From KIT to KIA

I was reviewing a coaching programme with a client the other day; a very successful leader working at a high level in a complex organisation.

And he said that one of the things that had been most beneficial was almost a blinding flash of the obvious. Along the way, I had recommended that he read David Rock's book, Your Brain at Work (I recommend it to you, too, of course). 

He, of course, learned what he needed to from it, not necessarily what I had imagined he might. The most significant thing being that the brain gets tired during the day; and that doing highly demanding brain tasks in the evening is not very productive. 

He already knew that, of course.  But he knew it as a piece of intellectual knowledge, neatly filed in some area of his memory. 

What he hadn't done is access that knowledge each day, when he decided to get through all the relatively straightforward (though urgent and often important) emails first thing before going into a day filled with meetings. That left his important work on organisational strategy and planning, and work to progress key projects, to the evening - on the basis that he could give them his full attention then, without interruption.

But having read Rock's book, he realised why he was finding the important work so difficult and so draining: his brain was already tired. 

So by way of experiment, he booked some morning time each day to work on these priorities; deferring some meetings and doing his emails later in the day.  The results were most gratifying: he found the strategic and project work both easier and more enjoyable.

And as he said, he should have realised that years ago. But for me that highlights the difference between KIT (knowledge in theory) and KIA (knowledge in action). It is very easy, not least in intellectual environments such as Universities, to assume that if we know something, we know it. But that is not the case with practical skills. I may know how to do all sorts of things, from playing golf to playing the bagpipes, but until I have practiced sufficiently to acquire the skills involved, that knowledge is purely theoretical.

So it is valuable to remember that distinction, and when you have learned something of value, create ways to use that learning in a practical way, until it is not only KIT but also KIA. 

And returning to my client's particular insight, do the important stuff early in the day; and if you are thinking that in your case that's not good advice, think again. If your brain is not more awake early in the day, is that because your lifestyle needs to change? Or, of course, you may have small children and no sleep,  in which case, give yourself a break: the important thing is to spend the time with them, and love their other parent. KIT and KIA become Kip If Tired, and Kip If Awake - whenever you get the chance...

Time Management Tools

Regular readers will remember that I wrote about Toggl a while ago.  Toggl helps you track how you are spending your time, including providing you with the ability to categorise and group items, so you can get an overview of the proportion of time spent on different projects, types of activity etc.

I found it very interesting, as it made clear to me quite how much time I spend travelling; and how well (or not) I use that time.  Also the discipline of recording made me more likely to stick to the task I had started, and less likely to goof off an play on social media, walk the dog, or have a coffee - at least until I had finished the task.


 It also revealed how much time I spend on client projects which I never record (liaising, briefing guest speakers, preparing handout material etc). All of which is fine - and rather lays to rest my image of myself as lazy, which is partly historic, and partly because I don't really count the time sat at home on my laptop as work - but this has revealed that a lot of it really is.

But perhaps this is the moment to confess that I am not using Toggl assiduously (or indeed at all) any more. I think that there are a few reasons for that. One is that I took a break for a couple of days in January when I was particularly busy and didn't re-start.  A second is that I wasn't sure of the best ways of categorising some things (is coaching preparation and review best seen as part of coaching? Or separate? And if separate, is review (which is in part CPD) separate again?) and so on.  I saw the risks of wasting time on the tool rather than doing more productive activities.  So that's a risk with Toggl.  But I think I will continue to use it, periodically, to keep an eye on the balance of my time.

And then, just the other day (as I was preparing for a coaching session, with the chap who had introduced me to Toggl) I found the Eisenhower app. This is simply the famous Urgency/Importance grid, online. Where Toggl helps track what you spend time on, this helps you to focus on what you should be spending time on - and what you should not.

