NEVER LOSE PERSPECTIVE AGAIN Interviewing people who have been in a job for a long time can be unsettling. They sometimes experience working life in extremely intense and vivid ways. Details feel significant, overwhelming and stressful. But people new in roles usually have detachment 🎭 On the vlog today, what this change in perspective offers to Prime Minister Kier Starmer and his team* - and anyone who might be feeling too close to the action today. Share it with someone you know who needs a fresh take today. NEXT WEEK I have a special birthday 🎂 and might tell you about my regrets. Christine *we assume!
Great vlog. I'm feeling for the MPs (and their teams) who've lost their jobs today Christine, as humans, not politicians. I hope they don't have their whole identity wrapped up in their role, otherwise this will be a very difficult time for them. It is also a potential for rebirth, with the right tools and people support. For the newbies, as you say, they should stay in the seats for as long as possible, ask questions, listen to all, learn as much as they can, develop connections, Alliances, and work within and in cross-party groups in putting meat on their plans and commitment. Whether exiting or entering now is the time to rise up as the best you can be!
YES!!! I think this position allows you to see blindspots also. And why I think I help companies because I'm less emotionally involved and more reflective because of this. Sit in the audience, boom.....I think Brené Brown says something about going to the balcony from the dance floor but you need to take the stairs to get there.
Yes! And I’ve noticed too that folk who take time out - sabbatical, maternity or shared parental leave, for example - often leave from the stage and return to the plush red seats seats and that perspective is pretty magical. I’d say anyone on the stage does well to harness the wisdom of the folk who’ve been there a while and just taken a break. They have very useful things to share ….
I wonder if those who have been there for decades are burdened by office politics or if it’s their appetite for the ins and outs of it all which means they can stay for decades 🤔
I used to love starting new roles where you know nothing and can observe everything with fresh eyes (and before the politics etc inevitably wear you down!) and I did it a lot as a temp in the 90s. Every week, sometimes twice a week, I'd be in a new office. Such fun working out the dynamics between people and politics between departments!
Tim Sismey
2w
Love the analogy. When you stay in the same company for a really long time, you can totally convince yourself that that fact means you won’t be able to get a job anywhere else, and you’re kind of wedded to it now, so it all become SO IMPORTANT.
Vicky Stubbs
2w
Perfect timing as I’m currently applying for new roles after nearly 28 years at the same company! It’s daunting but exciting 🙂
Colin Newlyn
2w
Part of the brutality of redundancy is that the things that you were told were really, really important the day before you get sacked are now apparently irrelevant. They say it's not personal but everything you had committed yourself too now seems to be worthless. That key project that you lay awake nights worrying about? Left to wither and die, or at best be dumped on someone else who will pretend to care and then let it drop at the first chance. That detachment is not just valuable at the start, it's always valuable as a self-protection. You need to make sure you retereat from the madness every now and then to reflect and get things in perspective. Lockdown was the first time for many that they had managed to do that (ironically, in the middle of a greater madness).
Kim Arnold
2w
Yes to this. I felt an enormous shift when I went from an in-house role to consultancy. All of a sudden I was able to give an impartial view, free of the skews of emotion and politics, that was so valuable to my clients (and so freeing for me too). I think this is one of the biggest reasons why consultants are still in biz - it's rarely just their knowledge, it's their impartiality... Perhaps we should be training leaders not just to have a coach mindset but to have a consultant one too...
Balcony v dancefloor