Week6 - Range
Published: 21 February 2020
I took the role of ‘master of ceremonies’ at a recent full FG team meeting and started by sharing some key messages from the management team. One of these went along the lines of ‘Hey February is shaping up to be pretty dang BUSY! let’s have each others backs, look after yourselves, think ahead/anticipate, communicate…’ etc etc. This week I’m finishing with my own words echoing around in my brain. Just like buses - tasks, challenges and opportunities can arrive all at once and sometimes without much warning. It’s been great to see the whole team rise to the challenge.
I’ve definitely felt things step up a gear. The mental load of constantly re-prioritising, communicating and navigating complexity across multiple contexts has felt a little tiring. As much as it’s felt tough my workload has involved an interesting mix of contributing to work in the here and now but also laying groundwork and putting plans in place that will have longer term impact and benefit. In the few moments where I’ve paused there is a lot of great work we can be excited and proud of.
There have though been a couple of situations where in reflection I could/should have acted differently or done better. I feel I may have let a couple of people down. Annoyingly I still haven’t mastered not being too harsh on myself when I make these mistakes. I need to build in better ways to test whether this is just me not meeting my own high expectations or if this is also other people’s perceptions of these events. I plan to loop back around next week with those I fear I may have annoyed to test this out. Regardless of this I made it through a busy week largely with my mind and body in tact - I’m very thankful for colleagues who have had my back, rallied with support when I’ve asked for it, been flexible, understanding and patient. My backlog for next week still feels challenging so the priority for the weekend is resting up & recharging.
Other thoughts…
In addition to doing a great job of re-stocking my sticker collection this week Jukesie posted some thoughts on the power of multi-hyphenates. Judging by the reactions on twitter it resonated with me and quite a few people who find themselves in similar job roles. It’s taken me quite some time to actually appreciate that being a π (pi) shaped person with a range of skills and experiences across a few disciplines is actually a strength and not necessarily something that makes me less than those who are expert in an individual discipline. I’ve recently been giving some thought to my personal development though and I’m really interested in picking something that I already have some experience in and going much deeper. What I’m wrestling with is which particular area would I want to choose to add depth in? I don’t have answers yet, it needs more thought - I’ve started listening to Range by David Epstein (audiobooks work well for me) which seemingly explores this subject in a bit more detail and I’m hoping alongside some research into a variety of options it will help bring some clarity.
Photo of the week…
Top tunes…
I’m back to Bastille - Specifically the This got out of hand edition of Doom Days which has a great mix of melancholy but married with some great uplifting orchestral support.