I find the in-built advice less helpful (eg for Urgent but not Important, they simply say 'delegate' but that is not always possible or even appropriate).  For the best online explanation of the grid (he says modestly) see my video:

But the tool itself is useful. You can use it as a to-do list, by adding things you need to do to the appropriate quadrant.  They can be dragged to another quadrant if things (eg the deadlines) change; and once done, deleted (but are still available to read or even re-instate or re-cycle).  And as with Toggl, once you have decreed that something is urgent and important, there is quite an incentive to do it: and then to do the next thing; and then to move on and do something Important before it becomes urgent.  And likewise to contain the urgent but not important activities so that they don't swamp the important ones.  


All common sense, and what one tries to do anyway - but this brings it back into sharp focus.  So as with Toggl, I'll try it for a while; then probably pause and take stock and even take a break from it (perhaps that's when I'll pick up Toggl again).  

As with so many skills, there's something about paying sustained attention for a while, and then making a few tweaks, that is hugely helpful.  And as usual, I will report back on this blog if any learning of note arises.

More reflections on Time Management

Since installing Toggl (see previous post, here) and despite being very busy (as Toggle reveals: I will put some analysis on this blog in due course) I have been reflecting further on Time Management.

When I run workshops on the topic, I often start by joking that if ever business is slow, I can always sell a time management workshop; and there is some truth in that. It is a perennial problem for many people in many organisations. 

But this week's insight (or was it just remembering or bringing to the surface something I have long known?) was that time management is really about two quite different , but in practice inter-related, questions.

One is How do I allocate my time? and the second is, How do I manage myself?

I say the two are inter-related, because in my experience (and thinking not just about myself, but about the many people with whom I have worked on this vexed issue), the decision on how to allocate time is profoundly impacted by one's self-management skills (or lack thereof...)

By this I mean that it is relatively easy to block out time in the diary every week to work on important activities before they become urgent. But then something arises: an interruption, a distraction, a more urgent (or more enjoyable) task; and it is in the management of one's responses to these issues that success in time management lies.

I should add that I am not an advocate of 'stick to the plan, no matter what!' If the building is on fire, then leaving it seems to be a better idea! 

However, what one should do is, firstly, notice that one has a choice, rather than react out of habit; and secondly make that choice by a genuine consideration of the relative importance (as well as urgency) of the distracting activity.  More often than not, the right course of action is indeed to stick to the plan.

So developing the self-management strategies to enable one to notice the moment of choice, to make the choice based on the right criteria, and then to implement the choice, becomes a key focus for those determined to improve the way in which they use their time.

Toggl

One of my coaching clients had set himself the task of finding a light-touch way of tracking how he actually uses his time, as a first step to reviewing his time management practices.

He came up with Toggl, which I hadn't previously known. So I thought that I would give it a try. It is a long while since I last tracked my time this precisely (so long ago that it was before people had developed packages like this) and some benefits are obvious - as long as it doesn't become too time consuming or a distraction in itself.

So I started to do so today, and I have to say that Toggl seems easy to use and useful. One can either click start as one starts a task, and then end when on stops, for automatic time recording; or one can create an entry by typing in the start and finish time.

That generates a task list, showing each task undertaken and how long was spent on it; and also, on the dashboard, some nice summary information.  Here is today:

This is the summary view: there is more detail available (who I was coaching, and all the items that were tagged Admin or other).

But the most interesting immediate effect that I noticed was that once I had clicked 'start' I did tend to stick with the task until it was done (or until my available time was used up) rather than interrupt myself with other tasks. I am sure Deming would have had something to say about that (what gets measured gets done, or something of the sort).

So I will play with Toggl for a few weeks, see what I learn, and if there is anything of interest, report back here in due course. 

Things we don't want to do...

Some time ago, a coaching client pointed out to me that there are only two types of things one can put on a to do list: the things we are going to do, and the things we are not going to do. His point was that life was much more pleasant (and productive) if we simply don't put on the list the things we are not going to do.

I remembered this twice during the week; once was in a meeting with a client who had realised since the last time we met, that the reason he had been unable to make time for the one really big priority that he had been procrastinating over for years, was that fundamentally, he didn't want to do it.  That realisation released a lot of energy (and some guilt and sense of incompetence). In particular, it freed him to identify what he really did want to do, and to get on with doing that.

