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.]

Frail Strands

“...the strands that connect us are frail, so don’t hang great weights on slender wires...” - John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

This time a week ago I was sitting in a wheelchair in Accident & Emergency, waiting for doctors to determine how much damage I had done to myself in a car accident.  Like many, I was not in the habit of wearing a seat belt in the back of a London Black Cab (London traffic is so slow - what’s the point?  The rear of a traditional taxi feels like a secure bubble of safety away from the bustle outside, so it is easy not to appreciate the need to belt up.  Most of my friends don’t bother...)  Let me be a lesson to you.  I learned the hard way, after an ignominious period spent trapped, with my nose pressed to the floor of the cab, unable to lift myself as I had lost the use of my legs - I did find some forgotten objects under the front seat, including a large grey cash box and some spare change, but that was small consolation to either the driver or myself.  The cabby was brilliant, once we had realised that I was in no state to make the meeting I was en route to attend, he bought me some water (I was in shock and felt sick), he drove me to hospital (ironically one of the ones where I am a Governor), he found the wheelchair and wheeled me to A&E, he would have stayed with me too if my son had not come to be with me.  With hindsight, there was much value to being a “mystery shopper” in the hospital; I can honestly say, with one exception, I was enormously impressed by the attitude and care shown to me and to other patients by all the staff I met.

I spent a while in “Triage”, the area where the severity of each patient’s condition is determined, so that treatment can be prioritised (demands on the UK health service are such that not everyone can be treated immediately).  

Triage as a concept commenced during the Napoleonic Wars (the word comes from the French trier - to separate or sift) and French doctors used the approach in World War I, dividing casualties into:

• Those who will probably live, regardless of what care they receive
• Those who will probably die, regardless of what care they receive
• Those for whom swift care might make a positive difference.

In corporates we often apply a similar approach to people and their performance.  We focus on the employees who are not perfect and see if we can make them better.  There are many articles exposing the fact that managers usually concentrate their efforts on individuals who make the most noise and those who demand immediate attention, as well as on the people where they feel that it is possible to produce a positive outcome for all parties.  We usually ignore the good performers, presuming that, because they are doing what is asked of them, they are happy.

I think most businesses would benefit from spending a bit longer considering how they treat their good performers, especially when they are allowing others to get away with sub-standard work and attitudes.  Increasingly I am of the opinion that it is crucial for organisations to think more about the impact that their demands have on those they value and the others in their teams.  It is common practice in most organisations for managers to rely on a chosen few, who have proven themselves capable of producing good work, even ignoring others who might also be good performers, because there is a degree of comfort in asking someone to do something and knowing that the task will be done on time and to the standard required.  The people being overlooked often complain that they are not developing required skills and hence are being denied career progression, but we seldom think of the impact our continuous demands have on the few doing the work.

People are frail and it is easier to hurt them than you might think.  Employers would do well to realise that it only takes one final small thing to change an individual’s attitude from being flattered that they are relied upon to feeling overwhelmed by their bosses’ demands and becoming disgruntled, believing that everything is dumped on them, when they can see others around them not under similar pressure.  What was once acceptable is no longer OK.  Nobody likes to feel that they are being taken advantage of.  

“Organisations need talented people a lot more than talented people need organisations.” - Dan Pink, said at the HR Tech Europe Conference in Amsterdam last week

Engagement Surveys seldom offer sufficient granularity for managers to know whether their best performers are inspired by their work or disengaged (I am only aware of one piece of recent research that looked at the link between individual performance and employee engagement - Leadership IQ’s survey released in April 2013 - rather worryingly, it showed that in 42% of the companies studied low performers were more engaged than medium or high performers https://www.leadershipiq.com/new-engagement-survey-metric-uncovers-more-risk-for-employers-who-want-to-keep-their-top-performers-according-to-leadership-iq/).  If a company MD or CEO was told that the firm’s top clients were unhappy and planning to take their business elsewhere, as a matter of urgency, they would go and talk with them to sort matters out, as they are too valuable to lose.  Leaders need to make a similar effort to speak with and provide an environment that will retain top employees.  Over the years I have chatted with rising stars in a wide variety of organisations and many have told me that they do not aspire to the life they see others higher up the tree experiencing.  Long hours, lengthy periods away from family and loved ones, little consideration from the top downwards and not even a “thank you” for the sacrifices made - it’s no wonder that rising stars find a “toxic” culture unappealing.  An environment that forces top performing employees to have to choose between having a life or a successful career will not encourage those following in their footsteps to wish to stay.   Increasingly people, especially the good ones, have a choice. 

