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Helping leaders who want to take some of the hard work out of achieving results

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It’s still all change at 14 Albion Way.  The back of the house is changing dramatically as the kitchen window is replaced with doors.

This week Wills has been removing brick work so that on Wednesday night I slept with a hole in the back of the house.  It was covered with large sheets of board, which made me realise just how much insulation the bricks provide.

Yesterday (Thursday) morning the window came out leaving the kitchen exposed to the elements.  Leaving the house at 11am to conduct an assessment I dusted myself off – the dust is everywhere! – and walked away not knowing quite how much progress would be made during the day.  I was, though, confident that supper would be very simple!

I started this series of postings with the intention of celebrating so many people who have contributed to my life since I set up my own business in 2002.  Today I am celebrating Jason Stein at Heart of Business in the US.  Jason has been an extraordinary source of support this year as I explore how best to market my work.  I want to make it easy and simple for those people to find me who most value my help.  With Jason’s help I have come to the simple statement to describe my niche:  that I help leaders who want to take some of the hard work out of achieving results.  It’s so simple that I have been hesitating to put it out there.

I wonder, how does it land with you?

Taking a moment to reflect

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The kitchen is not photogenic right now.  The kitchen sink has been moved temporarily.  There will be a new sink in the position it now holds – but not yet.  The fridge has also been moved though not yet to the position that will be occupied by the new (larger) fridge.  Gary and Wills are rearranging the plumbing to be ready for the new layout.  They have also been building the frame of the new door that will be at the end of the kitchen.  This is the stage where the old kitchen has largely been dismantled and foundations are being laid for the future building of the new kitchen.

I have been happily working around this, though it does present challenges.  Gary and Wills have been understanding about the need at times to avoid the noisy work so that I can field coaching calls.  At times I, too, need to understand that in my normally peaceful home office I will hear the background noise of a kitchen in progress and field the occasional interruption.  As I write I hear the noise of a drill.  We are getting clever about filling the kettle ahead of turning the water off and I am enjoying the excuse to nip out at lunch for a sandwich (though M&S’ salmon and cucumber is beginning to wane).

I have adapted my pattern of work to some degree and am going gently on myself:  this is not the time for radical new thinking or for projects that demand deep concentration.  Instead, I take a moment to reflect.

I am so blessed in my work.  Yesterday the opportunity to explore with one client her response to the conclusions of an assessment I conducted recently – and this in the supportive frame of helping her to progress her career.  The day before working in partnership with coaching clients, fielding and and working with whatever comes.  Some are looking for practical ways forward with the knotty issues of their lives as leaders. Others are looking for someone to witness and support their inner process.  All are looking to move forward in their lives.  It is still amazing to me that I can be paid to do something I feel deeply privileged to do.

As I sit and reflect – and even in the midst of drilling and background banter – I sink into the experience of needs met.  In this moment I feel a deep sense of gratitude and peace.  It’s always available to me.

Meet the workers

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In recent days, I have been writing about progress in my kitchen.  Today, I thought it’s time to introduce the workers – Gary and Wills.


Gary – camera shy – is nonetheless in the house

Gary has proven rather camera-shy, so I offer this photo of his coat and scarf, sitting in the dining room.  I first met Gary in the late 80s when I was furnishing my first home and he had a furniture shop in Blackheath.  Stripped pine was all the rage – the cupboard in the photo is one I bought from Gary.  Later, he closed his shop and started to offer his skills in the home.  Painter and decorator is definitely too narrow a label.  Interior designer is a label Gary shuns.  Nonetheless, he combines a talent for design with a vast array of practical skills.

Amongst the moments I have most enjoyed in working with Gary are those moments where we disagree.  I think “you can’t possibly strip back a wall to the bare bricks” but Gary says “let’s try it and see – we can always plaster over it if you don’t like it”.  We do, and the effect is wonderful.  Gary says, “You can’t possibly paint a bathroom purple” and here, too, we try it and see – my deep purple bathroom has often been admired in recent years.  I recognise that my creative self is well and truly indulged in the process of working together and balanced with Gary’s creativity, wealth of experience and practical skills.

Wills – Gary’s co-worker and right hand man

Wills is less camera-shy.  He and Gary are working together in my kitchen as they have done in the past.  Wills is hard-working, diligent and easy to get along with.  Last week I enjoyed watching Wills open up the fire-place and I appreciate the care he has taken to minimise the passage of dust into the rest of the house.  He and Gary seem to me like brothers – Gary, especially knows how to “wind up” his work companion and Wills seems easily to take the bate.  I enjoy having them in the house.