And I had a similar experience myself. I was discussing with my coach various ideas to market my book, Shifting Stories, as sales have just started to slow down. (Did I mention I'd written a book? And that it's really very good?...) 

And we generated a number of ideas, including trying to get it reviewed in some of the professional journals, and what that would take (research, finding the right contacts, sending out copies, badgering the contacts etc - all with little prospect of success...). And I realised I just didn't want (or intend) to do those things. So instead of pretending (to myself or my coach) I simply said that I wouldn't. And that liberated a lot of energy for considering what I will do. Which includes more workshops for interested groups (I've a couple lined up already for the next month or so, and will seek to build on those); more conversations with people who already like the book (or the ideas it contains) about how they are using it, and how they might share the ideas; more use of social media (I quite enjoy blogging and writing Linked-In posts occasionally), and so on.

These are all activities I can commit to without my heart sinking; and as a result, not only am I more likely to do them, but I am more likely to do them in such a way that they are likely to be successful.

So I am now reflecting on where else in my planning this might apply: what else feels as though it deadens the soul, and how can I remove such items from my to do list, and replace them with activities that energise and excite?

So that's my top time management tip for this week: strike off the things you really have no intention of doing, and use the time and energy released for something more enriching.

Some (hurried) thoughts on Urgency

On a recent time management programme, we had a really interesting discussion. One of the academics there said that he does his best work under pressure; but he immediately challenged himself on that, which led to an interesting discussion. The consensus was, that despite it often feeling that way, the trope is not really true.  

What is the case is that when we meet a tight deadline, that feels like an achievement.  It is rewarding. And also, it lets us off considering the quality too carefully. Given that we were working against the clock, of course it wasn't perfect. Whereas when we work at a more measured pace, there is no excuse for poor quality work. Is that, perhaps, one of the reasons for urgency addiction: it lets us off the hook a bit?

That made me reflect further on urgency addiction, particularly in the light of all these books on neuropsychology I have been reading. So here's another, related, hypothesis. Working to a tight deadline triggers a release of adrenaline, (the fight or flight response), followed shortly afterwards by cortisol (which focuses us on the immediate crisis and therefore inhibits serotonin, oxytocin, dopamine). That results in us feeling lack-lustre, so we need more adrenaline to feel alive again.... Could that be why some leaders lead from crisis to crisis?

Still playing with the Kline approach

I know I keep going on about it (and I am well aware of the danger of the evangelistic zeal of the born-again neophyte in any context), but I continue to be impressed with the power and deceptive simplicity of Nancy Kline's work.

This week I ran a workshop on Time Management, for academics. Normally, the first part of the afternoon is dedicated to dealing with all their 'Yes, Buts...' after we have covered the key ideas and core processes in the morning.

Typically, I do that by getting them to identify their Yes, Buts... before lunch, and then work in syndicates to generate solutions to them after lunch (while I have my siesta, you understand...) That works OK, which is why I do it: sometimes better than others; occasionally it is a bit pedestrian, but at the least it does help convey a sense of agency. That is, if an issue is a serious problem, with a little thought and discussion, they can probably devise a solution.

However, this time, I explained the components of the Thinking Environment to them, and then got them to work in pairs as thinking partnerships; half an hour of listening and half an hour of thinking out loud each.  Once more this proved very powerful. And not only did they learn a lot both about time management, and about the power of really listening (and really being listened to), and how different that was from many of their normal interactions; but also many of them recognised immediately how useful this approach will be with some of the students they teach.

It was certainly a more engaging, more thought-provoking and more useful exercise than the one I used to run at this stage; at least on this occasion. So I will do it again next time, and if it is consistently better, I will use it consistently.

Managing Email

One of the issues that many of my clients wrestle with is the handling of email...

