The Virtual Office of Self-Selected Colleagues

February 26, 2010 by 34 Comments

iStock_000004985521SmallMany of you know that I spent a few days in bed during the early part of this week with what was either flu, or the cold from hell. Yes, I did a little blog reading and emailing, but by and large I didn’t work and was away from social media. In fact, I set aside my normal blogging goals for the week, figuring my first priority was simply to get well.

One of the surprising takeaways from this experience is the insight I’ve had into the nature of the relationships I’m building online. I was blown away by the good wishes I received both on Twitter and by email when I tweeted that I was going to be out of action. And then, when I started back yesterday, the welcome was incredible. It really was like walking into an office of people I love working with; people who are not just my colleagues, but are good friends too. I don’t know if you’ve ever known anything like this in a real office? I certainly hadn’t done so in years, and to have co-created it online is simply amazing.

This in turn caused me to reflect further on a conversation I’d had with Julie Walraven a couple of weeks ago about Twitter. Accepted  social media wisdom for small businesses is that you strive to build massive networks in order to leverage their viral power. But being ill made me realise that there are individuals in my network whose unique lights shine out for me more greatly than others: whose blogs I particularly enjoy reading and contributing to; whose tweets I especially look out for because they’re normally interesting or engaging; whose comments I love reading here. It was these people I both heard from when I was ill and/or missed because I wasn’t around to see them. Big numbers are important for many, but relationships, I’m realising, are important for me. How you turn that into profitable online business, I haven’t yet cracked, and if anyone has any golden nuggets on this, I’d love to hear them.

Meantime, during one of my more active hours this week, I installed the commentluv plug-in. I’d decided that, even though my site is currently being redesigned, I wanted to add it now. Enabling all of you who hang out here to promote your own excellent content is the tiniest thing I can do to show you how much I value my connection with you. Use and enjoy!

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Up in the Air: food for thought for New Work Pioneers?

February 19, 2010 by 16 Comments

Up_in_the_Air_Poster

It was Cali Williams Yost across at Work+Life Fit who inspired me to go see Up in the Air recently. Even so, I hadn’t expected there to have been quite so much rich material for my New Work Pioneer thinking as I found.

I hope you’ve seen the film – if not, you must! Meantime, what I’d like to do is give the headlines of the story, share some of the key themes that emerged for me, and leave you with a few pertinent coaching questions to mull over.

The story

It’s the tale of the suave and charismatic Ryan Bingham. Impeccably played by George Clooney – but let me not mess up my post by drooling over him too much! His character is a stereotypical road-runner, who works 24/7, firing people for a living and delivering motivational seminars advocating his own commitment-free lifestyle.

“Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.”

But he is about to be grounded. Having taken the advice of a young MBA, his company is re-designing his job to enable Termination Engineers (another strategic HR initiative, perhaps?) to sack people remotely. This, just at a time when he has begun a romantic alliance with Alex Goran, a high-achieving woman who crosses the map just as regularly as he does. Together, they compare travel schedules and polish their badges of success: frequent flyer mile counts; collections of premiere credit cards; priority customer service entitlements.

As they spend more time together, including at his sister’s wedding, Goran clearly pierces Bingham’s once invincible shield. We see him, captured by a burst of spontaneity, fly to Chicago. His intention is to surprise Alex, but he ends up being the surprised one. For there he finds her, complete with husband and children, and struggles to comprehend that her picture of their relationship has not been his.

The scenario provokes a call to action in him, but the film ends without us knowing how he’s going to respond.

Food for thought

Work as an escape

At the beginning of the film Bingham’s lifestyle is portrayed as one to which we all might aspire. He’s sleek, he’s polished, he wants materially for nothing. Who wouldn’t be him?

It’s only as the film unravels that we get a glimpse of the challenges that exist in his personal life, that his full-on identification with work allows him to avoid.

Work as a relationship over which we have some control

Bingham is arrogantly single. The most intimate we see him being initially is when he’s feigning concern for the people he’s firing. We might even covet his calmness.

But the sterility of his life unfolds with the film. He talks of feeling at home in the recycled air, artificial lighting, digital juice dispensers and cheap sushi that define his nomadic existence. Somehow we understand that he feels safer in accepting these impersonal, even toxic, forms of nourishment, than he would risking a real, human connection.

Work gives him a sense of competence and mastery that perhaps relationships don’t. And I wondered how true that might be of us?

The importance of external validation

Bingham’s sense of his importance is, at least to begin with, driven by stuff outside of him, the most significant being his goal of attaining 10 million frequent flyer miles. And I wondered how many of us use arbitrary measures beyond ourselves, both to drive us and to give us some sense of our worth? Job grades, cubicle sizes, our peers and others’ evaluation of us.

By the end of the film, we see him achieve his ambition, but already doubt its value. Indeed, he’s calling the airline, to arrange for points to be transferred, allowing his sister and her new husband the round the world honeymoon trip of which they can only dream.

