When the world of work doesn’t work…

I wrote recently about the dangers of design, thinking, marketing (anything, really) converging towards a homogeneity. One-size-fits-all is wrong on so many levels and I Reckon it always has been. But various forces with their own vested interests have promoted it as a ‘best’ solution, because you can’t please all the people all of the time.

Maybe not, but as countless studies have found, if you design something for the ‘average’, you’re actually designing for no-one.

For a start, almost no-one is actually ‘average’ on more than a couple of dimensions or attributes. And to follow up, averages change; which is why I really, really dislike going to a certain theatre in Bristol, because its aged seats seem to have been designed for an audience of 12 year-olds.

For generations, most workers have spent more of their waking hours at their place of work than at home. And yet these workplaces, from Victorian factories to contemporary call-centres and everything in between, were often designed with little thought to the needs of the workers beyond that of productive efficiency, then operational functions and only later things like hygiene and safety.

A step-change?

It’s true that quite a lot has changed in the last few years, largely precipitated by the Pandemic, with hybrid working and/or greater flexibility increasingly common for previously office-based jobs. In parallel, initiatives to improve equality and equity of treatment in recruitment, management and pay across genders, race and other dimensions are making long-overdue progress.

Full disclosure: since pivoting to be a freelancer after the first 2020 Lockdowns, I’ve spent probably 90% of the last three years working from home, so I’m not up-to-date with if or how offices and workplaces have transformed since the Pandemic, to adapt to new ways of working, variable numbers of people in the building on any given day (etc). Nevertheless, I was keenly aware that, back in 2020, most offices I had ever worked in or visited were not designed for a diverse range of preferences or needs. By far the norm in my experience were large open-plan spaces with rows or clusters of workspaces (desks), sometimes with some kind of dividers or screens, and usually with break-out tables or individual work-pods, and varying sizes of meeting rooms.

These can be great for knowing where everyone is, coordinating the logistics of electrical and telephone cabling, helping the space to feel light and open, fostering teamwork by having everyone in view, but there are significant drawbacks, which I’m sure resonate with most people who’ve ever worked in such an environment.

It’s noisy, mostly a low-level background chatter, but there are always sounds coming from somewhere; people who like to work with music, a team meeting at one of the breakout tables, people chatting at someone’s desk, the whirr of a printer or photocopier, people walking about, asking “have you seen ____?”. Sound carries around the open spaces, and this doesn’t work for everyone or every type of work. It’s an environment that favours, facilitates and encourages extraverts, those prepared to be public and (however unwittingly) put their needs before anyone else. It’s not helpful for deep, concentrated work, as the background distractions are frequently punctuated by ‘people interruptions’. Depending on your source, somewhere between 30-50% of people prefer introversion, which suggests that the standard open-plan format needs greater flexibility to accommodate their needs, if not all the time, then at least some of the time.

Our eldest child (now at university) is autistic, but I know they would find a busy, open office, especially with multiple and ever-changing sources of noise and distraction, almost impossible to work in – which might be a reflection of why barely 1 in 5 people with autism are in paid employment: the world of work has not considered them. It’s surely a reflection of these varying preferences that so many people are delighted they can now work in a hybrid fashion, with days at home each week, free from so many immediate distractions and irritations.

The kerb-cutter effect can work for everyone
Offices (like factories before them) were designed by companies for the company, to make it easier to set up the equipment their people need, to ensure everyone has a dedicated space, to know where everyone is.
Companies often hired people using psychological testing to get the right ‘fit for our culture’, but that often meant hiring people like us, like the founder, extraverts who enjoy the same things the confident leadership team do.
But given everything we now have at our disposal in terms of technology and communications, and what we know about mental health, productivity and the diversity of personal work preferences, let alone neurodiversity, perhaps we should be hiring more the right people for the job, recognising that when we cater for diverse needs, everyone gains.

It’s not just ‘niche’ minorities with visible or invisible medical conditions, it’s recognising that people are different, and as I bang on to my marketing clients whenever it’s relevant, if you know that people are different, and you can treat them differently in ways that matter to them and can make a significant or meaningful difference, why wouldn’t you do that? They will recognise what you’ve done, and often thank you and reward you for doing it. It’s a positive-sum game.

“Working” from home…
It used to be a trait of ‘presentee-ism’ culture to make a swift and snide crack about people who occasionally wanted to work from home (or indeed just left early for once). Being in the office was productive and meaningful, anything else was less so. I’d always believed and hoped that if my bosses treated and trusted us as professional adults, my colleagues and I wouldn’t take the pi*s. We would get the work done, and they wouldn’t always be peering over our shoulders.

The past few years have, I hope, vindicated my hopes, in that more companies have realised the benefits to both company and staff of a more flexible working culture that enables people to better align their working and personal commitments, to have a hybrid working environment that enables everyone to give of their best more often.

I’ve only been into an office of any kind for work twice in the past year, and each time only for a day. Much as I love my freelance-contracting role, and have had wonderful experiences doing work of which I am really proud, I do hope that more of my work in the coming months can be actually in rooms with people. I Reckon it’s where I do my best work, being able to share and build ideas quickly and immediately, and yes, sometimes in those open-plan environments that can be problematic for some (many) people.

So after a period of very little work (May 2023 will be my first month since August 2020 in which I have not submitted an invoice to a client), that’s what I’m looking for; the chance to work with people both virtually and in-person, with time for me to do better, deep work without distraction, and the opportunities to make it even better through face-to-face conversation. If anyone has any ideas or openings, please let me know!

And, as I freely admit, I’m out of the loop about how working practices and office spaces have changed in the last couple of years, so I’d love to hear from anyone about this – please leave a comment your (hopefully positive) experiences!

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However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing…

5 years ago I wrote a post about how the world of 15 years ago, the age of indifference and ‘meh’ had been replaced by outrage, fury and, well, more outrage. I referred to a review of journalist Jon Ronson’s book about social media shaming, which discussed

…a scuttling crowd of people who want nothing more in life than to be offended. Offence, for this lot, is not a straightforward emotional response, instinctive and heartfelt. It’s a choice, something they actively seek.

