Tag Archives: personal reflections

Bring on the year ahead!

About Dorothy,
Britain weather: despite deluge, ministers tell us to do more to save water

It’s been a strange week.  In the midst of drought Britain has seen more rain in recent days than I can remember for a long time – and even the odd tornado.  I have been waiting for gaps in the rain to take my beloved seedlings outside for toughening up in their mini-greenhouse (and keeping an eye on the winds lest they get blown away).

My birthday on Tuesday was much as I expected it.  I took time to have an indulgent breakfast – coffee and a bacon butty (strictly against the doctor’s orders) before I started to work.  Edward, my nephew, was also up in time to join me in opening cards and presents on our shared birthday.  Then I took to my study to pore over notes from an interview I conducted last week.  First I pulled together my evidence and decided on the ratings against the client’s competency model and then, after lunch, I wrote the report and sent it off.  It was all finished in time for me to bring those seedlings indoors and go off to choir for rehearsal in the evening.  On the way back I bought myself a McChicken burger – not so much a birthday treat as a late-evening ‘what on earth shall I eat?’ decision.  Even after all these years, I still struggle to know what to eat and when on choir evenings.

And yes, there were cards and messages on Facebook and more besides.  I phoned Mum on my way to choir who told me she’d been awake at ten minutes past midnight remembering my birth.  I came home to a message on the phone from my younger brother and his family – singing happy birthday down the phone.  (My nephew, aged six, was doing at least as much giggling as singing).  The cards and messages have continued to arrive as the week has gone on including one from a lost friend who looked me up on the world wide web and dropped me an unexpected line.  And celebrations will continue today with the arrival of my mother and my niece and her husband and a birthday trip to the Spice of Life Indian restaurant.

At the same time, I have been grappling with some kind of low-level flu-like bug which has left me feeling rather weak.  There have been moments when it has felt as though my joints were on fire.  Yesterday, when all my reports were written and signed off I checked my diary and asked myself:  is there anything that can’t wait until next week?  When I decided there wasn’t I took myself to bed for an afternoon sleep.  Later, I got up and walked around the garden and realised that, feeling so weak, there was no way I would be going to choir.  I curled up at home and went to bed ready to resume that sleep.  Today I feel refreshed – and still glad the weekend lies ahead.

I wouldn’t change a bit of it.  In the end, a rich life is made up of tiny details as much as it is of its significant events.  As I finish the week I am celebrating with a glad and peaceful heart.  Bring on the year ahead!

Inviting you to the spiritual practice of resting

All articles
Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work:  But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.


Deuteronomy
Chapter 5, verses 13 and 14



Every now and then I have trouble sleeping, as I did on Saturday night.  I woke up at about 2 or 3am and struggled to get back to sleep.  No worrying thoughts.  Just an awareness of being tired and yet awake.  I did what I do on these occasions – got up, made myself a cuppa, enjoyed a read for a while and then went back to bed and slept like a baby.  If you read my post on Tuesday you already know that I enjoyed a good lie-in on Sunday morning.


It wasn’t enough.  On Monday, after a slightly late night and a good night’s sleep, I woke up feeling tired and yearning for more sleep.  Almost as soon as I woke up I realised that, had I taken a moment to think ahead, I would have done well to book this week for a break.  Too late – I already had appointments in my diary throughout the week.


It has been relatively restful this week.  Realising how tired I am I have focused on those things that are time sensitive and re-scheduled anything that can wait.  I’ve slept later.  Still, it has been relatively restful but not quite rest.  I am looking forward to four days when I shall put work to one side to spend time with my family, to tend my garden and, well, to rest.


In the Christian and Jewish calendars, the seventh day is prescribed as a day of rest, in line with the commandments which are said to have been handed to Moses by God.  Rest is, in this sense, a spiritual practice and has significance alongside other key practices.  Now you may not be a Christian or a Jew.  You may have no religious faith.  Still, I invite you to pause for a moment to ask yourself:  shall I be putting aside my work this weekend and allowing myself to rest?  If the answer is no, I invite you to ask yourself why.  Perhaps your profession is such that you need, at times, to work when others are not working.  Perhaps you have a key deadline that means that this year, for once, you will be taking some time over the break to work.  Perhaps work is your haven from difficulties at home – a way to keep out of the way of your unhappy marriage or to excuse your absence from a family gathering.  Your reasons have a story to tell – if only you are listening.