The challenge of accepting the call to action

As I said, at the end of the film, Ryan is clearly left pondering the question of what he’s going to do with his life. The jury is clearly out. Meantime, the film revisits people whose lives Bingham earlier wrecked by making them redundant. It’s clear that they have used their crisis as a turning point, and have transformed their attitudes to both work and life.

How many of us too hear the deep down question, “Is this it?” but choose not to listen or to take some kind of half-hearted action?

Coaching questions

  • What call to action is your working life currently presenting? How are you planning to respond to it?
  • Have you ever glamorized work for yourself in any way? If so, how and for what purpose?
  • Has work ever been a hiding place for you? If so how? Who and what were you hiding from?
  • How would you define your relationship with work? Is work a substitute for, competitor of, or healthy and necessary companion to other vital relationships in your life?
  • What and who outside of yourself give you a sense of meaning and identity? How happy are your that this is so?

As you will have guessed, I loved this film and hope it gets an Oscar. How about you? What did you take from it, and how did you relate it to your own work and life style?

Filed Under: Reinventing work Tagged With: , ,

New Work Pioneers Use Crises As Opportunities For Change

February 16, 2010 by 19 Comments

iStock_000005592896XSmallThe Silent Rise of The New Work Pioneer spoke of the characteristics shared by the people who, whilst organisations gnash their teeth about better ways to manage, are getting on and reinventing work for themselves anyway. This post talks in more detail about how New Work Pioneers reframe what at first appear to be times of crisis, as experiences that enable deep change.

I’ve seen lots of upheaval in my coaching practice recently. Even before the economic slowdown, things were happening that were taking people to the edge of themselves career-wise, but it has been more marked these last eighteen months.

People being made redundant, or fearing that it’s about to happen. Glamourous and exciting careers losing their sparkle, taking people’s motivation and sense of meaning with them. Promised career paths evaporating, leaving nowhere to go. Beyond stressful environments causing burn-out or breakdown. These are frightening scenarios to live through.

And, society still tends to understand them as things that need fixing. We all know the attitude: take even tighter control of your situation and things will soon be back to “normal”. Whatever “normal” is.

It can be difficult to hear, let alone trust the small voice inside, but the New Work Pioneer knows it’s the only one that counts. They know that common wisdom isn’t going to crack it. Not in the long term. They can see that things they once took for granted have changed beyond recognition. Besides which, they’ve spent years trying to fit in one way or another and that last kick in the teeth means they’re pretty much done with putting themselves to one side.

With courage they understand that what’s happening to them is a bit like an earthquake. The seismic plates of their own being are shifting and their sense of identity has mobilised with them.

It’s a process that can take time. Sometimes years. New Work Pioneers find the courage to stay with their fears and move beyond them. In the middle of what is a big sorting out process, they ask themselves some questions:

What’s true of me personally that’s going to remain?

In my own case, following a near nervous breakdown, which for a period of time made me feel lost and unconfident, I could eventually recognise some qualities as being intrinsically me. Fun, warmth, love, determination, brightness, thought-leadership, a passion for helping people grow and develop, the enjoyment of doing good work, a respect for other people and their lives.

They were going to stay.

What’s run its course for me and now needs to go?

For me, I’d spent years living on other people’s terms, and needing more approval from others than was healthy. I was also addicted to perfection, and had a harsh, driven quality about me.

These things had served me to a point but were now exhausting me and had to be ditched.

What new in me now needs to emerge?

I needed to own a softness and femininity that I hadn’t felt safe in expressing in the male-dominated environments I worked in. I also had to give myself permission, both to be OK just as I was, and to believe I was worthy of a liveable working life.

New Work Pioneers emerge from the rubble clearer and more determined to find a way to work on their own terms. Whether they work within or outside of the traditional corporation is not the point: the point is that whatever they do works for them. They may not have all the answers, but they know they’re on a journey, one that’s uniquely theirs. In time, they may thank whatever crisis got them to that point, because they’ve now got a feel for the treasure in themselves and their lives and they’re not going to let that go.

So, what do you think? Do you resonate with this? What personal awakening have you had or are you having, courtesy of your working life? How has it changed or is it changing you?

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How am I doing?

February 12, 2010 by 25 Comments

iStock_000008567347SmallSo, last week I took myself off to do a review of my blog business. Any excuse for another trip to Costa, right?!

As you might remember from my Upping the ante in 2010 post, I’ve set myself some pretty ambitious targets and I thought I’d share with you how things are going.

Posts

One of my key ambitions this year was to increase the amount of stuff I was posting, so I set myself what felt like an achievable goal of writing 2 posts per week; 100 posts during the year. Although I haven’t published two posts a week on this site, I have achieved my target by doing some guest posting. This was quite tough at first to fit into my schedule, but with a review of my productivity and better time planning, it has started to become a whole lot easier.