Rachel Cooke, The Observer, 15th March 2015

Well, dear reader, this past weekend I encountered part of the scuttling crowd on Twitter, and it wasn’t pretty. The algorithm decided to show me a post from Kirstie Allsopp in which I thought she was actually trying to Do The Right Thing rather than shouting her mouth off. There’s quite a bit of nuance here, perhaps the sort that could get her abused by both sides, but I was on board. She wants to elevate the conversation away from different groups attacking each other.

So like a naive liberal lunatic I chipped in. Thinking of David Mitchell’s line about everyone stepping up to make a difference because “what is an ocean if not a multitude of drops?”. I was trying to illustrate the point that many trans- people are just trying to live their life, they want to be happy, they don’t want to hurt anyone. I deliberately made it only about our family to try an humanise it, but also to not claim I’m speaking universally, although I accept that “the phrase”utterly lacking empathy” probably didn’t help…

Anyway, I posted that on Thursday evening, which led to an interesting set of notifications by Friday morning, and indeed over the weekend. Here’s a pretty representative sample…

It was a relatively small group who responded, but they were tenacious. A couple were more ‘reasonable’ in that they did agree to disagree with our choices, and had the grace to wish us well, and hoped we would all be OK (even though they kind of doubted it). But the majority were not like that. I’d characterise them in three ways.

They’re right and everyone else is wrong.
They truly live in a binary world, and deny the entire concept that a person could be ‘Trans’. Every aspect of Trans is false, dangerous, a scam, a lie, evil. They’re not really Trans-phobic, because in their world it is simply impossible that Trans people can exist. Any so-called science that affirms, accepts or even acknowledges it is wrong and bogus. Their feeds and posts often include the same images and links as ‘evidence’ but often this is a very ‘particular ‘generous’ interpretation of that term.

For instance, the book “Time to Think” by Hannah Barnes is a damning indictment of institutional and clinical failure at GIDS and The Tavistock & Portman Trust, documenting at best problematic but more likely unethical and damaging practices on children, driven at least partly by an agenda that excluded alternative approaches. This is now used by the people who responded to my story as ‘evidence’ that Trans- is a myth, and anyone in the medical establishment who disagrees is a danger to children.

They seek out the things they abhor.
I have narrowed my Twitter Universe over time to professional cycling, film and marketing strategy types. I want to read and post positively, sharing ideas and experiences – especially about topics I love with other people who share that passion.

The Trans-deniers I encountered seem to actively immerse themselves in stories and news that will offend and outrage them, exactly as Rachel Cooke described. They’re not looking for uplift or inspiration, but validation that they must continue to be vigilant and angry. They rarely seem to post original opinions, almost entirely retweeting or replying to what other people have said. They only discovered me because they follow Kirstie Allsopp, whom they mostly despise. It’s an endless cycle of outrage, shock, anger and attack. It must be exhausting to exist in such a constant heightened state of almost existential fear and threat created by the very posts with which they choose to fill their news feeds.

Anyone who disagrees becomes an enemy target.
Anything short of complete rejection would imply an acceptance of the concept that some people can be Trans-, so everything I said was challenged, ridiculed and attacked. Every response referred to ‘she’ when I’d clearly stated ‘they’. They were absolutely and utterly convinced they knew that I was wrong, deluded, cruel, and dangerous. There was no way anything I said could be true, and I needed to be shot down and shut up.

I know that these insults are far less serious than many people face every day on social media platforms. But even these ‘mild’ jibes would be unacceptable in our schools or workplaces; the offenders would be taken to one side and reminded about values, mutual respect and courtesy. But Twitter operates in a parallel universe where that social contract does not apply. I did report a couple of the more direct messages to Twitter, but apparently they didn’t break any of their codes of conduct. If I don’t like the people calling me ‘pure evil’ or ‘child abuser’, I can block them, while they can carry on attacking any number of other people in the same way.

Let’s get the Hell out of Dodge…
And so I have shut down my Twitter account for good. I have no intention or desire to offer Elon Musk and his platform any of my time or energy when it actively condones that sort of behaviour. I Reckon Twitter is worse than other platforms, because while I can choose my friends and whom I follow, it’s much easier and faster to see a whole lot more content on Twitter than I’d like. It’s very hard to control what you see and don’t see.

I will lose a lot; just in the few days since the weekend and deciding to close my account, I’ve had great interactions and chat about cycling and films, but I know I will gain a lot more; time, for one thing. All that cycling bantz takes time, especially when there are races on. I’ll also gain calm. I’ll not miss the sinking feeling of resignation anytime I see J K Rowling or Glinner or Eddie Izzard trending, knowing what’s behind that link; a cess-pool of rage and hyperbole.

I’m not judging people who want to keep using Twitter for the ‘right’ reasons. And I know that most / all(?) social media platforms have their problems, but this to me is just about how we treat each other. Twitter doesn’t give the first sh*t about how people behave, in fact I Reckon it revels in it. It knows that offence provokes outrage, that negative news evokes stronger responses than being nice.

I like people being nice. I believe in nice.

I want to leave those bigots behind, because they can deny our non-binary child and millions like them with all their spite and fear, but they continue to exist, and thrive, and make our world better for their presence.

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Yes! We are all different! … (I’m not)

Even though he wasn’t the Messiah, but a mixed-up mixed-race naughty boy, I Reckon Brian Cohen was right: we are all individuals, who should think for ourselves, and shouldn’t let anyone tell us what to do. And that includes Latin teachers.

In perhaps a surprising but related way in the middle of the last century, the US Military discovered the flaw of averages (thanks to this brilliant article for that headline). Despite taking 140 measurements of more than 4,000 pilots to better design the cockpit of their fighter planes, they found that, even consolidating data to just 10 metrics, literally no one was in the average range (middle 30%) on all dimensions. Even taking just three dimensions only improved that to 3.5%. They concluded that

If you’ve designed a cockpit to fit the average pilot, you’ve actually designed it to fit no one.

