Weeknote: S2, Ep9: Old friends, breathing out and new mental models
Good things
I have been able to recruit a new delivery manager to the team. I’m excited because she brings some great transferable skills from her existing career and our fledgling delivery manager community now feels robust enough to upskill a new team member.
I caught up with my former colleagues from HackIT on Friday. It was wonderful to see them in fine fettle. They are an incredibly resilient bunch and it’s great to see them flourishing 18 months on from the cyber attack. Their energy, creativity and sense of mission was as strong as ever.
Learned things
How might we deepen trust and grow autonomy in our teams? To answer this question in the context of Royal Greenwich, I’ve realised I have been relying too heavily on a mental model I bought with me from Hackney. I’m fine tuning my thinking and behaviour so I can re-align the support I’m giving to teams so they are better able to thrive and succeed. It weaves into another question of the role leadership plays at different points in the story of collaborative work.
Difficulties
I had COVID (again). Thankfully it was mild, but getting back into the swing of things was harder than I anticipated. I’ve written in previous weeknotes about the tyranny of busyness and an overstuffed calendar. There’s a degree to which I have to make peace with the constant juggling and the inevitable ball drops. This is pragmatism and learned judgment. What’s new is the recognition that my deep discomfort comes from an overworked feeling of responsibility. I’m not sure how to tackle this yet, but the realisation has felt like an exhalation of a long held breath.
Achievements
More an aspiration than an achievement this week. A catch up with Lauren Currie and Lingjing rekindled my courage to fight the patriarchy. To continue to push for equity over equality, to support the growth of allyship across our teams, and to take every opportunity to celebrate the new expressions of confidence from women and non-binary folk.