It is a human reaction, when confronted with a tight deadline to turn to a reliable high performing employee in the team for support.  However, this can become a dangerous dependency, which results in the top performer being put under unnecessary, repetitive stress, leading to disengagement and potential burn out.  Employers need to break the cycle that constantly puts pressure on star performers.  In our incessantly demanding, technologically connected world, it is unrealistic, as well as inconsiderate, to expect a few always to work excessive hours and to be on constant call.  What is required is a sustainable approach, one that ensures long term success instead of short term delivery.  This was highlighted in the Towers Watson research of November 2012 http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/11/creating-sustainable-employee/ 

The success route to ensuring retention of star employees is outstanding management from authentic and empathetically intelligent leaders.  It is usually the little, irritating day-to-day factors that make a person want to leave a company (and top of this list is poor and inconsiderate management); in the same way it is the small things that can make all the difference and encourage a person to stay.  A genuine thank you, indicating that you really understand an individual and what they have done (perhaps refer to what you know they have missed outside work to help you) - it shows how well you know them and what makes them tick.  You could suggest, before they ask, that they come in late on the morning that their child is performing in the school assembly, as a gesture to make up for the extra hours they have put in, or offer them an afternoon off or early departure, so that they can go to a gig or see a show.  Can you arrange for them to meet someone whom they respect and admire?  A get well card, phone call or flowers when they are off sick is a nice personal touch which shows you care.  Let them know that you are aware of the hours they put in.  Discuss their work load and seek their suggestions as to whom they think could benefit from learning to do certain tasks, so that the workload is better shared and the team can operate more as a unit.

As I know to my own cost, I tore the ligament in my left hip in the accident last Friday, people are fragile, but a little care goes a long way towards making things feel better.

Looking Ahead - Are You LOL-ing Around?

Workforce planning is becoming increasingly important for organisations that want a sustainable and successful future - not just short term recruitment activities, to fill current requirements, but strategic planning with forethought - anticipating and determining what (and hence who) will be required in the years to come.  I appreciate that most of the people reading this will be favourably disposed towards technology and social media - seeing them as an effective form of interaction, enabling enhanced collaboration and the sharing of knowledge.  I would go further, in the future, work will increasingly occur virtually - with individuals forming teams and working together, across geographic and business borders, to achieve shared objectives, without necessarily meeting face-to-face or even working for the same employer.

The leaders of the future will have to be able to guide, inspire and motivate others, without relying on traditional command and control approaches and/or having employees reporting to them who are located in the same physical space.  They will need to have the ability to plan, be swiftly responsive, inspire and communicate with remotely located, but unified (even if only temporarily) teams to achieve results.  As an HR professional, who is aware of the demographic challenges looming towards us, as well as the pace of change that is resulting in new skills and attitudes being needed within business, I am alert to the necessity to secure required, but still developing, capabilities to ensure the success of the workplaces of the future.  The issue is where to find those emerging skills demonstrably in action today and then how to attract and retain the people who have them, to support the business going forward.

When I was looking at introducing an apprenticeship programme into a leading financial services retailer, an area where we knew we would have an ongoing requirement was within the customer contact centres.  We also could predict that increasingly customers would want not just snail-mail, email or telephone contact, they would expect web and mobile enabled support with live and interactive communication.  I advocated that school leavers, with their honed abilities to text and observe occurrences on multiple screens simultaneously, were already demonstrating the skills we would require going forward.  We and they could benefit from the skills they had developed through their own activities with friends and areas of interest.  Armed forces and the health sector have picked up on the ability that many, predominantly younger members of our societies, have to use technology to control remote objects with dexterity and accuracy – operations are now done using instruments controlled by humans watching and responding via computer screens and drones are controlled in countries far removed from the sites that they are observing.  This trend will increase as businesses increasingly find ways to capitalise on individuals’ skills without the need to transport them to physical locations, which takes time and is expensive.  Even the recent James Bond film, Skyfall, makes the point that skills required for success are changing fast (Q is very different from his forebears).