The End of Average, Todd Rose, 2016

This led to a whole new approach to design and engineering, creating adjustable seats, helmets and controls, meaning that each distinctly un-average individual pilot could make their cockpit fit them better. In real terms, this made planes more comfortable and easier to fly, leading to significantly fewer incidents and accidents.

Which might help explain why, after decades of limited technology and increasingly frustrated attention spans, marketers are now pursuing the apparent Marketing Nirvana that Steven Spielberg presented 20 years ago in Minority Report, of entirely personal ads, the mythical audience of one, seeing the right message for the right product at the right time, every time.

Of course we’re not here yet, nor do we want to be. 6 years ago KPMG had already identified a wide spectrum of attitudes towards this in their Creepy or Cool? study. Whatever futurists might think, many of us think otherwise.

And despite this professed desire for brands to get closer to individual customers, offering more personalised experiences with tailored and relevant content, the real world doesn’t seem to be working that way. This has long been obvious in the convergence of cars (especially mainstream Family SUVs) into almost identical shapes and sizes.

As a recent article by Alex Murrell brilliantly illustrates, we have somehow descended into the Age of Average.

…from film to fashion and architecture to advertising, creative fields have become dominated and defined by convention and cliché. Distinctiveness has died. In every field we look at, we find that everything looks the same.

Alex Murrell, The Age of Average, 2023

There’s an Airbnb design aesthetic, which is paralleled in contemporary offices and cafés in towns and cities everywhere. Indeed, city skylines and residential developments are more and more similar.

I bet you’ve stayed here, or at least somewhere like it…

And it goes on; media, book covers, even people are looking more and more alike – as Instagram-Face starts to dictate what ‘popular’ people look like, and want to look like for maximum clicks. Always reflecting and jumping on any given bandwagon, marketers have almost relentlessly homogenised their brands in recent years. While this might be more obvious for tech brands, I Reckon it seems at best counter-productive for ‘iconic’ fashion brands… is it really that important to be ‘easy to read online’?

R U OK, Marketing People?
The excellent people at BBH Labs talked about this 5 years ago too, lamenting the growing industry trend to devolve brand strategies into self-help manifestos. Fuelled by a dangerous cocktail of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, saturated markets of near-identical products, and the accelerating bandwagons of Diversity & Inclusion, countless brands have hitched a ride on the train of Encouraging Consumers to Be Whomever They Want To Be because, you know, WE SUPPORT YOU.

It’s easier and safer for marketers to let you work out if you like their brand, than it is for the brands to actually express any kind of personality or opinion. Because you might not like it, or someone on TikTok might be triggered, or something.

And then this happens (this is a joke, but only just).

Well I still believe in the doctrine of Distinctive Brand Assets, as preached by most of the Wise Marketing Types I like to pay attention to. Standing out so you can be more easily recognised and remembered, so associations are formed between brand names and logos and design and products. Which is why, for the longest time, I was a massive admirer of Audi’s marketing. From their amazing depiction of BMW-drivers as arrogant w**kers to the wonderful insight of “I’m a great driver, it’s everyone else that are the problem”, their ads had been witty and compelling, all based around the very German Vorsprung durch Technik. Now, Future is an Attitude, whatever that means.

Average in, Average out.
But there’s a snag in trying to stand out or be distinctive, because algorithms reward popularity, not plucky outliers. Popular-but-Inoffensive trumps Interesting-but-Quirky. So brands start to exist in echo chambers of their own making. They encourage their ‘audiences’ to express themselves, but for the purposes of our primitive Minority Report targeting they do that less in the places they go, the clothes they wear, the people they’re seen with or the cars they drive, but in their Likes and Shares. Brands suck in that information and chase it, anxious to reflect whatever it is they think that we like today. But they only get a fraction of what we like, as if the US Military had measured pilots’ head circumference but not their leg length.

The machine-learning AIs that control what we see, read and hear can only recognise that very partial incomplete version of self-expression and show it back to us, but they base their knowledge on everything they see, read and hear. And as Alex Murrell and others have made very clear, the places, clothes, people and cars they can see, read and hear about are converging towards homogeneity.

So that’s what we’ll see, and like, and they will show it back to us, and hope we like it, and them. And when we do, because we will eventually, they will congratulate themselves that they have connected with us, and we have engaged with them. But really, if different brands look more and more like each other, how will we know which one we liked?

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This is the time to be slow…

Way back at the start of the first COVID lockdown in 2020, I remember seeing a short clip by the BBC journalist Feargal Keane, reading a poem by John O’Donohue, and it completely floored me.

Time to be slow

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
the wire brush of doubt
scrape from your heart
all sense of yourself
and your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
and you will find your feet
again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
and blushed with beginning

John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us (2008)

I wrote it out in full and have had it pinned prominently in my then-spare-bedroom-now-home-office ever since. It’s a reminder that it’s OK to not be OK, that some days my best might not be as good as I might hope, and that, as Tom Hanks would say, this too will pass.

It’s possible these days to know the answer to almost anything in a matter of seconds; how tall is ____? what film did I see her in? what’s the weather like in ____ in September? When did ____ die? What might these symptoms be? How do I make ____? And increasingly, I’m finding that sometime I actually quite like NOT knowing for a while, especially if it takes me away from what I was doing; having dinner with my family, watching a film, trying to do something else. The age of distraction is real, and yet our brains aren’t really very good at multi-tasking.

Even longer ago, I heard the lyrics to a great song that encouraged me to

Abandon your ambitions, you’re overwhelmed by what you haven’t done

Roddy Woomble – A New Day has Begun

This isn’t about lowering expectations, or not setting goals, but about not being defined by action and pace and relentless achievements. Living by values can be immensely productive, and is hugely rewarding if your actions have a sense of purpose.

