What people need

Yesterday I met up with my long term mentor, someone who I worked with 10 years ago and who has continued to watch my progress, prompt my thinking and challenge my actions. I always look forward to meeting up with him, despite the fact that the conversation can sometimes be uncomfortable... he knows me too well and can see through my tendency to rationalise where I am or what I'm doing. He pushes me to grow and that's not always easy.


Amongst other things we talked about choice and he asked me why I still feel the need to pursue something more - after all by my own admission I'm very happy and fulfilled personally, I have a great job with a lot of positives to be thankful for. Yes there are frustrations, but who doesn't have at least some of that with their job? We got onto an interesting conversation about the human tendency to push for something different / more / new when they are at their most fulfilled, sometimes even to the point of it destroying all that was good (we all know the person that seems to have it all who then have an affair / major job change / mid life crisis etc.) - why would you do that?!?


His challenge (other than not to lob a 'life grenade' for the sake of it) was to try instead to find peace with what I have, and recognise my quest as a normal human drive that we all share. This
led me onto doing some basic research into what drives us as people. I came across the following which I think encapsulates it nicely:


The Six Human Needs
1. Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure
2. Uncertainty/Variety: the need for the unknown, change, new stimuli
3. Significance: feeling unique, important, special or needed
4. Connection/Love: a strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something
5. Growth: an expansion of capacity, capability or understanding
6. Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to and supporting others


So is the trick to recognise that to relish uncertainty in a quest for variety and growth is just 'normal' and, like physical needs (we don't fret about being hungry or tired on a daily basis), we should acknowledge and accept these emotional needs rather than get caught in a loop of inner questioning and soul searching which we call a search for purpose.


This idea ties in with the thinking on emotional agility - being sufficiently self aware to recognise an emotion or need for what it is and allow it to be there along with our other needs, but not to allow it to dominate to the extent it overpowers the other (satisfied) needs and starts to become a negative force. To have enough variety to be fresh and engaged is good, too much will unbalance uncertainty and connection and is bad.


The moral of this ramble is to understand that we all people have a complex range of needs we seek to fulfil and as ever the trick is to recognise this, give our conflicting needs enough space to be satisfied but not so much as to be dominant - balance is the key to a happy life :-)

Act - fail - learn

 Isn't it interesting that when you are open to hearing the cue for a different conversation, it's very easy to go there almost immediately? This week I seem to have been having conversations about authenticity and the importance of learning from failure (or more helpfully, things that didn't quite go to plan).

In most walks of life we fear failure - after all, we are taught from an early stage that's its important to win. Just look at my daughter's lessons in school - my youngest (just turned 8) has a weekly spelling test and we have been praising her for habitually getting 9 out of 10 with the occasional 10 out of 10. At 8 with some relatively tricky words, that feels pretty good, doesn't it? So I was shocked when we got to parents evening to be shown the spellings star chart where you only get a star if you've scored full marks. Funnily enough we were lagging behind. So now she's feeling bad for having tried hard but not quite scored top marks, rather than encouraged because actually she's consistently doing pretty well. I'm certainly no slouch but I resent my child thinking success is all about top marks - the effort she's put in counts for so much in my book.

In the work place it differs massively depending on the sector and culture (think aviation investigations v medical cover ups), but more and more organisations are beginning to understand there must be an allowance for failure otherwise who will ever be compelled to 'fess up as to what went wrong and share learning on how to avoid it in the future. In the new digital age, Generation Y expects to fail, and learn, and fail again before success. That's scary for Generation X.

The authenticity piece in this is that so often when asked how things are going we give an overly positive response ("How it's going?" "Just fine!"), rather than an honest reply which might include some of the challenges and how you've worked to overcome them. We do this all the time - we are conditioned in our professional lives to be always at the top of our game - that's just not possible. A bit of authenticity about adversity might make the workplace a stronger, more resilient place to be.