In the spirit of celebrating, I take a moment to reflect on how deeply in I trust Gary and how much I appreciate his contribution in my life.  It’s not just that I enjoy the work he does for me – which alone would be enough.  He has been a key-holder of my home for the last twenty years, as he has of many other clients.  His work contributes to my need for beauty and creativity.  I enjoy his sense of fun and play.  I love having practical support.

If only it were not so early in the morning, I might want to raise a glass to Gary and Wills.

Getting started in the kitchen

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There is a fine layer of dust throughout the house today.  Work on the kitchen has started.  Gary and Wills have taken great care to minimise the passage of dust from the kitchen to the rest of the house, creating a cover for the door which Heath Robinson would surely admire.  Even so, we know from experience that dust will travel.

One of the aims yesterday (Day 1) was to reveal the chimney breast.  It may be possible to make a feature of the bare brick work.

The initial work reveals a bit of a mixed picture:  the brickwork is not as pretty as it can sometimes be.  By the time I get to see it, Gary and Wills have already come up with a plan B – suggestions about how to display some of the brick work whilst repairing and covering some that really isn’t attractive.

By the end of the day, the unused pipe has been removed and some of the brick work has been stripped back on the adjacent wall with the aim of sealing it and varnishing it so that it can stay bare.  By the time they leave the house, Gary and Wills have popped the cooker back in place, cleaned the surface and uncovered the sink and surrounding area so that I have the use of the kitchen after they’ve gone.

Whilst they have been working, I have been reflecting on the years I have spent in the house.  During this time I have taken decisions to set up my own business, to study neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and nonviolent communication (NVC), to train as a coach… all decisions that I didn’t foresee when I moved in in January, 2000.  I didn’t anticipate the decisions, I didn’t anticipate the deep learning that would come with the decisions.  I have experienced the almost paradoxical combination of living at the edge of my comfort zone and beyond and becoming increasingly connected and comfortable with myself.

I couldn’t have done this without support.  Some of it has been professional – working with a number of wonderful coaches over the last ten years, taking courses, as well as the support of Hoss, my wonderful accountant at Brooks Carling.  So much of it has come from friends and colleagues, including some I have met along the way.

My family, too, have been an enduring presence.  If ever there’s an advanced school of learning, it is in the family.  Sometimes my experiences of family have stimulated me to explore new ways of doing things.  Sometimes I have applied new learnings in the context of my family – whether they like it or not.  Often, they have been on tenterhooks – how would I fare as the owner and director of my own business…?

As I write, I take a moment to sit with the sense of gratitude I feel for so much support in my life.  I am reaching for words to describe what it means to me and find them inadequate in this moment.

Kitchen adventures

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It’s functional, but it’s not pretty.

I’ve been without an internet connection for five whole days.  Nightmare!  I was almost thirty years old before I made any significant use of a computer.  Now, I use it every working day.  I have been doing my best to keep up in recent days using the tiny screen and keyboard of my Blackberry.

I’ve been itching to post.  I am about to embark on a long overdue adventure:  replacing my old kitchen.  I can’t begin to tell you how excited I feel!  When I say old, I really mean old…  When I moved into my home in January, 2000, the kitchen was already in need of an update.  My friend Alan drew the the picture below when he visited.

Even in 2000, my friends knew it had to go…

The trouble is, the rest of the house was also in need of an update.  Oh!  And in 2002 I took a decision I had not foreseen earlier – to leave full time employment and set up my own business.  Setting up Learning for Life (Consulting) took time, energy – including emotional energy – and all sorts of resources.  And in the meantime, believe it or not, I got used to the kitchen.

In recent weeks, planning for this transformation, I have been acutely aware of how grateful I feel to so many people in my life.  So many people have supported me on the great adventure of the last ten years.  I thought I’d share this kitchen adventure with you along with my thanks.  I’ll be sharing photos, ups and downs, and thank yous over the coming days.

Please share your comments.  I value your support.

We will remember them

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11am on Friday, 11th November, 2011.  In many places there is silence right now, as people remember those who have died in war.

Growing up with this ritual, I found it meaningful to remember those who had died in what we call the First and Second World Wars with the intention of recognising the horror of war and of seeking to avoid war in the future.

Now, it pains me to reflect on how much war there is now in the world and how Great Britain’s politicians have been proactive in embarking on conflict at the expense of many lives.

This is what I reflect on right now.

Ten years after the day that became known as 9/11

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It was bound to happen.  Ten years after the day that became known as 9/11, the events of 11 September 2001 have been extensively revisited.  I have been aware of television programmes, radio programmes.  Today I heard a review of a drama on the subject.