I invite you, too, to ask yourself:  do I need time to rest this weekend?  In case the answer is ‘yes’, I invite you to listen.

Making the case for child labour

All articles
Last week it was my turn to offer a post for the HRUK group on Linkedin, which is also published at http://discusshr.blogspot.com/.  The postings are designed to stimulate discussion amongst professionals in the world of Learning and Development and human Resources.  Here it is:

Sometimes, it takes personal experience to bring home the challenges that we face in society at large.  So it is that, in recent months, a number of personal experiences have brought home to me the plight of young people in our current times.
About 18 months ago a young friend, newly graduated, took up a teaching job in China.  He is one of a generation of young people who are at a loss to find suitable work despite doing everything they were told to do (“work hard, get a good education”) to succeed.  His experience was reinforced more recently when I spoke to a family friend, mother of two graduates – one of whom has subsequently trained as a barrister – who have both been unemployed for three years since leaving education.  Even the local supermarkets have said no to employing them because they are “over-qualified” for the jobs available.
And yes, last years’ riots (which I mentioned in my December posting) also brought home the challenges young people face.  I wrote on the day of the riots about an encounter with two young people who were lingering outside my front door after the rioters had left.  I asked them if they’d been involved:
“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”.
I look back on my own formative years and realise how much I have to be grateful for.  From a young age I had opportunities to earn money.  I contributed half the cost of my first trip abroad (aged 14) from those earnings, which came from babysitting, from selling mushrooms which I picked on my parents’ farm before going to school, and from other work I did around the farm.
Later, aged 16 or so, I had a Saturday job at a department store some ten miles away, catching the bus to and from work.  During my university years I spent holidays working at an old peoples’ home as Deputy Manager (something that, in retrospect, I can hardly believe) and, one year, doing the grape harvest in France.  I was an au pair in Austria before I started my degree course and taught English in a French school for a year as part of my degree.  In Austria I also taught English to one of my neighbour’s children.  In France I tutored the son of an English family due to return to the UK as he prepared to take GCSEs.
From an early age there was unpaid work, too – what often get called “chores”.  At home these included such things as laying the table and washing up after meals.  In my last year at school I undertook to turn on the oven that warmed the plates for lunch at the beginning of each school day.  At secondary school the prefects system conferred responsibility.  By the time I left home I had at least some awareness of what it takes to manage my finances and to maintain a home.  I’ve often thought of myself as particularly naive about the world of work during my formative years – I know now of many career paths which I could have taken then and of which I was just not aware at the time.  Still, by the time I left full-time education I had experienced a variety of work.
Of course, the world has moved on since my childhood.  And still, I wonder what messages we need to take from these experiences that might still apply today.  Here are my first thoughts:
  • I see a need for humility amongst the adults whose responsibility it is to contribute to children and young adults as they prepare for adult life and the world of work.  The world today is different from the world we grew up in and tomorrow’s world will be different again.  Imagining we know the answers for our children may go some way towards assuaging our fears and still, in the end, our role is to help young people find their own way in this ever-changing world;
  • We all have a desire – a need, even – to contribute to others.  Letting children play a role in the house from an early age supports them in meeting this need, builds self esteem and prepares them for their life as independent adults;
  • Success in adult life takes many forms, not all of which depend on our exam results.  Introducing children to both paid and unpaid work from an early age supports them in meeting immediate needs, in developing skills of living and in exploring possible avenues for a future career;
  • In a world in which not everyone can find a job at all times, we – the adults – need to remember that, with or without a job, we are all, fundamentally, OK.

Kitchen celebrations

All articles,

A thing of beauty is a joy forever
John Keats
Endymion

Yes, the kitchen is finished!  After three months of a world turned upside down I am now in the process of deciding what goes where, gradually moving things from the dining room into their new homes in the kitchen.  There has been much washing of builders’ dust from mugs, containers etc.

Winter has also returned and my camera is not coping well with today’s gloom so the photos above and below are already a week or two old.  Final touches have been done.  The magnificent sculptural shelves below are peopled with cook books, gardening books and a teapot or two.