So what does this mean in a quest for purpose? I guess it's the realisation to have the courage to turn up our radars and see the opportunities for trying something new, stretching some different muscles and maybe accepting that for every 3 new things, 2 might not be right. I suspect most of us would be very happy to take that risk if the one thing was spot on and made the difference between a dull day and a brilliant one.

So in a spirit of not self framing with all the reasons why I can't, my challenge to myself is to remember all the reasons why I can and more to the point, why I should!

Is it an age thing?

Despite denying in my last post that my quest for a more meaningful professional existence is a mid life crisis (which I still hold fast on), I do think it's an age thing. As I've got older, my progression has become more difficult to map. Success used to be quite clear cut - promotion every 2 years. Then I hit partner and had kids it's been a challenge ever since.  As is clear from these pages, my challenge is less about whether I'm successful - I know I'm successful - I only need to look at what I do on a day by day basis and who I come into contact with... the question is whether that's meaningful.


Part of the challenge is to put in place metrics that mean enough to me personally when I think about success. More and more though I'm realising that my problem isn't the firm, the people, the clients I work with - they are all ok. My problem is one of focus - I don't have a clear enough focus (be it meaningful or not), and so I'm meandering around doing stuff (not bad stuff, just not as useful as I could be) without a clear idea of what it's in service of. I basically need something to get my teeth into. That's my problem not someone else's. I can't talk about being accountable without taking accountability for my own focus. The question is who do I trust to help me find that focus?


The other thing I see myself doing is self framing - I feel I'm guilty of putting boxes around what I can and can't do which are self imposed. The reality is that I can (within the bounds of what we do as a firm and what I have the competency for) do pretty much anything if I put my mind to it. I've just got to make a decision what that would be in a perfect world and make it happen. Today I was lucky enough to hear Mathew Syed give a presentation on the value of marginal gains in high performing teams. Part of what he was evangelising about was the need for teams to have a growth mind-set - you've got to want to make seeing the room for improvement part of your everyday priorities. You've got to have a culture where finding those marginal gains is to be celebrated - where not succeeding is an opportunity to learn rather than to blame. Good stuff, particularly about the growth mind-set - you've got to want to win and win together. We have a way to go in the team I'm part of. Trust is a fundamental enabler of a growth mind-set and I feel it needs to be across the entire team to give us a fighting chance of high performance.


So I'll finish with some words from Shakespeare who died 400 years ago this week - "We know what we are but not what we may be" - maybe he was seeking purpose as well...

Where did that come from?!

Is it always the case that the what and why are mixed? As I'm out here, seeking some higher purpose, I realise that my thinking is confused by the fact that I'm essentially trying to find something different to do which is more engaging, and calling that a quest for purpose. Am I over thinking this whole thing??

I'd also like to make a minor retraction on the previous post following a conversation yesterday about a shared desire to do 'something different'. This person asked if it's just my mid life crisis kicking in and told a story of having walked away from a similar practice and taken 5 years out in which time he did a bunch of different things. It helped him deal with a range of attributes he'd previously struggled with, as well as some family issues I suspect, but now he's back in the thick of it. Unlike me he doesn't need to work, but chooses to. The question he was asking yesterday (one of the first really beautiful sunny days of the Spring) - why do I do this?

So why do I do this? I came home from work on Tuesday evening early enough to witness from the upstairs window a scene of domestic bliss in the garden. Glenn was mowing the lawn, happy on his ride-on, and the girls were laughing as they bounced on the trampoline at the bottom of our beautiful garden. Our garden isn't formal, it's a woodland garden with damp spots and more moss than grass, but it's lovely and this, along with our house is a big part of why I do what I do. The fact that we have renovated our house so it's just right for us on money I have earned makes me immensely proud. The fact that we can privately educate our children and give them a good start to life makes me proud. The fact that we can go on holiday, drive the cars we want, eat the food we want, wear the clothes we want - all within reason of course - makes me proud. All this also makes me very happy.  I worry sometimes that something will burst our perfect bubble, but as long as we have each other, we'll be fine. I also manage to make my days work for me and my family, I'm only in London 3 days a week and I have all the flexibility I need, when I need it. I work hard but no-one expects me to be in the office all the time, so I can move around at ease. We have our health, our happiness and our home. As an individual I am more fulfilled than I can describe.