The problem

The problem is that email is a relatively new technology in organisations, and we have yet to learn and agree the best protocols for its use. People often report that it is a major disruptor of their planned work. It is particularly disruptive of important activities that are not (or not yet) urgent: such as thinking, planning, writing, reflecting - activities which are often difficult to dedicate time to, yet are those which often add most value to the individual and the organisation.

A culture arises in many organisations in which people expect instant responses to emails; or at least, it can feel that way. In reality, when we are unable to attend to emails (eg when making a presentation, or in a meeting) the organisation does not, in fact, grind to a halt. If we constantly interrupt our serious work to deal with emails, many of which are trivial, and many others of which could wait for several hours with no detrimental effect, then we are sabotaging our own productivity and effectiveness.

The solution

The solution is to refuse to collude with the ‘instant response’ culture, and to explain to those who need to know what your email protocols are, and why.

So here's an approach to try:

1 Decide how often in the day you need to attend to your emails (say, twice), and how long you will allocate to them. Don’t have open ended email slots (cf Parkinson’s Law).

2 Decide when in the day you will put these email slots. I recommend, if possible, not doing emails first thing in the day, as you risk getting sucked into urgent trivia. For example, get some serious work done first, then have an email slot just before lunch; and likewise in the afternoon. It is good if your email slots have 'hard' end times (eg meeting someone for lunch, collecting children from school) so that they don't over-run.

3 Communicate this strategy to those who need to know; particularly your boss and anyone who may (legitimately) need you urgently, and tell them how to reach in in such cases (eg by phone).

4 Use your email slot to clear your inbox, every time, using the process below (adapted from Getting Things Done by David Allen). 

5 Set up mail boxes that reflect the main roles of your work (and life): make your e-filing system work for you.

6 Review this strategy after a week or two, to check that it is working and fine tune it. Record the benefits (and communicate them to your boss if appropriate).  Stick to it.

7 You may sometimes need to do an emergency scan (eg if you have a quick gap between meetings) for urgent stuff: don’t use that as a substitute for this discipline.

Back in the swing

So, after a fortnight off, for Christmas and the New Year, things have kicked off with a pretty busy week. I had a proposal to write on Monday, and since then have been coaching in Newcastle, running a workshop in Durham, facilitating a programme in Cardiff, meeting old friends (with a new baby) in Shrewsbury, meeting a new contact in Lancaster, sharing experience with a coaching colleague in Cumbria, and talking with my coaching supervisor from the comfort of my own home.

And now I stop to draw breath (before heading off to Winchester on Monday...)

All of which makes me pause and reflect on the importance of planning; and not just planning for all the activity, but also for some inactivity. I have blogged before (here) about the importance of stopping and making time for meditation, and since that post have been pretty successful in doing so on a daily basis. 

And I have to report that the benefits are very clear to me. I think more clearly, engage with tasks in a more focused way, and maintain a healthy sense of perspective. And the busier I get, the more important it seems to be (as well as more difficult). But apparently, Mother Teresa used to say that she would always make an hour for prayer at the start of every day, unless she was really busy. When she was really busy, she raised it to two hours!  I get the point, but have to admit I just give it fifteen minutes: and that really does repay itself.

Time Management Reminder

I have just recorded a brief (8') video designed as a reminder for those who have attended my time management workshop: The Time of Your Life.

I am still experimenting with video as a medium for learning, so would value any feedback.

Likewise, if you have any questions about this, don't hesitate to get in touch.

For some reason I don't yet understand, the video displays on my laptop, but not on some tablets or mobile phones. If you can't see it above, click here.

Still trying stuff out to improve my time management...

I am not the world's best manager of time. In fact, I once had something of a crisis of conscience about running Time Management workshops, on the basis that I was preaching something I fail to practice (or at least, fail to practice very well). However, my inspirational coach, Ann Bowen-Jones, remarked, almost in passing, that we teach best what we most need to learn. So that was all right.

And I had some feedback this week from someone who had attended one of my time management workshops some 14 years ago that it had proved very valuable and was still something she remembered clearly and worked with, and, indeed, had developed.