Have a break
It’s also about recognising that doing nothing is a conscious action and choice. It’s not an absence or abdication. It feels like in recent times we’ve at least partly abandoned the ads of yesteryear promoting cold+flu remedies that would mean you never had to miss that presentation. Because when we get sick, our bodies need rest, and it should be OK to take that rest, rather than ‘struggle on’ into work, where we might end up infecting our colleagues. In the same way, athletes recognise the importance of rest in their training schedules – the drive and motivation to train ever harder, faster, longer is real, but as friends of mine have experienced to their cost, over-training is real.

And in my working day (almost always at home these days), we need to remember, and be kind to ourselves and others, that we can’t always be 100% ‘on’ all the time. In the office environment, breaks are easy to take naturally – walking around to see other people, making coffee and chatting while the kettle boils (etc). At home, especially if you’re alone, we have to be more mindful about these things. This is what Kit-Kat has been banging on about for 65 years.

Kudos to J Walter Thompson for originating the line and sticking with it for so long…

Don’t just react, reflect and respond
There’s a lot of talk about operational agility and being able to better react to changing circumstances. Many people and businesses (including me) had to ‘pivot’ during the lockdowns, not just because they could but as a matter of survival. But in less extreme times, speed isn’t always good. A single tweet or complaint does not necessarily mean your marketing strategy needs a rethink. Knee-jerk reactions are so-called to describe an involuntary reflex, not a mindful, active choice.

And so in 2023 I’m intending to (re)build and sustain better working habits. I know I’m not alone in diving down internet rabbit holes or scrolling mindlessly to occupy myself for a few minutes. This year I’m going to be more conscious, with a bank of alternatives that I can do for anywhere from 5-15 minutes that I can use if I’m feeling less than fully focused, or bored, or distracted. They won’t necessarily get me back on task immediately, but they will be more refreshing than what I tend to do now.

I’m thinking I might create a small deck of cards that I can choose at random (or not), to include things like

• walk around the garden and closely notice 4 different flowers or plants
• mindful breathing exercises (like Wim Hof)
• walk around the block
• play the one piano piece I can actually play (it’s Bach, you know)
• practise my French Horn
• s-t-r-e-t-c-h
• listen to music (again, mindfully, focused)
• just being still (but not at a desk)

That’s a start – I would welcome more ideas. I’m definitely wanting to avoid ‘jobs’ like washing up or preparing food or other household chores; they’re important too, but not part of this.

I Reckon that the more time I spend at my desk, working or especially not working, the more the wire brush of doubt starts to scratch and scrape at me. The fresh pastures of promise aren’t here in this chair, but they’re not far off, and if I seek them out they will bear me back blushed with beginning to respond more positively.

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Practise makes progress…

John Lennon famously sang another year over …and what have you done? (not in that order, but go with me).
Bit of a challenge, John, especially as you then spend quite a few minutes declaring that war is over, if you want it. Except I do want it, but it’s not over.
Anyway, this is not a review of all the things that I’ve done (hmmm…that’s catchy, could be a song in that too), but a reflection on the way that I’ve done things in 2022, how that has felt, and how I hope to take that into 2023.

My last post was extolling the benefits and value I was getting from being part of the FLOWN Flock. And this one will talk about that service and experience a bit more, because at the start of this week, they sent me an email encouraging me to reflect on this past year, but not in the way many businesses tend to do that sort of thing. It’s not about SMART objectives or stretch targets or performance optimisation, and not even about work-life balance, but about three things

Connection, Craft, and Growth

If this appeals to you, there’s a handy guide and downloadable template (which, being Old School, I ignored and just used a pen and paper). Please note: this is neither rocket science nor new-age-floaty-wafty-nonsense. It’s about reflecting and responding to past experiences, in order to make future experiences better, more rewarding, more motivating, more nourishing. When you distil what makes you happier, you can then set intentions to do more of that, more often, and similarly to eliminate, avoid, or reduce the impact of whatever is more challenging…

CONNECTION
This is the act of recalling experiences where you connected with other people, and how they made you feel; which ones were positive and enriching, and which felt more negative or draining. Don’t try to be exhaustive or comprehensive, start with what comes to mind – but I did go back over my calendar to remind myself. These are the positive ones: I have done the negative things for my own purposes, but you’ll get the drift.

• Shared Activities: my virtual work FLOCKS, orchestra rehearsals and concerts, Spin & Yoga classes, Live Music gigs
• Family Time: our trips to Bruges, Belfast, and Cornwall/Devon, but also an Escape Room, meals out, and watching our favourite films and TV
• Working with people: in-person workshops, getting creative, the positivity and enthusiasm of clients for my work, and especailly when our work becomes real, more than words on a page.
  

CRAFT
This is more about what you’ve done, but again it’s not just about work or numbers, but about how it makes you feel. Apparently we’re three times more likely to stick with a job when we get a sense of meaning or value from it. What skills, knowledge, abilities make you feel better? For me, this year, it’s been