[BTW, everybody should write down how they are blessed periodically - that filled me with positive  emotions - what a good thing to do!]

So let's try that for work. I work with great people. With only a few exceptions they are engaged, intelligent, active in body and mind, interesting people, and amongst them there are a number that I can happily say are friends as well as colleagues. We are (on paper) a purpose led organisation with great policies and the intent to do great things. We strive to do our best with our clients, who by the way are the most successful organisations on the planet and with whom we do some amazing stuff. We have good office spaces, some are better than others, and the flexibility to operate in the ways we believe fit to deliver our objectives. We offer all kinds of development activities to our people, if they can navigate the systems to find them. We care deeply about what we do, and make all kinds of personal compromises to deliver to the highest standard we can. There are pockets of true brilliance amongst us - if only we could replicate it more widely we would be unstoppable. I could now talk about what's not working, but I won't - this is an exercise in appreciative enquiry! I'm proud that for someone who couldn't have got in on A Level results to one of the Big 4, I am approaching the 10 year anniversary of making partner (first time around). It's by no means all bad.

So what and why...I attended a partner meeting this morning at which I opened my mouth and out came a well defined vision of what I want to achieve. As I was saying it part of my brain was asking:   'where is this coming from?!'  Even by my calculation it sounded rational and well thought through. I suspect all this reflection is beginning to pay some dividends as my subconscious mind sorts out the what while I question the why. Amazing how that happens really.  So if my vision is to create a Risk business which has relevance for the business transformation journeys and complex ecosystems our clients will face in an increasingly connected world, I just now need to work out how to navigate where I am to day to where I want to be. If I combine this with a purpose of a building a business which leaves a legacy of strong teaming and shared values that would be amazing. So is that my what and why.... Time to reflect!!

Is it different for girls?

 

So I've been wondering whether the quest for purpose is more dominant in women, or just the women I know. I was reflecting while out on my bike this weekend about what changed in me, and I guess some of it comes back to having had kids and wanting the time I spend away from the family to mean more than just a way of paying the mortgage and school fees. This got me thinking about why it might be different for girls, and of course one of the ways in which its different is the whole baby thing. No matter which way you look at it, it's different for girls...

Imagine two career minded people in the workplace, embarking on the biggest project of their life... the first child.

The female view (aka the Project Manager):

From the moment you decide you might want to try for a baby, it starts to take over your life. You are the Project Manager in this story. Convention states that your desire to embark on this project, along with all your fear and excitement, stays hidden until you have passed the first project milestone. In the UK that's generally the end of the first trimester so it's likely you've kept this under wraps from pretty much everybody, work or otherwise, for the best part of a year. That's a lot of time and energy to keep quiet about something so big. Of course the other key player (let's call him the Executive Sponsor) is also sworn to secrecy, but chances are he is not as consumed by the monthly go / no go decision that runs up to conception, or as affected by the rush of emotions and physical changes of those first few months. So knackered and nauseous you carry on, stating firmly to anyone who asks from work that "of course nothing changes". As your peers (and partner) keep going as normal, you increasingly get drawn into the changes that are physically and mentally now dominating your waking hours. As the project manager of this venture, you must plan meticulously for the pre-implementation activities, not knowing quite when or how go-live will actually occur. 

Post implementation support is split into 3 phases. The first is hyper-care where your partner and the health professionals are still on 24 hour call. Within 2 weeks however this moves into a more sustainable model - you're pretty much on your own. The Exec Sponsor is back at work, nothing more than a short break akin to a holiday for most, many people will not even know he's a proud father unless he chooses to share the news. For you sanity you however have to make a new network, other mums, and so starts the strange world of post natal maternity leave. In this time every option will be discussed as to 'what to do next'. Some will know they are going back to work, or not.  Others will not have a clue. You will angst about doing the right thing, knowing it's no longer just about engagement and reward. Now it has to count as well, otherwise why would you do it? And when you do step back into the workplace - post implementation phase 3 - that's another massive step, and a whole new era of decisions, compromises and adjustments.