I am totally in love with the kitchen.  I notice already how much more pleasure I have even in the simple act of making a cup of tea.  Edward, my nephew, is not the only person who has commented on the “country” feel of the kitchen and Gary’s sister-in-law, who teaches interior design, commented favourably when she popped by recently – this is not so much a kitchen as a room.  It’s a place to live in, for sure.

In this moment of writing – in haste and between coaching calls – I am also aware of the journey that has taken place in my house over the last three months and the enormous challenge of working in the house whilst also having such a major project done.  At times I have been giving 10-minute warnings ahead of coaching calls (and am grateful both to Gary and Wills for their flexibility and to clients for their understanding when occasionally the sound of drilling erupts in the background).

There have been conversations to be had and decisions to be made at times I would otherwise have spent working.  I have loved my close involvement in this project and saying yes to this project has also meant saying no to other things, including my work.

I reflect that one of the challenges in life is that saying yes to one thing always means saying to no to others.  I wonder, what are you saying yes to?

Emotions after the event

About Dorothy
Amidst the various commitments I have today – coaching calls, project calls – I am expecting a visit this afternoon from PC Jane Kilduff of Lewisham Police.
Jane called me last week to follow up the photos I submitted following the riots on 8th August last year.  She wanted to get some details from me in order to prepare a statement which I shall sign today.  After her call I sat down and read the posting I wrote at the time, entitled There were riots outside my front door today.  I realise that the notes I captured in that posting are, perhaps, a useful addition to anything I could say now, offering testimony written so soon after the fact.  I also realise that none of the sentiments I expressed at the time have changed.
In our call, Jane asks me questions about what happened that day and I notice something happening as our call proceeds, a rising of emotion that I didn’t feel at the time of the riots because – I knew it even then – I was in shock.  When I put the phone down I sit for a few moments with the emotions – not fear, not anger, but grief, sorrow…
As I write I am aware of the way the work of Elizabeth Kuebler Ross has been used in businesses to describe our natural responses to change in the workplace.  My own response is part of the same cycle.  In this moment, though, I simply write in the awareness that something happened last August which changed my world and which stimulates some sense of loss in me.  I can seek to rationalise that – to understand what it is that I feel so sad about and still, I can only approximate.  I decide not to rationalise in this way and take a moment to sit with the emotions.
UPDATES: Riots in Lewisham

Asking the right questions as the year draws to a close

All articles,

This was my last posting of the year for Discuss HR and also published on the HRUK group on LinkedIn.  As the year draws to a close I thought you might enjoy it here, too:


Recently I came across a talk by Icelandic President Olafur Grimsson, describing how Iceland bounced back after firstly the world financial meltdown of 2008 and then the Eyjafjallajokull volcano sent Iceland high-speed into economic meltdown.


It’s easy to forget the drama of Iceland’s experiences (unless, of course, you had money invested in Iceland’s apparently safe and secure economy) in the light of the wider events of 2011 – the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Colonel Gaddafi, dramatic events in a number of Middle Eastern countries, freak weather events in Japan, Thailand, Australia… to name but a few.  More locally, Berlusconi finally stood down as Italy’s long-standing Prime Minister and, in the UK, London saw anti-cuts protests, protests against plans to raise tuition fees and protests – together with people in countries around the world – against capitalism and its effects.  In the summer riots shocked the nation – one of them right outside my front door.  As I write, the fate of the Eurozone is still in the balance.

UPDATES: Riots in Lewisham


Outside my front door, Monday 8th August, 2011



Some alternative thinkers see these and many other events as part of a significant transition to a new epoch.  A number of authors have written about the Mayan prophecies for 2012 and one of them, Diana Cooper (in her book Transition to the Golden Age in 2032:  Worldwide Forecasts for the Economy, Climate, Politics and Spirituality), points to a twenty-year period of transition before we enter a new, “golden” era in 2032.


