time to do the tasks that formerly they had put off. They also found that they had to be better at prioritising what actually needed to be done and taking ownership of tasks and outcomes.

I am of the opinion that exhausted and stressed employees are a risk to their employers as well as to themselves. People make mistakes when they are tired – last year there was a case in Germany where a tired bank clerk dozed off, but left his fingers resting on the number 2 on his keyboard, resulting in a transfer of 6222 million Euro, as opposed to the 62.40 Euro amount that a customer had expected. A Harvard Medical School study claims that insomnia may be the cause of as many as 274,000 occupational accidents in the USA with an annual cost of US $ 31.1 billion per annum. Few, if any, employers have policies relating to rest, sleep and insomnia although the risks posed by exhaustion are formidable.

That Dreadful Insomnia by *Sheeyo on deviantART

Stress can prove as damaging to individual health and productivity as exhaustion. Throughout my career I have noticed that accident levels increase when individuals are put under pressure. This pressure/stress can result from a range of causes, including:

• Periods of enforced change (such as the introduction of new systems or procedures);
• Inappropriate relations with colleagues;
• Times of audit or inspection;
• Corporate actions, such as when redundancies, divestments or M&A initiatives occur, and the anxiety that these can arouse in employees if communication is poor and people are left to speculate on what the future may hold;
• Poor management (especially from critical and dictatorial individuals who establish fear in those who work for them which results in a blame culture where people hide things or pass blame to others);
• Long hours, performing similar and usually repetitive tasks; and
• The actual work environment (for example poor equipment, misaligned seating, inappropriate floor layouts, bad lighting, etc...)

The UK Health and Safety Executive has identified six factors that can lead to stress in employees if not managed properly: Demands, Control, Support, Relationships, Role and Change.

Weeping Woman, 1937
Pablo Picasso

My maternal grandfather, Guy Crowden OBE (known in the family as "GP"), was a leading Professor of Applied Physiology. As an aside from this post, amongst other things he helped with the creation of the iron lung, (he advised Philip Drinker, whom he had met through their mutual research into industrial hygiene, (Drinker was the editor-in-chief of The Journal of Industrial Hygiene and GP had numerous research papers published ranging from the similarities in twins to the need to encourage physical activity across society to foster better health). GP was against patenting the discovery of the iron-lung, (originally designed to help with industrial respiratory issues), as he felt it should be a life-giving gift to mankind – it is interesting to note that when John Haven Emerson introduced an improved and less expensive iron lung in 1931, Drinker and Harvard University sued him for patent infringement. Emerson’s defence, which proved successful, was based on the moral requirement to keep lifesaving devices freely available).

Image from The Use of a New Apparatus
for the Prolonged Administration of Artificial Respiration."
Article published by Drinker and McKhann, 1929

My grandfather dedicated most of his life to researching the impact that working and the work environment has on people and their bodies – he believed in bridging the gap between research and everyday life. He was keen to find ways to enhance employees’ experiences at work as well as their performance, by researching the impact that the working environment has on people – he was very hands-on, for example attaching pedometers to nurses and postmen to determine some of the physical demands that their jobs made on them and assessing the correct height of desks for typists. He was a leading global expert on the impact that hours of work and the rate of working have on exhaustion and stress. An area of particular concern for him was “cumulative fatigue” – something which, in our constantly in touch, globalised world, is a serious risk for us all.

We need to switch off, in order to be fully switched on later when required to be alert. The Kalaripayattu practitioners looked after their health and wellbeing, through stretches, exercise and healing massages, as well as ensuring that they were suitably prepared before providing their demonstration. We have a duty of care to ourselves, as well as to others (including family, friends, the wider community and our employers), to ensure we too are fighting fit to face whatever the world throws at us.

Fighting mongoose and cobra