Day 13 – 20 January 2014
I’m back at Meadowfield this morning, partly to see how they are getting on and partly to have a face to face meeting with Bob (though he didn’t want a mention in the blog, he’s quite happy to have fallen below the Google radar) – a 121 as we call them. I speak to my management team regularly. I try to communicate with them on a daily basis yet there is no substitution for taking some time out for just the two of us to chew the cud.
I always say that we have three jobs: the one that we are paid for (the tasks and outcomes); being part of the team and; developing ourselves. All three require attention yet we tend to think of ourselves last. How are we ever going to deliver anything if we don’t work on developing ourselves? Our conversations during the week are mostly task oriented and so the 121s are an opportunity to focus on the other strands.
Bob’s is not the first 121 I have had this year but he and his team have had a lot of accommodation change over the New Year and there is possibly more to come. I cannot get worked up about where people are based. We should work where we are needed, ideally in and amongst our customers but I know it is not that easy. To a degree we all need to feel secure and understand how we fit into an organisation and so accommodation changes needed to be handled sensitively.
I reminded myself that ‘Be an agile service’ is number 6 on the ten things I had set out to achieve this year and so today was a good place to focus.
By the way, the operation at Meadowfield is looking very good.
In the afternoon we held our first Resources Extended Management Team meeting of the year. The Resources service grouping is made up of Finance, HR, Legal, Audit and ourselves. We had two retirees and one new starter. Each of the Heads of Service was asked to give a quick update and I talked about data, productive time, security and of course agile (well it was on my mind).
Two volunteer tier 4 managers gave us a flavour of what they get up to. Kevin from Occupational Health told us about his trip to Muddy Mayhem as team building exercise, perhaps Health and Safety isn’t as dry as it may seem. Ian runs Revs and Bens although he felt that it should really be called something else (he didn’t say what but a few humorous suggestions were made). Basically they make assessments and either collect or pay out money. The Welfare Reform agenda is having a major impact upon his team as it is upon Durham. It was good to hear about passionate people filling vital roles.
This was a nice segue as this meeting was sandwiched between two more of my get-to-know-you sessions with this group. I knew both of whom quite well already. Brit works in Finance and is leading on the Oracle R12 upgrade, among other things and Darren heads up our Procurement team. He reminded me that the small things are very important.
Learning points for today: I now know who my MEPs are; People can be emotionally attached to the place where they work; Perspectives can be very different from reality (or is that my perspective); Everyone has a lot going on and; The value of support services is huge but often goes unnoticed.
Today’s enjoyment rating 9/10
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 