Collaborating, leadership, being enough (Weeknotes 16–28 Feb 2021)

Exciting development this week — I’m back to writing weeknotes in my hammock! Wahoo! I’m listening to blackbirds singing out over the garden as the last bit of sun hits the trees. The temperature has suddenly plummeted though so I’ve got a blanket wrapped around me.

The last 3 weeks have gone quickly…

To stop myself from burning out, I requested special leave at work so I could reduce my hours. This meant an end to evening work, phew! I made the decision quite last minute, which meant when I did my first 3 day week, I still had all the same amount of work on, so it felt a bit stressful, and was a challenge to finish on time. It’s got better though and I’m so grateful to GDS, my line manager and team lead for making it ok to do less.

I can’t quite believe we have 1 week left of home-schooling. I’m massively relieved, but I know I’ll miss the kids once they’re at school! I emailed one of my kids’ teachers last week about some challenges at home and he reminded me that the most important thing is treasuring the extra time together — a challenge worth striving for! I’m so grateful to the teachers for their herculean efforts these past few weeks.

Although homeschooling will end, I’m still experiencing fairly severe levels of exhaustion so I know I need a recovery plan. I need to not make the mistake of thinking that because the kids are at school, everything is fine and I can suddenly max up my work efforts. I’ll need to keep looking after myself, take lots of breaks, early nights, walks, etc. I’ve also been reading back over some weeknotes I wrote last year about managing my feelings when things change.

What have I been working on?

The most fun stuff over the these last few weeks has involved collaborating with others to solve problems and learn new things. For example:

• Pairing on GOV.UK content updates with Helen, who joined the team a few weeks ago. Rather than me showing her the ropes it’s been mostly her doing all the hard thinking! Total star.
• New starters shadowing my ‘content requests rota’ shift. It was energising being joined by such positive and curious folk.
• Asking colleagues to ‘crit’ my first draft of a page for staff about looking after your wellbeing. Lots of really useful feedback.
• Chatting with content folk in departments we work closely with — we talk about upcoming work, blockers, process issues, learning points. Occasionally we have to deal with urgent issues, as we did this week, but with good relationships in place, these usually get resolved speedily!
• Coffee chats with some GDS folk I’ve not met before — lovely!
• Delivering training to new starters about everything to do with our publishing systems and the process of how to update GOV.UK content
• Taking part in a workshop led by Anna on our latest people survey results. I helped facilitate a couple of break-out groups. It was really great to have the space to talk through our reflections and share ideas on how we make GDS an even better place to work.
• Went to a few leadership sessions with senior leaders in GDS — lots of honesty, authenticity and wisdom. And lots to mull over!
• Cross-gov heads of content working group session in which we discussed a problem statement I’d drafted. I declined our second meeting last week in favour of urgent content work (one of the things on my ‘I’m proud of’ list this week! I do not find it easy to decline meetings, but I knew I needed the time and the group could carry on without me)

And a good learning point… I handed over some discovery work to colleagues that I’d worked on last October. They’ll take forward the content changes we co-designed with another gov department. This brought to light the importance of documenting why certain decisions were taken and making notes of conversations in workshops, rather than just outcomes. No matter how clear you think things are at the time you do them, when you pick them up months later and try to explain what happened and why to someone else, it can show up the gaps. I learnt that a handover would have been easier if we’d documented our conversations more thoroughly!

Never enough?

I realised (again?) I have quite unrealistic expectations of what I can achieve in a day. My internal to-do list is long, and I always end the day feeling really frustrated that I haven’t got anywhere near completing it. So, 1. I need a better daily to-do list (one that’s short) and 2. I need to LET GO of the unfinished stuff and realise IT CAN WAIT.

I feel a constant drivenness, a striving in me, and I wish it would just stop for a bit. Finding that safe harbour I talked about in my last weeknotes helps. But it’s hard to hold onto the desire and drive to keep growing, whilst accepting and appreciating all I am right now, apart from anything I do or accomplish.

I am accepted.

I am loved.

I am enough.

I like this quote by Jim Hollis, a Jungian analyst, shared by Brené in her book ‘Dare to Lead’:

“We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.”

Leadership learnings

I’ve started reading ‘Turn this ship around’ by David Marquet, which has been sitting on our bookshelf for some time without me reading it. Roxanne mentioned it in her weeknotes so I thought I’d pick it up. Such a good read!! It’s got short chapters with practical, actionable advice and the whole thing is told through story-telling. It’s fascinating getting a window onto the world of the US navy and submarines, as well as seeing through David’s practical experience and thought processes how he changed a leadership culture against all odds — turning followers into leaders. It’s a shift away from command and control towards ‘release’. The word ‘release’ is important — people finding their power from within, rather than relying on someone else to ‘empower’ them.

Here are some of my key take-aways and reflection points on leadership from all I’ve read and listened to over the last 3 weeks:

• Sharing your mistakes and what you’ve learned through them inspires and encourages others
• You don’t have to have all the technical knowledge — you can rely on the team for that and grow your knowledge in time
• Promote and demonstrate open and transparent conversations — share as much as you can, as early as you can
• Be open about what you’re thinking and doing — it creates learning opportunities and builds trust
• Allow space for everyone to ‘think out loud’ — express their hopes, fears, concerns, thoughts, assumptions
• The language we use is really important in building trust and confidence in others (or undermining it)
• Trust the team to make decisions — give them the credit when things go right, but be prepared to take responsibility for failures
• Resist the urge to provide solutions — allow the team to explore these themselves
• Never give a direction without explaining your thought processes, rationale and assumptions
• Focus on achieving excellence, not avoiding errors
• Act your way to new thinking
• Care about people
• Find out people’s stories and motivations
• Be curious
• Be available

My leadership quotes of the week:

“Leadership is the enabling art. It is the art of releasing human talent and potential. You may be able to ‘buy’ a person’s back with a paycheck, position, power or fear, but a human being’s genius, passion, loyalty and tenacious creativity are volunteered only. The world’s greatest problems will be solved by passionate, unleashed ‘volunteers’… Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.” (‘Turn this ship around’, David Marquet)

‘Leadership is a choice, not a position’. (Turn this ship around’, David Marquet)

‘Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behaviour’ (Brené Brown, Dare to Lead)

Moments of joy

• Glimpses of butterflies!
• Bees!
• Walking into fields and taking pictures of flowers and trees
• Lots of extra hugs with my girls