Never go back

They say that you should never go back, at least when it comes to work. It won’t be long before you remember why you left in the first place. Yet I have, in a way, gone back.

Six months after I stepped down as a director of UKC3 I have agreed to go back, not as a director but to offer some limited support over the summer. One of the remaining directors, the one responsible for finance and governance has stepped down and the board felt that they could do with some help until a full review of the board structure takes place in the coming months.

I hummed and hawed about it for a while before finally saying yes because I am trying to cut down rather than increase my workload, trying to ease my way out of work rather than back in and having left was somewhat reluctant to go back (see above). Eventually I said yes, partly because I wanted to help, I have fond memories of working at UKC3 and believe in what they are working to achieve. The other part is because UKC3 is important to CyberNorth and anything I can do to help the relationship is grist to the mill.  

So here I am, helping out. Much is the same since I left yet there are things that have changed and it has been a short but steep learning curve to understand where the organisation is now and what help is needed. 

Now for the challenging bit, how to help out and manage the obvious potential conflict of interest. Nearly everyone involved in UKC3 has some role in their own cluster and so managing conflicts of interest is part of the board process, yet I am not on the board. I am going to be party to information that the directors have and that, as an ordinary cluster member, I wouldn’t. I have been very careful to recuse myself from any decision making meetings so that I cannot influence decisions that can affect CyberNorth. I need to maintain the air gap between advice and influence.

It’s early days and things are going well so far, yet with so much going on, a week is a long time at UKC3.