• Mixing up my exercise: TBH, I’ve cycled less on the roads this year than the past few years, and I do feel a sense of loss about that (watch out 2023), but I’ve really enjoyed doing more Spin and Yoga classes (see above), which has helped build a different type of fitness, and I’m trying to ignore the Strava numbers.
• Getting sh*t done: in my previous agency-corporate world, I did a lot of work that took months (years) to see the light of day, and too many times great ideas or campaigns died in committee. This year I’ve worked with clients who have asked for my guidance, listened, challenged, built and then actually done at least some of the things I recommended. Trust me, this is enormously validating and rewarding, just to get something done and see how well it works.
• Mobius Works: it’s been more than 2 years since I was made redundant from a job I loved, and 21 months since I started trasing as a limited company. And so far, it’s going better than I thought it might. I work fewer days in the year, but earn at least as much as I did before. I was able to take most of August off. I’ve worked with ex-colleagues and new strangers, and with one exception, every one has either been an extended (3m+) contract or they have asked me back after the first time.
• Celebrating Jamie: I’ve written before about aspects of their journey, and this year really has been the start of the rest of their life. Jamie had top surgery in the summer to give them the flat chest they’ve long desired, and in September they started a degree course in Film at Falmouth University, and they are thriving. It’s not easy, but they are beginning to see just how much they can do and they’re enjoying it.
• Celebrating Eleanor: Ella is perhaps overlooked on this blog, and I don’t think she minds. By contrast to Jamie’s more turbulent experience, she is a more typical teen; except she’s not typical, I Reckon she’s bloody exceptional. Outstanding GCSEs and a first term of A-Levels have been matched by working part-time, rediscovering singing, discovering a love of weight training, (starting) learning to drive, and educating me in the brilliance of Taylor Swift, Lizzie McAlpine, beabadoobee and others in our daily school-run commutes.
• Celebrating Rachel: after a long time (since the first lockdowns) of really tough working conditions, as well as some ‘difficult’ colleagues and persistently draining health worries, I’m delighted that Rachel is now enjoying her job, and has ‘remembered’ that she’s really, really good at it. After dogged determination, the health issues seem resolved, and we’re busy planning a Big Year for the Moodys in 2023 (she has a Significant Birthday, Jamie is 21, Eleanor will be 18, and it’s also our 25th Wedding Anniversary)… ouch.
  

GROWTH
So this isn’t about achieving more, faster, further (I’m looking at you, Strava), but about how you feel you’ve learned, grown, progressed in 2022, (or not – think also about ways you might have felt constrained or stunted).

• New ways of working: I may be an old dog, but I appreciate new tricks. I’ve been fortunate this year to work with people who have different ways of presenting and thinking about the work they do, and it’s been great for me to learn that from them. For all its waffle, there are excellent people on LinkedIn; I just have to choose the right ones to follow.
• Better at working from home: this year I have probably worked remotely 90% of the time, perhaps more in the second half of the year. Which is why my new FLOWN community has been so invaluable. At times I have felt stale and ineffective at home, but the structured sessions, mutual support and generally amazing positive vibes from these groups have been tremendous.
• Self-Belief: hopefully everything from the previous section illustrates this, but the feedback I had from running a strategy workshop recently was immensely rewarding, and TBH I’m also pretty happy with the way my 50-something inflexible frame has responded to practising yoga. I’m nowhere near what you might call bendy, but I’m better than I was, and I can feel the difference.

After reviewing these themes, the key now is to set intentions for 2023. These are not resolutions, they are not necessarily SMART goals. They are intentions, fleshed out with specific practices, ways of behaving to get more Good Stuff into my life and less Bad Stuff. This is not about measurable achivements but about ongoing practice, living by the values I hope to embrace and promote, and by doing the things that make me (and hopefully others) happier. And always note, this is relative; happier, better: there is no end-goal (not everything that matters can be measured), but instead a direction and a feeling that will develop.

So, while I’m still formulating my specific intentions, a few themes and pointers include

• Live music (performing and spectating)
• Working and exercising with people (workshops, classes, Flocks, collaboration)
• Cherishing Family moments (like the school run commute)
• Working with people I can learn from
• Road cycling – this might include a tangible goal, like a specific long ride…?
• Caretaking my days; not taking on the weight of the world, less aimless scrolling, checking.

That’s what I’m going for – this process has been great so far, and I Reckon it’s worth an hour of your time to ignite your thinking. This isn’t about perfection, but about progress; about accentuating the positive and eliminating (or reducing) the negative. And its aim is to FEEL better, which I Reckon would do us all good.

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Equity is not a zero-sum game…

I’m certain that Jamie might have some problems with me writing this post because, for all their righteous and witty discontent at quite a few things in the world, Jamie doesn’t often like to be the centre of attention, except very occasionally when they do.
So I Reckon I should get my “sorry not sorry” apology in now, because I want to talk about Jamie.

For several years they’ve been a member of the National Open Youth Orchestra (NOYO), the world’s first open-access disabled-led national orchestra for young people. NOYO is a brilliant example of the benefits of active inclusion and diversity. Its musicians are mostly neurodiverse and/or have a range of physical disabilities. Jamie is autistic, others are blind, some are physically disabled such that they use eye-gaze technology to make music. NOYO works with a diverse range of people playing a diverse range of instruments, with living composers writing music specifically for those instruments and players. It is often collaborative, in that Jamie and other players can contribute to the arrangements, or request pieces based on their own favourite music.

NOYO had been scheduled to perform concerts in Bristol and London last year, but what with One Thing and Another, they have been postponed until 2022. Meanwhile, the orchestra has been building towards a more public launch, and now has regional hubs of students in Birmingham and Bournemouth as well as Bristol and London.

Cutting Kerbs to benefit everyone
During the Spring, Jamie and another NOYO musician, Ellen, appeared on the Young Musicians for Social Change podcast. And for once, for 45 minutes or so, Jamie was happy to be the centre of their attention. I Reckon Jamie and Ellen are hugely eloquent, talking openly about how the existence of NOYO has made a difference to their lives, and by extension, to the lives of all its players.

Notably, Jamie talks about the kerb-cutter effect, a phenomenon where creating features or implementing changes to benefit a specific group (often disabled people) has much broader benefits for other groups as well. Lowering a kerb to enable easier wheelchair access can also help cyclists, or parents with babies in buggies, or elderly people not good with steps, or people delivering heavy goods on a trolley.

Another obvious and now common example is subtitles. Originally intended for people with impaired hearing, they’re a staple in our house these days, not the ‘one-inch barrier’ as described by Bong Joon-Ho. As a young child, Jamie loved them as it helped teach them to read and spell the words they were hearing. Research among American College Students indicates that when colleges provide closed captions for lectures (usually because they have been required to for specific students), more than 75% of all students use them if they know they are available, and 85% like to use transcripts as revision aids.