So many things have been in my thoughts.  In recent days, I have become aware of facts that were previously unknown to me.  Almost 3,000 people died as a result of the events of that day, for example, of whom about 46 were twins.  I have been struck by occasional glimpses of testimony and especially by the woman – mother of one of those who died – who said her life ended on that day.  I wonder if she knows that, insofar as this is true, it reflects choices she has made rather than some inevitable reality.  I remember the shock of the seeing the first images of the twin towers with flames and smoke billowing from them and finding it hard to comprehend that no, this was not some disaster movie but real life.  I think of so many other events that escape our attention and which, still, affect so many people around the world.

As it happens, just as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, my dear friend Len Williamson sends through a link to an 11-minute talk by Julia Bacha on TED.  Take a look at what Julia Bacha has to say about the world’s interest in nonviolence, he writes, and I do.  Bacha highlights how one community in Palestine successfully used peaceful demonstrations to persuade Israel to move the boundary away from their lands and onto the official ‘green line’ boundary.  She also highlights how little the world’s media does to cover nonviolent action.  If you want your cause to be heard, it may help to use violence.

For better, for worse, those behind the attacks on America’s Twin Towers in New York and on the Pentagon  in Washington, D.C. wanted to be heard.  If Bacha is right in what she says, there’s just one thing we need to do if we want something different going forward:  to let go of paying attention to violent protest and to train our attention on those who speak to their cause by the means of nonviolent action.

I say amen to that, even whilst recognising that I, too, have a way to go in learning to ignore the violence and to engage without fail in that which is not violent.

Enjoying Beethoven? After the event

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Matthew Rose, Paul Groves, Sarah Connolly and Helena Juntunen

If you’re quick, you can still catch Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis on BBC iPlayer following Sunday’s performance as part of the Prom series – just follow this link.

I say this with a little trepidation – as a member of the London Symphony Chorus I was on the concert platform and feeling just a little anxious on the night so I know I gave a slightly less than optimum performance.  The thought of being seen on screen giving anything less than the perfect performance is not easy for me.

And even as I share this, I am fully aware of the folly of such a high expectation:  performance is, by it’s nature, a bit of a messy business – a perfect entry here, a less than perfect ending there.  To think this way is also a form of vanity – as if the experience of members of the audience depends on me and me alone.  In truth, the end result is the sum of the parts just as it is in any other “workplace”.

If the feedback of friends and family is anything to go by, there was enjoyment to be had regardless of any nerves, mistakes and omissions.  Some played “Spot the Dot”  and others bathed in the magnificence of Beethoven’s music.  And equally, I notice how much – as I watch the recording – I enjoy seeing my colleagues sing and with no thought of any mistakes they may be making.

Such is life!  There is always a gap between our perceptions of ourselves and the perceptions others have of us.  There is, too, the risk that we believe our own story about what others might think.

The mistakes are done and nothing about the performance will change.  Still, there is much to enjoy.  The question is:  will I choose to enjoy it?

Meditating: a personal experience

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Monday morning.  When my alarm goes off it interrupts a seemingly interminable dream of the not-so-pleasant variety.

In the dream, I turn up at 7pm prompt ready to sing in a concert.  I open my bag to find that everything I expect to take out of it – my music, my concert clothes – are not there.  It seems that we are singing with a second choir who have things organised – they are able to offer me a black top with the regulatory below-the-elbows sleeves.  I ask if anyone has a skirt or trousers and several people tell me they’ll check – before disappearing into the dream ether.  I look around me and find the entire contents of my wardrobe seem to be at hand – except, that is, anything black.  7.30pm comes and I discover the concert doesn’t start until 8pm – I have an extra half hour to fill the gaps.  Except that I don’t manage to fill the gaps:  I just have more time in which to feel stressed and run around trying to find clothes and music unsuccessfully.

Waking, I notice how some details of the dream are totally true to life (the bag I open at the beginning of the dream is one I’m using a lot right now) and others are strangely off beam (I am always ready for a 7.30pm concert in time for our warm up, which is usually at about 6.40pm).  Others are, of course, figments of the dream-state imagination.  I also reflect that it’s not surprising to have had this dream at this time.  It’s not just that I am returning to work after a break and face the prospect of several weeks of busy-ness at work and in my hobby as a singer.  It’s also that in the past week my dreams have indeed been varied and vivid.