But for myself, I still see it as work in progress.  So I continue to try new things. Today I have been working at home, and I was very conscious of the risk of the day slipping by with relatively little achieved (it being a Friday and all...)

So I set my phone alarm to go off every half hour, to prompt me to check that I was doing something worthwhile each time it went off.  That has proved very useful; though I suspect that the law of diminishing returns would cut in if I tired that every day.

Something else I have tried over the last few months is being really rigorous about making time for meditation, as I mentioned a few weeks ago (here).  That has proved very valuable.  Oddly, the busier I have been, the more I have noticed the meditation paradox: stopping for fifteen minutes of recollection really does enable you to move through a busy day with more calmness, and to achieve more important things.

A third, and related, thing has been striving to maintain a high awareness of the present moment, and the importance of that. Two people from quite separate parts of my life had recommended de Caussade's book: The Sacrament of the Present Moment. It is not an easy text, but he is onto something profound here, about detachment and, well, presence.

And finally, I am trying to maintain my habit of reviewing the week each Friday afternoon, and completing my reflective learning journal: that touches on all sorts of issues, of course, but how I have spent my time is at the heart of it.

I'm always keen to learn from others, so if you have any top tips for time management, do let me know!

But I must dash: my phone alarm is going off, and I've a reflective journal entry to write yet...

Will Power and Time Management

I have been thinking further about Will Power and Time Management: not least because I have finally completed the first draft of my long-awaited (and long-overdue) book, but also because I was working with a bunch of Post Graduate Doctoral Students yesterday, discussing these issues.

Let us, for the sake of argument, accept that will power may be necessary but not sufficient as a driver of our behaviour, and that environmental factors and habit count for a great deal (as suggested here).  The question that arises is, how do we set up the environmental nudges that help us to act on our chosen intentions.

One very practical example of this arose yesterday: one of the students said that he was very good at planning; he know each day what he intended to do that day, and so forth. But what continually sabotaged him was a failure to get out of bed at the right  time in the morning.

The will power approach - just do it! - didn't seem to be helpful.  But when we look at the environmental factors, we can come up with a range of other strategies.  The simplest is the old trick of moving the alarm clock to the other side of the room, so that it cannot be turned off without his leaving the bed.

The beauty of that is that it can be done at a time when the intention to get up on time is strong: it would then require a definite decision, the night before, to change that.  In the morning, when the alarm goes off, however much he may want to stay in bed, the damn thing will keep sounding until he gets up and turns it off.

It is a simple and elegant thing to try, and was arrived at by asking the question about altering the environmental cues, rather than increasing will power.  My hunch (and indeed personal experience) is that if that is sustained for a period of time, a habit is formed of getting up when the alarm goes off, and quite possibly will power is strengthened too.

So my time management tip for the day, is don't try to work directly on will power: instead, ask the question about how you can set up environmental cues that will nudge you in the direction of the decision you wish to take at the moment you will be facing that decision.

Experiments in the Time Space Continuum

Some years ago, when we first moved from Newcastle to the Lake District, and for reasons with which I won't bore you now, we ended up living for a year in a small cottage.


I say small: it did have four bedrooms, but as there were seven of us (family plus mother-in-law) that felt small. It had no study, of course, so I ran the business from a corner of the (small) living room, on a very small desk that now serves as a hall table.  All my files were on the bottom shelves of a bookcase, which now serves as a stationery cupboard (and is, of course, now overflowing).

We have now moved to a larger house, complete with an outbuilding and attics: and guess what? We fill the space.

I was pondering this, because I am a great believer in Parkinson's Law Here is the first paragraph of the seminal article in The Economist in which the Law was explained and explored.:

It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and despatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis. An hour will be spent in finding the postcard, another in hunting for spectacles, half-an-hour in a search for the address, an hour and a quarter in composition, and twenty minutes in deciding whether or not to take an umbrella when going to the pillar-box in the next street. The total effort which would occupy a busy man for three minutes all told may in this fashion leave another person prostrate after a day of doubt, anxiety and toil.