We should all expect more
I Reckon that too often in our society we (by which I mean individuals, groups, businesses and Governments) have tended to do the least amount possible to cater for the needs of people using their transport, schools, workplaces and public buildings. ‘Additional needs’ have to be fought for, often on an individual basis. When a wheelchair-using friend enquired recently if the wedding reception venue he’d been invited to was accessible, he was told no. When he asked why not, he was told (I’m paraphrasing) “it’s an old building, what do you expect?”.

Well, for a start, not to feel like a second-class citizen…

Too often in our society the argument is made that affirmative action in favour of one group disadvantages another group. But equity is not a zero-sum game. Black Lives Matter does not mean other lives don’t matter: it is a response to centuries of systemic and institutionalised behaviour that has demeaned and debased Black Lives. Campaigning to eliminate the gender pay gap does not threaten men, it raises the potential living standards for nearly half the working population.

I am wholly behind equity on as many levels as we can dare to dream, because I Reckon that setting discrete identities against each other exacerbates the way minority groups can be marginalised, when in fact many of them have far more in common than would pull them apart, and because the world is not binary, humans are not binary.

In a moment of serendipity, my Facebook memories recently reminded me of a post I shared a few years ago. Morgan’s Wonderland is a activity theme park in San Antonio, Texas, that has been designed as a park of inclusion. It isn’t for people with special needs, but it doesn’t exclude them by design omission. It doesn’t shrug its shoulders and say “it’s a splash park, what do you expect?”. Instead, it welcomes everyone to its attractions, and for once does make special dispensation towards those with special needs, by not charging admission, and by having done all the thinking in advance. And everyone benefits.

Working 9 to 5 (or, in this case, 5.30 to 11.30)
In other news, Jamie has recently started their first real job, as a member of the housekeeping team at Calcot Manor Hotel, not far from Tetbury. During their job search this summer, they did occasionally encounter some responses like “we don’t have any vacancies that meet your needs”. On the one hand, this could just be an AI-generated auto-response letter. But to Jamie it was confusing, almost threatening. What needs are you talking about? To wear noise-filtering earplugs in noisy environments? To have very clear and structured instructions?
The people at Calcot have been terrific, and the support and training has been great. Jamie already feels comfortable, and is gaining confidence every week. This is by no means a small thing, as barely 1 in 5 autistic adults is in any kind of employment.

But even this is much higher than for people with learning disabilities. The Down’s Syndrome Association report that only 1 in 20 people with learning disabilities were in paid employment before the Covid Pandemic struck. Hence they have been supporting the outstanding campaign The Hiring Chain, which seeks to encourage employers to take the first step. People hire people (partly) because they see that other people are doing it too. And the film that brings this to life is, I Reckon, pretty bloody brilliant.

Because Jamie’s talking about everyone
Jamie, together with the Music Director of NOYO, is going to speak and share their experiences with the orchestra at the Musicians’ Union Education Conference in a few weeks’ time, hoping to inform and inspire an audience of Music Educators. Every time I’ve been to a NOYO rehearsal I’ve been amazed by the talent and enthusiasm of the young musicians, many of whom almost certainly couldn’t function in most orchestras; talent and enthusiasm that couldn’t flourish and find its full expression, for a basic lack of understanding and effort to accommodate it.

I’m sure there’s a motivational poster in an office somewhere that proclaims “if you can see it, you can be it”, or something like that. It’s a cliché because it’s true. I hope individual businesess hire people with learning disabilities because of The Hiring Chain, and I hope their suppliers or customers see this, and do the same, and so on. I hope that the Music Educators at their Conference in a few weeks hear Jamie talk about their experiences with NOYO and make changes to include even just one extra student with some kind of specific needs or disabilities. Because I don’t just Reckon, I know that when they do, everybody wins.

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Weathering the storms…

26 months ago (June 2019) I started a new job, that I hoped would renew and reinvigorate my professional life, and rebalance my lifestyle. A new role with a new team in a great marketing agency, for their newest, biggest client, with a mandate to revamp and change their way of communicating with customers. Importantly, it was also close enough to home that I would save upwards of 90 minutes per day (and £££) in my commute, or I could commute by bike in less time than it took me to drive to my previous job.

As it’s turned out that was mostly right, but it has also been true in other, much more significant ways.

16 months ago (April 2020), along with 1/4 of my colleagues, I was furloughed just after the start of the first COVID lockdown. The agency were great, ensuring we received 80% of our salary even above the Government scheme, and I enjoyed the luxury of free time to cycle, improve our garden, decorate inside and out. Our home looks better, I got fitter and faster and lost nearly 10kg, and I was able to better support my family in many ways, big and small.

12 months ago this week, along with 25 other colleagues, I was made redundant from that job I had hoped would be a proper long-term thing. I was 52 years old, the same age my Dad had been when he was made redundant a generation before at the start of a recession that left him unemployed for more than a year. COVID wasn’t going anywhere, we were months away from a vaccine, I was more than slightly anxious.

The past 12 months have been a lot of things, but they have not been a roller coaster, because a roller coaster brings you back to the same point from where you started. So if you were to take the ride again, it would be familiar, and you would remember the loops and twists and drops, and it would be ‘easier’. I am in very few senses in the same ‘work’ place I was 12 months ago, let alone 26 months ago.

I Reckon a better description is that the past 12 months have been like the weather. Many things have happened, some of which I could have forecast (and could certainly better recognise them now), others that seemed to blindside me.

• a 3-month contract was cancelled (due to COVID reasons) after 6 weeks
• a 12-day project over 6 weeks gradually, almost by accident, turned into 5 days over 8 weeks
• I began to get used to the silence of delays and projects stalling, and reworking my forecasts
• I was thrilled when I helped to win a pitch, but then dismayed when nothing happened for weeks (again, COVID)
• I understood the Chilly Drought of January when December’s ‘plan’ dried up
• I rejoiced in a repeat call for a new project
• I basked in the stability of longer, rolling contracts
• I dithered about, doubted, almost abandoned (several times) and ultimately launched myself as a business
• I found belief and a way forward, with the kindness and support of friends and colleagues, and the guidance and wisdom of Paul Stephenson at Zengility

So where I’ve got to now is long way from my Old World.