This seems to have been a side-effect of my time spent at Oxon Hoath on retreat.  This was a brief sojourn – I arrived on Tuesday afternoon and left after lunch on Friday.  Still, I have been meditating up to five times a day.  In the morning, I have done two full meditation rounds before breakfast, comprising ‘asanas’ (simple yoga exercises – not nearly as stretching as the one shown, though this photo tickled me rather), ‘pranayama’ breathing, meditation and a gentle return.  We have also meditated as a group before lunch and then, in the afternoon, I have enjoyed two more meditation rounds.

What does the meditation comprise?  After the preparatory asanas and pranayama breathing, I close me eyes and repeat a mantra that has been given to me by my teacher – over and over for a full twenty minutes.  The effect is a slowing and deepening of my breathing.  As my thoughts arise I simply let them go, returning to the mantra.  Sometimes my thoughts are active – a kind of inner chatter.  Sometimes, my mind is more still.

In our shared discussions, people get to ask all sorts of questions which range from questions about the experience of meditating to questions about the body of spiritual teaching from which the approach springs.  Questions about meditation can reflect or stimulate a certain anxiety (am I doing it right?) which spring from the belief that somehow there is such a thing as the perfect meditation to which we can all aspire.  It reminds me of discussions about sex, except that the word “transcend” replaces the word “orgasm”.  My teachers have always, however, highlighted that every experience is OK.

My own experience seems quite mundane in the moment – a gentle falling away of inner chatter and an increasing sense of peace.  It’s easy to tell myself that in some way I am falling short.  My vivid dreams tell me, though, that something is happening – some release of stress, perhaps, or a greater connection with self.  And if this is the result of just two days’ meditation, how much more is possible over time?  For doesn’t it make sense that, like exercise, the effects of meditating on a regular basis are cumulative, like exercise or gardening?

In truth, even the act of arranging my schedule to make it possible to meditate has an effect.  By doing this I am giving priority to a certain way of being, perhaps even to being over doing.  For to a greater or lesser extent, the act of meditating brings me to greater stillness within myself, or opens my awareness to the greater stillness that is already within.

There were riots outside my front door today

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There were riots outside my front door today.  This is not something I ever thought I’d say.

As I left my home office at the back of the house at about 6pm this evening I was surprised to notice the number of people lingering outside in the normally quiet side-street in which I live.  Looking down the street I was shocked to see police in riot gear.

The scenes that followed were not pretty.  The police were significantly outnumbered by the people on the street, who looked young, included many black men – and white men and women, too.  They started to seek out items they could throw – the local dustbins, wheely bins, items from front gardens (including mine).

Most of the projectiles were aimed at the police.  Soon, though, the small number of cars parked on the street became targets.  First one window was broken.  Then another.  Over time the cars went from being a side show to becoming the main attraction as it became increasingly clear that there was a determination amongst the rioters to set them alight.  Soon they had succeeded and, given the fire hazard, it was time for the rioters to move on.

For a while I sat indoors wondering if it was safe to be in the rooms overlooking the street.  Then I ventured out to ask the police if it was safe to pop down the road for some food and fresh air.  They encouraged me to stay safely at home, in case the rioters returned.  As I returned home, two young men were in front of my gate and I asked if I could come through and encouraged them to get away from the proximity of the still burning cars.  We got talking.

Were you involved this evening?  I asked.  No, not us, we’re good boys.  We’re just covering up our faces because we don’t want to risk losing our jobs if we’re seen.  But they (pointing to the police) – they’ve got to understand that if they keep taking our jobs away, we’re going to do something – they’ve got to understand.

When they announced there were riots in Lewisham on the 7pm news bulletin I knew to give my Mum a ring and to pop a status update on Facebook.  People have been leaving messages all evening and the phone has not stopped ringing.  It’s a touching reminder of the love people have for me.  As the evening has unfolded I have been watching the BBC 24-hour news of riots in Lewisham, Peckham, Hackney, Croydon, Birmingham.

The phrase “mindless thugs” has been used so many times.  The risk is clear.  Young people crying out to be heard are dismissed by the simple use of a label.  And because they are not being heard, they shout louder.  The police, seeking to do the best for their community, are also not being heard.  Neither side is able to see beyond the label – “police”, “rioters”, “thugs”… with each new label we become a little less human in each others’ eyes.

I want to be clear.  I do not favour the kind of action these young people took this evening and I want them to be held accountable.  At the same time, I want them to be heard.  It seems to me that this is a time for sorting the wheat from the chaff, until we have stripped away the acts of mindless destruction – perhaps even the violence on both sides – to understand the real concerns on all sides.

For me, though, right now, it’s time to sleep.  My dreams cannot be any stranger than the reality of this evening’s events.