I am probably biased, one of my sons is captain of his university’s  League of Legends gaming team.  They have a big match next weekend, against some 335 formidable global academic institutions, including Oxford, Seoul National, MIT and Trinity College Dublin (http://lol.cstarleague.com/teams ), when they take part in the Azubu Collegiate Champions league event.  However, I think that many of the skills businesses will need in the future can be found in the behaviours and aptitude of the participants in the on-line leisure activities of now.

Here follows a guest post written by my youngest son - it was composed to defend the viability of certain games as extracurricular activities and to encourage schools into allowing pupils to take part in on-line games such as League of Legends, he makes some valid points, that businesses as well as academic institutions might do well to heed:

“The gaming industry has been growing exponentially over recent years (now estimated to be worth in excess of $80 Billion), and one variety of games in particular has seen a surge in popularity. These are known as MOBAs, or Massive Online Battle Arenas, and at the risk of being branded a ‘crusty vegger’, I’d like to talk about them, and gaming in general.

       I was hesitant about choosing this subject matter, but, like it or not, games are playing an increasingly large role in our society. A recent ‘League of Legends’ competition received tens of millions of views - more than many conventional sporting events, and this same game logs over a billion hours of play each month. Although gamers aren’t typically associated with the endurance and strength of sportsmen, with several T.V. networks following teams as they train and compete in tournaments, gamers are becoming the athletes of this digital age. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

digital athlete

not so digital athletes

       In the interest of having an open mind, you must first peel yourself away from the stereotyping of acne-plagued gamers, wasting away in their bedrooms or parent’s basements. Although there are people passing out in front of their computers, in the majority of cases their mental health was already a shambles. See gaming instead in the same light as football. Neither is addictive, as that refers to the basic altering of brain chemistry. What they are is compulsive. They can both fill gaps in someone’s life. Had a row with parents? Go kick a ball around. Failing in academia? You can succeed at sport instead. But people in these situations should be trying to fix the holes that have grown in their lives, instead of blaming footie and gaming for creating them.

         Once you’ve seen through the smog of hype and hysteria fuelled by sensationalist journalism, you can begin to appreciate the good side of games. MOBAs are by far the most popular kind of game, and they improve timing, planning, teamwork, lateral thinking, communication, coordination, and they’ve been shown relieve stress. For these reasons, many schools in America and Asia have adopted games both as educative tools and extra-curricular activities. They engage students, and the competition they create, often between schools, incentivises working to improve. This same quality of working at something to get better is then translated to the classroom, meaning that the academic performance of students in these schools has heightened notably. Due to the positive effects gaming has had in schools elsewhere, this year universities across England will be preparing for the first official tournament of its kind. Oxford, Imperial, Cambridge, UCL and other respected universities will be brought together by participating in and broadcasting e-sports.

   I know I’m preaching to the choir with a lot of you, but some people who I talk to are afraid of giving games a try, as ‘there is no point’, and they fear they will become addicted. But the same people don’t question watching season after season of ‘Jersey Shore’ *shudder*. In League of Legends, which is what I play, there are 5 a side teams, meaning teamwork is required if you want to win, and I’ve grown closer to many friends by playing matches with them. Some of these friends have moved abroad, and this remains an entertaining way of staying in touch. In this way, gaming is a perfectly valid way to nurture aspects of your personality, or just relax with a group of friends. And perhaps in some forms it can be pointless, just fiddling with gravel at the side of the road of life, but it is fun, and to quote John Lennon (or perhaps Bertrand Russell)-

‘The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.’”

lolling around!