• I’m mostly working for smaller brands and businesses with smaller budgets, and that’s great. The approval chains are often much shorter, and the people often seem more grateful for my efforts. They seem more willing to listen, and more able to make changes.
• I used to spend a lot of time in meetings with lots of people, talking about stuff. Now I spend far more time working on stuff, more by myself (which has good and bad points), then working out with others how to make it happen.
• Most importantly, it feels like I can make a difference more easily; to individuals, teams and businesses
• I genuinely believe I’m doing some of my best work, because I have been released from decades of learned dependency
• I’m working 4 days a week on rolling contracts, with a financial ‘buffer’ that is slightly more than the redundancy money I received 12 months ago

There’s more that I’m proud of in working terms in the last 3 months than became real in the previous 36. But there’s also more recurring anxiety because, when 12 days become 5, that’s 2 months’ mortgage payment.

It’s still stormy, but I’m beginning to believe in my skills and ability to weather the storms, to respond to the conditions, and steer a course for brighter, calmer waters.

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…a machine that generates empathy…

If you’ve read more than a couple of my Reckons over the past 12 years, you’ll know that I’m kind of a movie buff: not so much in an academic / analytical way, although I do love that; not compared to many people with encyclopaedic knowledge of Films Noirs from the 1940s, or the filmography of Satyajit Ray or Yasujiro Ozu or Agnes Varda or Bela Tar; but I am ‘above average’ in my watching and geekiness.

I bloody love films and, although I couldn’t have said it as eloquently as the American film critic Roger Ebert, a big part of that is how and what they make me feel. He said

…movies are like a machine that generates empathy. If it’s a great movie, it lets you understand a little bit more about what it’s like to be a different gender, a different race, a different age, a different economic class, a different nationality, a different profession, different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us…

Because of One Thing and Another, none of us have been able to get to cinemas as often as we might like. And while I’ve enjoyed virtually 200 films at home in the past year, the cinema experience is still something special for me. And two of the handful of films I’ve seen there in the last year, both at the great Wotton Electric Picture House, have truly delivered on their ability to create empathy.

Rocks is a terrific portrait of a multi-racial, inner-city group of teenage girls (and one younger brother) that is as real as it gets, full of brilliant individual and ensemble performances. The screening we saw had a BFI Q&A from 2019 where it was clear that the cast were virtually all non-actors recruited from schools and youth clubs, and they all collaborated with the film-makers to develop the story, characters and script. 

It’s not an easy watch, and it reminded me of The Florida Project for a near-constant sense of dread I felt at Rocks’ & her brother Emmanuel’s troubles. Yet the ending, and many scenes throughout, felt optimistic, and the film earned that optimism. For all their difficulties, Rocks has friends, and they have her back, no matter what. This could easily have been a film about children abandoned by the system, about a system that cannot cope. That is clearly shown through the story, but that’s not what it’s about. Instead, it revels in the way these young characters get on with their lives, making the best of what they can. supporting each other as best they can, finding and making joy where they can.

Nomadland is one of the more moving experiences I can remember with a film: partly because it was my first cinema visit in more than 6 months, but also because Chloe Zhou has created, written, directed and edited a masterpiece. Like Rocks it’s mostly populated by real people playing versions of themselves, mostly elderly travellers who live in their vehicles, roaming the Great American West for seasonal work and pop-up communities. It would have been easy for Zhou to make a film that rails at the injustice of elderly people forced to live this way by the inadequacies of American Social Security, but she barely touches on that.

Instead, we meet fabulous people like Bob Wells (above), who dispenses unconditional love and comfort to his fellow travellers, all the while living with the grief of the suicide of his young adult son; like Linda May and Charlene Swankie, Derek Endres and Angela Reyes. They all get a chance to tell their story (or a version of it) and noone is judged. Everyone is making the best of a situation, and indeed revelling in the joys it can offer; freedom, friendship, jaw-dropping landscapes, an ability to work and contribute and still feel useful.

Frances McDormand is the lead, and probably the reason the film got made; as the winner of two Oscars already and acting as a producer, it’s obvious how much she has invested in the film, in every possible way. And we should be grateful for that; it becomes almost hard to tell or remember if she’s actually living as a nomad, or if Fern is a real nomad who just happens be a near-double for Frances McDormand.

For a film with such massive vistas it’s deeply intimate and human, with barely a raised voice through the film, which in its way forces you to lean in, to pay attention and really listen. And when you do, it’s so deeply rewarding.

Both films feature real people doing their best every day. These are lives well-lived, however different they might be from mine. I have no right to judge or pity or even envy. My privilege is to watch, listen and understand, with empathy and gratitude.

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That’s what you get for changing your mind…

For a long time, when I was young and idealistic, I believed that I was pretty good at seeing all sides of an argument, considering the alternatives on their merits, trying to see things from an opposing point of view, and I believed that was a Good Thing. As I grew older and more experienced, the first belief remained true. Indeed, if anything it strengthened, but I found it increasingly difficult to think it was positive.

A jump to the left, and a step to the right…
Opposing points of view appear to have hardened and become more extreme. From near universal outrage over, well, anything and everything to the polarisation of politics, we seem like we’re more divided than ever. Barely a generation ago, 30% of Democratic Party supporters could have comfortably ‘fitted in’ within the spectrum of the Republican Party, and 36% of Republicans could have reasonably got on within the Democrats. By 2014, this overlap had become marginalised to under 10%. I Reckon that in 2020 it might be even lower.

While I get that makes for clear choices in a 2-party system, what hope is there for compromise and constructive governing for the whole electorate? Not much. Being nuanced or sympathetic to alternative viewpoints doesn’t seem like a prized quality in this arena.