The male view (aka the Executive Sponsor)

Clearly you are part of this team but your role is very different and the amount of control you have is naturally less. You are inevitably less connected to what's going on until it happens and even then, you are on the sidelines. You have a part to play in key decisions, as Executive Sponsor of this project you have right of veto, if you dare to exercise it, but mainly you have to trust your Project Manager to propose sensible options to get through this process. As go live draws nearer you feel the anticipation building, but even during go-live you can only do so much. Then after a mad, exciting, exhausting 2 weeks of paternity leave its back to work. The people around you may be none the wiser that this amazing project has been successfully planned and delivered. 

So what's the point of writing all of this? I think once you've been through having kids the question of professional fulfilment it is different for a women. You're naturally juggling and hence it has to count. I appreciate this is a first world problem, and many people are simply working to survive. For those of us with the luxury of more choice, purpose counts.

Purpose led in practice

So I'm writing this having come out of a meeting with someone I've never met before, feeling inspired and energised. This person told me about the journey his team had been on over the past 2 years to transform a dull IT services team into the coolest, design led, forward looking part of what is already a formidable organisation. As he told his story it all seemed so right, so simple, so obvious...but that's the point about the best innovations and designs isn't it? 


His story, simplified, was this. He was asked to take over this team which had the lowest employee and customer satisfaction  scores, at a time when there was a recognition that change was clearly required. He was initially horrified - what had he done to deserve this? Rather than sit back and sulk, or try and get out of it, he decided the only way to deal with the situation was to make it the best team it could be, one that had a very clear purpose and was so integral to the ethos of the organisation that it underpinned everything that was going on. He set out a very clear change agenda - the team was to go from being the lowest cost option to being one that was completely focused on making employees IT activities easier. His mantra was simplicity, productivity and engagement and if something didn't address at least one of these areas it wasn't worth doing. He ran focus groups to understand what worked and what didn't, used data to look at how technology was being used, and considered the supporting infrastructure. Importantly he also looked at how hardware and software made people feel - he wanted it to feel good, easy, intuitive, engaging. He used design thinking to get people to bring different capabilities to the table and create a change.


Over the past 2 years they have built employee engagement, got 1000's of people on-board, won over the dissenters, run marketing campaigns and achieved far more than he could ever have imagined. this purpose led transformation of putting the employee at the heart of everything he did was so clear, so vibrant, so engaging. The activities have gained a life of their own and now behaviours and ways of working are being tested through the use of technology and engagement tools in such a powerful way - for example challenging the efficacy of meetings - length, use of agendas, frequency etc. - who knows where that could end?!


I asked whether it was always such - did he start with such clarity? Of course he didn't - the other practical illustration I loved here was the power of story. He's clearly shared the journey many times and he did it with a practiced ease and subtle emphasis on engagement and benefits. he told it in a way that made me feel that if we all had such a singular focus on purpose, anything is possible.


Before we ended he made another powerful statement which resonated. He said we have 2 scarce resources when we come to work - time and energy. How we use these resources is down to each of us. Having the insight to know what we are all doing and how it aligns to the purpose of an organisation is hard to achieve but so powerful.


So adding to my list of reflections is consideration of how I will use my most scarce of professional resources - time and energy....oh, and whether a bot can really change my life!

Making space for nothing

I seem to have spent time this week engaged in conversations about nothing... Or more precisely, creating space for nothing in the form of mindfulness. The challenge of our day to day world is of course the amount of stuff we fill up our waking hours with. Unchecked technology, noise and life can be overwhelming, hence the current trends of mindfulness, decluttering and generally doing less to feel more.

I've not really ventured into formal mindfulness as yet. The idea of an app doesn't appeal - surely this defeats the object of creating a bit of empty space to allow creativity and reflection in, but I do appreciate that it's about creating a habit and that takes energy, commitment and prioritisation.