In terms of the content, I decided to experiment with being a bit more daring with what I was writing. I even gave myself permission to share my sense of humour with my How to make sure you never get ahead post, which led to the most comments I’ve ever had, so clearly struck a nerve somewhere. The same was true of posts that said something a little more controversial. For example, I saw real traffic spikes with Lost heart with your current job? Don’t rush to escape, and with Unhappy at work? An alternative look at this week’s job satisfaction statistics. So I’ve definitely got some food for thought from all of that.

Analytics

My numbers for the end of January were significantly up on the previous month, which was when I started really tracking things. Perhaps driven by the increased number of posts, I doubled my number of visitors, and page views; my bounce rate dropped by more than 10%, and my RSS subscribers increased by 50%. I was pretty pleased with all of that.

Critical milestones

I’ve also now been able to tick off some of the first critical milestones I’d set myself as indicating my blog was moving in the right direction. They are:

  • Getting links from other bloggers: I had 6 at the point of the review
  • Writing a guest post: I wrote 7 things (and 3 questions) professional coaches must know before starting to blog for Remarkablogger that appeared last week. I also have posts pending with Jen Smith at Reach Our Dreams, and Ben Lumley at 6 Aliens.
  • Have the blog make money: I’ve now attracted one paying coaching client via the blog. Whilst I’ve always had my traditional sources of referral and hopefully they’ll continue, it was important for me in this venture that I not rely on them and that over time the blog start to become more of an income stream for me. It has now indeed broken into the realms of being a business in it’s own right, which I’m delighted about.

So, what’s next?

Well, that’s where you come in.

I want to make this a place where smart, professional people who want to shake up the old rules of work in some way, come for inspiration, information, conversation – and maybe some entertainment too.

As I move forward I’d love to know what you think is or isn’t working. What you’d like to see more or less of.

Meanwhile, thank YOU for helping me get the thing to this point in its development.

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The Silent Rise of the New Work Pioneer

February 5, 2010 by 49 Comments

iStock_000001731048XSmallDid you see Get Ready to be a Change Maker by Bill Drayton and Valeria Budinich over at the Harvard Business Review this week? The article talks about recent economic history, how we’ve cycled through agricultural, industrial and technological revolutions and are now on the cusp of another change again. In their words:

“We are transitioning from a world in which a small elite runs everything to a world in which everyone needs to be a player.”

Whilst it’s good to see this being recognised and articulated, and thought given to what leadership needs to look like now, I think that academics and business leaders alike are vastly underestimating the effects of a movement that’s been afoot for years already.

For, whilst they’ve been clinging to their status quo world, a not so small tribe of people has been making things different for themselves, without any need for institutional guidance or direction.

I call this tribe The New Work Pioneers.

They may not yet recognise themselves by this term, but, just as surely as the disenchanted Europeans set sail for the New World all these centuries ago, this group of individuals have already left the old world of work for real or metaphoric pastures new.

The tribe’s membership includes those who have ditched traditional workplaces to create their own lifestyles; those – including freelancers and artists – who saw early on that work as we currently know it wasn’t for them; and those who are taking a different kind of consciousness into employment with the aim of giving themselves a more liveable corporate experience.

The thing that has prompted each individual’s initiation to the tribe has been different. Sometimes it has been a personal change, like the loss of a relationship; the birth of a child; a serious physical illness, either of one’s own or of a close relation; or a mental breakdown.

Sometimes it has been a change prompted by an employer: an experience of harassment or bullying; a redundancy or its threat.

Whatever the catalyst, tribe members get to a point where they ask themselves serious questions about their work and its role in their lives. “Does life really have to be like this?” is not an uncommon one. Once voiced, New Work Pioneers accept the challenge of creating a different kind of work for themselves. In this they set themselves apart from the millions who might hear the questions, but be unable or unwilling to answer them.

New Work Pioneers have much in common:

  • They value themselves as people and have a real sense of the choices in their lives. They’ve stopped to think about whose lives they’re living: their own or their families and friends. They’ve chosen the former.
  • They appreciate the fundamental role work plays in their lives, not only as a source of income, but also as a way of bringing who they uniquely are to the world. They take their own talents, beliefs and values seriously.
  • They’re committed to find the way to do what they love and to love what they do.
  • Their value of themselves extends to their partners, families and people around them, and to experiences beyond work that enriches them. They know that work and life are not opposing forces, but part of the whole picture of who they are.
  • They see the importance of relationship in their lives and take the time to nurture positive connections with people around them.
  • They have a readiness to challenge the status quo of work and to rewrite some of the bizarre rules that are in play around it.
  • They are committed to their personal growth and development and they see work as a vital aspect within that. They know that as they change, their work changes too, and vice versa.

So, some questions for you: do you recognise yourself in this description? What kick-started your journey into doing and looking at work differently? And what other things do you think New Work Pioneers have in common?

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