The Wind Through the Branches
Last week was a downer. Some personal, some work-related.
I woke up on Monday with a sore throat, stuffy ears, a fever and fatigue. It knocked me out for the day, and the aches, pains and tiredness continued for several days. (I rarely take paracetamol but lived off it last week.) It felt viral but I tested negative for covid, so who knows what it was.
Missing one day and not being able to go into the office meant I felt disconnected and disoriented the rest of the week. Some of that I can solve, some of it is circumstance.
But I spent some time (and several sleepless hours) reflecting on it all and am in a better place now. So let’s not dwell on the negatives.
On the positive side, we had our fortnightly check-in with teams where we review OKRs and risks. There’s good progress happening, and people are moving into a place where they want to start setting objectives. It’s a good proxy for increased autonomy.
I prepared a quiz to test people on our vision, mission and the outcomes we’re looking to achieve, plus the problems we’ll solve along the way. This idea popped up when talking to my coach, but one of our delivery managers suggested it might be more fun than another deck. Too right. We’re playing it tomorrow at our away day.
It’ll be a good test as to whether people get what we’re doing. If they don’t, we need to do more to teach and explain it. It would be a leadership problem to solve.
Staying on the subject of leadership, I spent some sleepless mornings catching up on the Modern Product Leadership course. The first module goes through the history and changes of leadership in the 20th Century: plotting the shift from command-and-control leadership styles and an appreciation of natural traits, through to empowering teams and focusing on people and process. The detail has helped me analyse leadership styles, my own and those of others.
It’s nice to know what good looks like, and be able to describe why it replaced what came before.
Driving
On Friday I had the first lesson in my intensive driving course. My instructor gave me good feedback: great road-handling, good observation and use of mirrors, and a natural at manoeuvres. Sometimes I rush to set off and stall the car, so I’m learning to slow down. The rest of the time my pedal control is good.
I’m taking most of this week off to finish the course and take my test, so keep your eyes peeled.
Croydon tech meetup
After my driving lesson, I caught up with Ben near East Croydon station. It was great to talk shop, especially with someone who’s seen a lot at GDS and OECD. But we’re hatching plans for a tech for public good meetup based in Croydon. It’s pretty simple: a place to get-together with no set agenda, and we’ll take it wherever it goes.
It’s open to anyone but will appeal mostly to south Londoners. Neil’s up for it, other cool people are too, so drop me a line if you fancy it!
Opticians
A couple of weeks ago I stepped on my new glasses, which broke one of the arms. It’s meant I either haven’t used my glasses or have looked very silly on video calls. Busy-ness meant I hadn’t contacted our opticians to get replacement frames, but I should have jumped on it sooner. One call, a 15-minute bus, 10 minutes to change the lenses and, hey presto!, I can see again!
I’m writing this because I have the classic male, working-class trait of always deprioritising health-related tasks. But this one was relatively simple. A reminder for Future Steve.
North Downs Way
On Saturday I conquered another 30 kilometres of the North Downs Way with Martin. There was some good scenery, it was way less muddy than February, and I’m closer to completing my second national trail!
A highlight was passing through Perry Court Farm, from where we’ve bought our veg over several years from Brockley Market. I got a real buzz of excitement on the approach, and was really curious when exploring the grounds. It made me so happy to see where our food comes from. That’s a joy we often don’t feel these days, when picking up our plastic-wrapped produce. We miss that connection with the land, with our planet and what sustains us. A small but secular saying of grace.
Martin mentioned the birds and the wind through the trees, which I’m also grateful to hear. But this year I’ve not heard them so much. The hip injury has thrown my running discipline out the window, which helps me get outside and get mindful. It was good to remember the simple things that can make big problems seem small and insignificant.
Running
My hip’s feeling better, so I’ve returned to running. Instead of a five-day-a-week plan, I’ve gone for a lighter three-day-a-week plan. I’m augmenting it with a couple of blasts on the bike to get the legs turning.
Three days seems to be a sweet spot. The pain is there but it’s very dull. A medic friend thinks it might be a labral tear on the hip or maybe some bone impingement…which is a more thorough analysis than I got from the NHS.
I’m grateful to be able to get outside. I can’t reach the goals I wanted to this year, but good recovery will set me up for next year. As much as we want immediate results, some times things take time.
The Fall
We started watching this on Netflix after seeing it in a pub garden in Belfast, and blimey is it good. It’s 10 years old and I definitely missed it first time round, but Gillian Anderson is great in it. iMDB says the bloke from 50 Shades of Grey is in it too, though I imagine he plays a similar character in that?
Bookmarks
None this week.