I'm currently reading a book about emotional agility (Susan David). The basic premise (so far) is that you need to create space between emotion and action which then allows time to make informed choices around action or intervention. It draws on the Thinking Fast & Slow concept - ie that much of our information processing is based on the intuition of many years of conditioning and experience. It's far less frequent that we stop and analyse the information and situation around us before acting. While this is super efficient it can also be flawed - and of course results in an emotional rigidity that can affect our ability to grow and properly assess the full range of options open to us. If no two situations are ever truly the same then should we embrace each day with a 'beginners mind' in order to truly life life to its fullest extent?

In reality, this is probably more aspirational than achievable. Unless you are the Dalai Lama I suspect most of us have to accept that in order to get through the day there is a lot you have to accept will come from the unconscious and just get it done. The question for me as I try and develop myself and my thinking around this, is can I be more aware of the situations where I or others would benefit from a beginners mind approach. Can I leave my bias and conditioned responses at the door to allow a different set of thoughts and feelings in? And how to do this?

The concepts introduced on our OD course resonate greatly here. The exploration of the process layer and all that might go unsaid but is vital in how people hear, react and embrace (or not) the bias and behaviours they are subject to in delivering the organisational objectives. For me this is fundamental. My world has a huge amount of autonomy built in with limited shared goals beyond the blunt ones I've spoken about previously. We talk about being purpose led, but I don't see that purpose binding us together today. Part of that is where we are operating- ie primarily in the content and procedure layers and with a fast thinking mentality.

My challenge to myself is to see if I can create this space between emotion and action. To stop and assess 'how am I? how am I feeling?' as I do what I need to do. In doing this I want to explore whether I can pinpoint the areas where my passion and emotion is stronger, indicators of where, with a little more focus, I could start to unpick this idea of a purpose led me.

The crux of the issue

We all have places or ways where its easier to reach those depths of thinking which allow us to get beyond the everyday noise and into what's really going on. There's been so much focus on mindfulness and apps which can help you find inner peace... for me using an app is defeating the point - for me mindfulness is about getting away from technology and finding a window of space and time where my thoughts can flow unbidden. For me, that's generally when I'm moving.


Exercise is such an important part of my overall wellbeing. Whether it's walking the dogs, running, cycling or swimming, these times allow my mind to wander while my body works. I find this a much more effective way of thinking through what matters, or indeed just finding some time to reflect.


So yesterday was a perfect opportunity, out on my bike with only myself for company. I've started listening to podcasts while cycling for long distances - more than 3 hours of my own thoughts gets a bit much. This said, I may have to reconsider as if I'm listening to something then I'm not thinking, or maybe it's food for thought given the subject matters are wide ranging and varied. Either way, yesterday I got lost and my phone battery ran out so I had to resort to my own thoughts and I was reflecting on why I'm so convinced I need to do something different professionally. I'm pretty sure it's not a whole scale change  much of what I do I enjoy, but it's clear to me that change is required - the restlessness is getting greater and I can feel myself checking out. I was challenging myself as to what I would say, how will I explain, my reasons why I would leave where I am today.  After a number of miles it came down to this:


In our partnership (let's make it personal, this isn't true of all I'm sure), the leading metrics are those that impact our reported numbers of revenue and Total Income per Partner. This latter one is all important as for years we were out of the pack and having finally got up to the level of our competitors we are very reluctant to let go. In an increasingly commoditised consulting market where margin is declining the only way to keep the TIPP number high is to innovate or increase the amount of chargeable time we get out of our people. Innovation is costly and must be paid for, so people need to work harder. 


Now all of this makes sense - many organisations are looking to maximise profit and in fact there is an obligation on the directors of a listed organisation to maximise shareholder returns. The subtlety I struggle with is that in a corporate environment everyone can benefit - all employee are eligible to purchase shares and hence benefit from the increasing value of the organisation and their efforts. There is a long term view - benefits are split between cash and shares and so it pays to balance thinking about the long term sustainability of the organisation as well as short term returns,
A partnership is closed and therefore its the partners that benefit. While staff should benefit through bonus schemes and benefits, these are capped and will be squeezed to ensure that magic TIPP number is reported favourably. It's all about the in year number and our reward is as short term as the focus - one feeds the other.