Parkinson was talking about time, yet I started by talking about space; but there is surely an intimate relationship between the two. I used to think it was Einstein who pointed this out, but have since been told it was Minkowski before him, and Proust before him, and the Incas before him.

Be that as it may, my experience with space, as demonstrated by the example above, and with time as I seek to manage it in my own life and help others to do so in theirs, is remarkably similar in this respect.

But it can work the other way, whatever the corollary ('the reverse is not true') may assert.  So this week and next, I had most of the week set aside to work on completing the first draft of my long awaited book. Yet a series of domestic crises have interrupted that precious time: on Tuesday the macerator stopped working.  If you know what a macerator does, you will understand that it was a crisis that needed an urgent solution.  Then yesterday my email software stopped working: again a crisis that needed urgent attention (and no little time).

Yet somehow, I am on track. The first eight chapters have been duly re-worked and polished and are ready to send out to a few readers; and I am confident that the rest will be done by my deadline of next Friday.

I would like (I would really, really, like) to know quite why that is.  After years of slow progress, why am I suddenly able to move it forward so quickly?  Various theories may cast some light on this. One is that I have made a firm commitment to somebody to send him the completed first draft by next Friday.  Another is that I have spent sufficient time mulling over it and my subconscious is now ready to deliver. A third is that I have reinstated my early morning run on the fell, after a slight lapse in December, which both invigorates me and increases my belief in my own will power (see my last post). 


There is probably some truth in all of those. I know the value of recruiting an 'external conscience' to help hold us to our good intentions; and I also recognise that our brains need some processing time for important and complex tasks. As for will power, that is something I do pay heed to: I know how easily I can slip into an idle mode that allows time to slip by. (As Douglas Adams, author of the Hitch Hiker's Guide, remarked: I love deadlines: I love the whooshing noise they make as they fly past!)

So all of these may be contributory factors, but I think there is something else in the mix, and am not sure what it is.  Maybe once I have sent the draft of the book off, I'll have the time to reflect more on this...

Heart Warming

It is always good to receive emails that say that an event left someone feeling 'both enthused and energised.'

It followed last week's Cardiff Futures workshop, which left me, too, feeling enthused and energised.  This module was on building and academic career and focused a lot on research.

As usual we had a series of invigorating conversations with a mix of high-level internal guests and an external speaker, Guy Orpen, the PVC for research at Bristol, as well as an opportunity to reflect on time management and the practicalities of applying for promotion.

We also heard from the participants how their projects are going, and how they plan to develop them further: this was done in a Dragons' Den format; so they presented and were then quizzed by a panel of senior colleagues, who decided which team to award further funding to.  I was impressed both by how much they have already achieved and by the scale of their ambition.

We are now just over half-way through Cardiff Futures, and it is apparent that the group has really gelled. I look forward to the remaining modules being equally enthusing and energising.

Time Management Reminders

On a recent event when we discussed time management, someone asked if I could suggest a few reminders they could email to each other to help stick to their good intentions.

The idea is that an ‘external conscience’ is often more powerful than our own internal commitments. 'I could email myself a reminder,’ as one person put it, ‘but I’d just hit delete.  But if it’s from a colleague...’

So here are some one-liners you might like to send (or receive) to remind you of good time management practices. They range from simple reminders to more thought-provoking questions.  You will notice that I like questions!  (Incidentally, I highly recommend 'The Interrogative Mood - A Novel?' by Padgett Powell - entirely in questions, and it works!)

Anyway, back to the Time Management reminders: 

How is your Perfect Week coming along?

How well are you resisting urgent trivia this week?

Have you planned this week well?

How many interruptions have you refused today?

How well are you conquering your email addiction

What did you learn about your time management when you reviewed last week?

Have you worked on something truly important today? (or this week?)

How are you getting on with important, non-urgent, activities?

How can you build on your successes so far?

How well are you rewarding yourself for sticking to your good resolutions?

... and so on...

Unpacking Your Chair: Take Two!