All this probably seems more or less remote from our day to day world of work:  what, you may ask, does any of this have to do with HR?  As the year comes to a close, I come back to the talk I mentioned at the top of this article.  Watching it, one of the things that strikes me is how, in responding to the events that befell Iceland in 2008, Grimsson – as new President – identified and responded to some of the key questions that were raised by those events.  Grimsson highlighted the social unrest that followed the world economic events in a country that had a lasting history of peaceful democracy and which threatened that democracy:  Iceland’s response – to initiate and execute comprehensive political, judicial and social reform – was borne out of the conviction that the issues of the day required an appropriate response and that anything less would not be sufficient.


Writing the last pre-Christmas posting for Discuss HR, I find myself wondering what are the key questions for you as 2011 draws to a close – what are the issues you face and what would be a sufficient response?  Some of these questions will be key for you as an individual.  Some of them may be key questions for you as an HR Practitioner and even for HR as a whole.  I hope you’ll share some of those questions as comments (and perhaps your answers) below.


For my part, I wonder if the key questions that face us all are the questions that connect us both with our heads and our hearts.  These are questions which, whilst stimulating thought and reflection, remind us of what really matters to us in our work and our play.  For this reason, my own key questions at the end of the year are these:

  •  As the year draws to a close, what has been most significant for me about 2011?
  •  What do I celebrate about this year – what needs of mine have been met?  What do I mourn – what are the needs I really want to meet that have yet to be fulfilled?
  • Looking forward, what’s it time for – in my life, in the life of my business?  What are the outcomes I most desire in 2012?
  • What are the implications of my desires and aspirations in terms of where I invest (my time, money, energy and other resources) in 2012?
  •  What factors in the world around me are most significant for me in 2012?  What challenges will I need to overcome in order to make progress towards my desired outcomes?
  • What resources do I have that will help me to meet those challenges and to make progress towards my desired outcomes? 

Saying goodbye to 2011

About Dorothy, All articles,

Today I post my last post of 2011 before enjoying a full ten days’ holiday.  My first posting of 2012 (and my second, and third…) is already written and scheduled for publication.

In the period prior to Christmas I have been sharing tales of my new kitchen and these continue.  The process has been slower than I anticipated (and I knew it would be slow) with the usual knock-on effect of unanticipated delays.  In particular, the new door to the back of the house has not yet arrived which means that the current back door has to be kept in use.  This, in turn, means delaying the conversion of this back door to a window and – until this conversion can take place – building the units along the side wall.

It’s a curious reminder of one of life’s inconvenient truths:  sometimes things just take longer than we anticipate.  When we understand this we can bring compassion and humour and adapt to new realities – though some prefer to find someone to blame than to accept what is true.  It seems to me that it’s a good thing to be reminded of this truth as we enter a time of reflection – moving from the end of one year to the beginning of another.

So, I close by reiterating my best wishes to you for the end of 2011 and for 2012.  And by sharing just a few photos from the kitchen at 14 Albion Way.

So much of the kitchen is currently in the dining room…


…or outside in the garden…


…whilst work in the kitchen goes on

We will remember them

All articles

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

All articles,

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.

What’s going to waste in your organisation?

All articles,

Recently I have been finding new pleasure in gardening.  Last year I planted courgettes and tomatoes in my back garden.  This year I have added runner beans, broccoli, cucumber and more besides.  I find a joy and stillness in the daily activities of watering the vegetables and attending to the weeds.  Nothing is more satisfying than the twilight slug raid.

This has been reflected in my reading, too.  Last night I read the first 30 pages of Bob Flowerdew’s book, Composting, and yesterday I tried an intriguing recipe – using beetroot leaves – from Monty and Sarah Don’s Home Cookbook.  The Dons’ recipe involved taking the leaves from some fresh beetroot, blanching it for five minutes and then gently frying it in olive oil with some chilli and garlic.  I added some seeds – a favourite! – and also some beetroot which I’d boiled separately before cutting it into eighths and adding it to the remainder.  I served the lot on fresh toast.  It was totally divine.

“I hate waste, especially wasted food”.  This was the first sentence of the preface to the recipe.  It made me wonder:  what’s going to waste in my life because I don’t recognise its value?  And yes, it made me wonder, in the organisations I work with, what’s going to waste because nobody can see its worth?

Do you have any thoughts about the hidden treasures that might be going to waste in your life or organisation?