What did we say before?
In my professional life, I’ve seen senior people taking increasingly fixed and seemingly immovable positions on questions of strategy, creative and indeed tactics that should be well below their pay grade. It’s as though, when a client (or indeed, more senior person) asks for an opinion, anything less than an immediately and wholly categorical response is unacceptable. Simplify everything down to three key bullet points (yes, it is always three), irrespective of the task. And Heaven help us if at any point during a project (however protracted), we might, for a fleeting moment, think about going back on anything we had said before. No ma’am, we stick to our story, don’t make the clients think we are less than 100% certain of everything…

Decisions, once made, should stay that way
Not only are people taking aggressively strong stands on almost everything, but there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of them ever conceding a point, let alone changing their mind. In my memory the Inciting Incident behind this trend was in 1980, when the relatively new and somewhat beleaguered Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher created a memorable catchphrase that defined a large part of her approach to policy.

Evidently in 1980 the media and, by extension, the mainstream political mindset was that to change policy was a sign of failure and weakness, and Mrs T was not having that.

But I Reckon that proper leadership reveals itself by adapting and recalibrating itself when it has to, when new information or circumstances emerge that question a previous choice, when the original paradigm is actually interrogated rather than bluntly and repeatedly reasserted.

A small example of responsive leadership
Since reopening in September, our younger daughter’s secondary school has managed the complexity and restrictions of COVID-19 extremely well. Their approach has made sense and been communicated well.

Because ventilation is a key factor to mitigate the risks of infection in classrooms, the school had accepted that students might need additional layers over their normal school uniform, and allowed (dark) blue jumpers, sweatshirts etc. Until last week when, with no notice, it was removed; no extra jumpers at all, wear coats if you need to.

Our 15yo was royally annoyed by this for a host of decent reasons and we wrote to express this to the school. This seemed like the wrong hill to die on: many families had specifically bought clothing for this purpose. Wearing a thick winter coat (of any colour) during class can make it harder to work and concentrate (etc).

Within 24 hours we had a reply from the Deputy Head, the man who had taken the decision. Full and frank, he briefly explained the intentions and process behind the change (the whole senior leadership had agreed), and then, more fully, the aftermath.

To say it went down badly would be an understatement…

Their decision upset not only students (already fed up with restrictions and protocols), but also parents and staff (who had been working for weeks to enforce the clear dark-blue-only rule, and now had students pissed-off about something utterly avoidable). And so, the leadership team were acting to reverse the decision, and to apologise.

The openness and simplicity of his response to us was a breath of fresh air. The good intentions behind the decision were stated, but quickly left behind. The impact on the school and its ability to function smoothly and happily was the important issue, not the egos or status of the senior team.

I’m not saying every decision subjected to criticism should change: that way chaos and confusion lies. But I Reckon leadership is about listening (thanks to Selina for reminding me of that!), and it is a mark of leadership to recognise when a rethink could be the best way to achieve the overall objectives. Leaders should keep their eyes on the prize, but also know that there is often more than one way to reach it.

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Stop whispering…

It’s quite the British (or, perhaps, English?) stereotype that we don’t like to make a fuss about things. “Mustn’t grumble” is shorthand for “everything’s shit but, you know, talking about it is just improper”. “Stiff Upper Lip” was drilled into children as a sense of strength, of inner fortitude, but with our 2020 hindsight feels more like something to enable bullying. Like the Victorians exhorting us to look for the Silver Linings and forget about the bloody enormous black clouds…

A few years ago a friend and colleague was offended and hurt by a racist act, originating less from malice than from ignorance and white privilege, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t racist. I didn’t see the incident, but knew that she had been deeply upset, with good reason. But in the days and weeks that followed, I was silent. I knew that it was ‘being dealt with’, and I didn’t think it was my place to make any more fuss.

I realise now that I let my friend down by not letting her know I was on her side, by not asking how I could help, or listening to her. I realise now that not making a fuss is exactly what contributed to the incident in the first place. And I realise now that me deciding ‘how bad’ a racist act is exactly the same white privilege that enables countless racist acts, every day.

But it seems the times-they-are-a-changing. From #metoo to Extinction Rebellion and Black Lives Matter, not to mention their counterparts among alt-right groups, protest is the new S.O.P. for today. Often organised, promoted and live-streamed on social media, more people are more aware more quickly of things that piss them off and how they can actually do something about it.

Our teenage children are absorbing this new mindset that says it’s not OK to let things go, to grin and bear it, turn the other cheek, get on with it or do anything else with ‘it’. They’re making themselves aware, reading and watching to get informed, talking to their friends or like-minded people on social media in ways that simply weren’t possible a generation ago.

I hope this early awareness, education and mass mobilisation can deliver results on a properly macro- scale. Even more, I hope it delivers frequent, everyday results on a micro- level, because things that were ignored or even condoned before won’t be in the future.

For her first homework of the GCSE Art course, our younger teen (not far off 15) was asked to decorate their sketchbook. This is how she did that, and I couldn’t be more proud. The time is always right to do what’s right.

I was recently witness to crass, unacceptable sexist behaviour by two middle-aged men. If it had been a scene from The Inbetweeners I would have cringed at the offensively crude ‘jokes’ they thought were hilarious bants. Except they’re old enough to be the Dads of The Inbetweeners, and this wasn’t bants their own expense, but wholly targeted at a woman I’m sure they would describe as a friend. I was deeply uncomfortable, even more so when she said, smiling, “I just have to play along…”.

To my shame I didn’t say anything at the time, as I was effectively an invited guest in their space. But I have done subsequently, to my friend who invited me to be there. It turns out he has seen the same sort of thing before, and feels equally uncomfortable, tries to avoid it. And now he’s said he wants to do something about it, to let it be known he doesn’t accept it either.

Part of me felt almost brave for calling this out, even indirectly. But it’s not brave, it’s essential. I Reckon that not calling it out is cowardly. Silence really is violence, because if noone says anything, these guys, and many more like them will definitely keep doing what they do, bullying women who can’t or won’t answer back.

I know I have lived with white, male, middle-class privileges all my life. Noone has ever asked me where I’m from, or commented on my accent, or been patronising towards me about pretty much anything. But I’m done not making a fuss.

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