It's been fairly busy this week, with an Influencing Skills Workshop, a Time Management seminar, coaching for clients from three different organisations, and the first day of the Unpacking Your Chair programme.

Unpacking Your Chair is the programme for relatively new professors at Newcastle University, which we launched a couple of years ago, and which has just won the award for excellence in Leadership Development in the Times Higher Awards ceremony.

So while we are confident that it is a good programme, there was a slight feeling that we had a lot to live up to, as we kicked off the second programme; not least because the success of the first was in large part due to the quality of participants who attended and what they brought to the programme.

We need not have worried. This year, the participants seem equally engaged and committed: we had a fascinating first day, with people sharing - with remarkable openness - their stories of their journeys  so far, and what is important to them going forwards.  We also had an stimulating conversation with a seasoned professor, Andy Gillespie, reflecting on a typology of professors drawn from his experience.

An hour of the afternoon was dedicated to considering what they would value from the rest of the programme: one of the features of the programme being that we co-create it each time with the participants, rather than assume in advance that we know what they need to learn.

They came up with some excellent themes to explore, and some good ideas of people they'd like to discuss them with.  All we have to do now is to invite people and hope that some of their diaries allow them to join us, and design sessions that will stimulate the kind of debate that last year's participants found so valuable.

It's always good to work with Liz Kemp and Gerry Docherty, who co-design and co-run the programme; in fact the only cloud on the horizon is that Gerry, the Academic Lead for the programme, whose ideas, style and commitment played a large part in both getting it off the ground and its subsequent success, has just accepted a new role in Brisbane.  He will be a hard act to follow, and we will all miss him.

Liz, (L) Gerry (seated R), and me with three of the cohort one participants (Adam, Kathryn and Mike) in a publicity shot for the THE Award.

Happy New Year

I always enjoy the Christmas and New Year break, and return to work full of good intentions.  However, like many, I have to work quite hard to ensure those intentions are translated into reality.  All of us will have our own strategies for that: for me what works best is often recruiting an external conscience to hold me to my resolutions, so I am lucky to have an excellent coach and coaching supervisor in Ann Bowen-Jones.

This year looks to be an exciting one: in addition to current work under my own brand with a number of universities and commercial clients, there are several collaborative projects in the pipeline which, if they materialise, will be very interesting indeed.

And I really must get that book finished...

Essex Futures again

Thursday and Friday were spent with the Essex Futures crowd.  On Thursday we were discussing how to develop an academic career, with contributions from Cam Donaldson of Glasgow Caledonian and Nigel South of Essex, who discussed their own careers and the learning they could draw from them.  Sue Endean, the HR Director, helped keep the focus very practical with an exploration of the promotion process and a case study based on that, and I offered some provocations around the theme of time and priority management.

In the evening we went to see E!%'s production of Dracula, directed by one of last year's EF participants, Chris Main - and a good show it was too!

The second day was more focussed on research strategies, with Rob Massara and a team from the REO sharing their expertise and offering practical advice; and the day culminated in a Dragon's Den exercise, with participants pitching ideas to our visiting Dragons, having had minimal time to prepare the ideas or the pitches: but as ever they rose to the challenge, and came up with some great interdisciplinary ideas, and some compelling ways of pitching them.

And along the way we picked up snippets of how well their projects are going, and also heard some personal successes in the Action Learning Sets.

Another stimulating event with this very energising group!

A busy week

A couple of days working with teams at Cleveland Police about to go through a major transition (via TUPE): really good that their management see the benefit of giving them some information on transition itself, and the chance to process that via team awaydays.

Then some time with a team from Northumbria University who wanted to look at their time management as a team - always interesting to approach time mgt from that perspective: there are many ways in which team members can help or hinder each other, both individually and collectively, when it comes to managing time.

Then a day's coaching, which is always stimulating and rewarding, and finally a day to catch up in the office (well half a day really, as WImbledon called...)

And next week looks equally interesting.  Beats having a 9-5 job...