Am I naïve, I don't know. I just feel intrinsically that the Big 4 partnership model of massive returns is under threat. I don't believe we look after our staff as well as we might given their contribution to these huge returns and in doing so we disengage them. the model has relied for many years on the next generation of hopeful partner candidates working incredibly hard to try and secure their own place, but is this changing? Is the next generation disillusioned and looking for more balance, more diversity, more parity?


A final point about passion - at work that is rather than elsewhere... I'm avidly soaking up podcasts and articles about purpose and passion. I liked this one from Jim Whitehouse, CEO of Red Hat:


For me, a passionate employee is someone who pays attention to the what and the how of the company’s strategies and tactics, someone who is involved and curious and who constantly questions what the company is doing and their own role in making it successful. And they do that not because someone ordered them to, but because they want to. That’s the kind of intrinsic reward today’s workers seek out, not the lavish perks or financial bonuses that we mistakenly assumed motivated workers of the past.


For example, at Red Hat, where I serve as president and CEO, we have at least three associates who are so passionate about our company’s role in changing the world through open source technology that they have gotten a tattoo of “Shadowman,” the icon wearing a red fedora in our company logo. How many companies can say the same? That’s a level of permanence and sense of mission that no economist could ever have predicted with a chart.


Now that is a measure of success!

Who am I?

This weekend I had an interesting conversation with Abi, 9, about Imposter Syndrome and the feelings we all experience about being the only one who doesn't quite fit. She was setting off on her first properly independent trip - a whole week away staying at a riding stables where she will be responsible for her own pony all week. She was natuarally worried that everyone else would know what they were doing, that she wouldn't be as good as them and that as a result she would be the problem child. Of course in reality she would neither have been invited to attend, nor would I have allowed it had she not been more than capable. The only person not ready for this is me - letting her go was hard, mainly because it's another step towards her growing up and it feels so quick.

When I relate this to work I see the same fears and lack of self belief everywhere. It's the reason I left practice the first time, and probably a big part of why I came back - to prove to myself and others that I was capable of performing at this level. The strange thing for me is that I find myself nearly 2 years down the line knowing that I'm capable - I now have the maturity to see that I'm a very capable partner, sort after for both client work and as a role model and leader. My problem is slightly different - my imposter syndrome is about the goals we set and my interest in them.

When I think about purpose, I look for some common value to more than a small group of people. For example a high street store has social value in the provision of goods, jobs and a consumer experience that is part of the fabric of the developed world (one can debate the morality of this when so much of the world has so little another day). It also provides shareholder return in respect of its results and network worth. The Tata Steel debate threw up an interesting question this morning as to whether we value manufacturing jobs more than service ones. I'm not sure but I do know that I found more purpose working for a company that made something than one that delivers professional services. But more so, my problem is one of the proportional number of beneficiaries and the longevity. In my world the very few (i.e. Partners) benefit from the many and it's mostly about in year benefit. I'm not so naive that I don't recognise that in any corporate environment the wealth of the C-Suite is massive disproportionate to the shop floor, but at least they are rewarded  over a longer period and have a legacy in the shares they carry beyond employment.

I feel I'm one of the few who struggles with this dilemma. In reality the imposter syndrome that affects me is likely more common than I would believe. I do like the rewards so I am also disingenuous in this respect - if I had a real problem I would offer my services to a more deserving organisation that pays everyone the same. I'm not doing that...so my problem is a more deep routed one.

So deep down, I think the question is actually one of stimulus. If I'm completely honest the content of my job appeals in my ways, but the ways in which I'm measured doesn't. I heard today that this is recognised and could be under consideration - I guess I have an obligation to myself to follow that up. Worth pursuing all lines of enquiry before I throw in the towel.