Sam Grayston

Category: Calm

  • Stop the Arsonists: Better Leadership for Burning Workplaces

    Stop the Arsonists: Better Leadership for Burning Workplaces

    “I’m always firefighting. There’s no time to think.”

    I can’t remember the first time I heard this phrase, but I hear it A LOT – particularly when I’m coaching senior leaders in transformative and project leadership roles.

    And whilst evocative of modern time-management (or lack thereof) has to be a better way, right? Well this got me thinking, and a confluence of three things sparked this blog:

    1. Someone using this phrase in a coaching session…again!
    2. Reading about systems thinking.
    3. Watching the Apple TV+ show, Smoke.

    A bit of context about each, and then the thought…

    The phrase

    It paints a clear picture…or we can all think of the meme with the cartoon dog in the house that’s on fire saying ‘this is fine’…everything’s going a million miles per hour and we have to move from one crisis to the next, urgent to urgent to urgent – never doing the important things we promised ourselves we’d do, like strategic thinking, self-development, 1:1s with others, improving processes, etc.

    Systems Thinking

    This is something that I’ve dabbled with on and off for years. In the first instance, I didn’t really get it. Someone sent me a video of blobs moving around rectangles and said ‘I think you’re going to love it’…

    More recently, I’ve come to understand more about systems and how interconnected everything is – that is, whatever happens may be as of a result of something else far away in the system, or whatever we do may have far reaching and unintended consequences on the wider system. And that, traditionally, when things go wrong people tend to analyse; that is, break the problem down into smaller and smaller constituent parts – e.g. an app fails and analysis tells us a line of code needs rewriting, whereas Systems thinking asks us to synthesise, or to look up at the wider systemic nudges that may cause the problem – e.g. an app fails because of management pressure to ship fast on smaller budgets.

    Smoke

    This is a show on Apple tv+ about a fire scene investigator partnering up with a cop to identify and catch two serial arsonists. No spoilers, but it’s far more compelling than I thought it might be to start with. The fire scene investigator character, played by Taron Egerton, often delivers talks to trainees about the chaos of fire and being prepared.

    The confluence

    This got me thinking, if a fire kept happening in the same place, you wouldn’t want to keep relying on the fire brigade/department to come and put it out…you’d solve the reason why the same thing kept happening…so why don’t we do this at work when people describe their entire jobs as ‘fire fighting’?

    I can’t imagine a fire fighter loving having to revisit a scene time and time again if a fire keeps getting ignited there – they’d want to put some other measures in place – systemic changes – sprinklers, better equipment, arrest the arsonists, create escape plans.

    This approach could apply to the highly flammable systems in the workplace because it’s not ok to perpetually expect colleagues to be fire-fighters – presumably we want them spending their time adding value and putting their hard-won skills and experiences to work rather than rushing around, meeting to meeting, putting out things that have gone wrong.

    Setup Sprinklers

    In the immediate term, a knowledge-work equivalent of the sprinkler system might need setting up. If a fire keeps breaking out, having something to immediately dampen it down might be a reasonable temporary solution. In our imagined knowledge-work based equivalent, maybe that’s a standing meeting, decision forum, Andon Cord, or emergency WhatsApp channel that can be triggered straight away to solve the biggest crises and challenges.

    Improve Equipment and Systems

    The system is broken if fires keep breaking out. The system needs fixing. In the same way that if a restaurant kept catching fire they might need some better quality ovens, in our knowledge-work environment, we need higher quality systems that avoid these fires breaking out. Maybe it’s visualising all the work that’s going on so that people can see a potential fire brewing. Maybe it’s limiting work in progress so that more work can’t be shoved into an already overloaded system. Maybe it’s building in slack, recovery, creativity time into work.

    To continue the fire metaphor, sometimes a fire-break is required in order to break the spread of the chaos and put new systems in place and so it may be with our work systems. It’s not ok that colleagues describe their working days as perpetually being on fire, we have to find better systems.

    Arrest the Arsonists

    If you’re the fire fighter in this scenario, then I’m going to assume it’s not you lighting the fires…you keep putting them out. So who IS lighting them? Stop them. Take their jerry cans of fuel away.

    If it’s people adding stuff to your plate, check out the No Repertoire from Greg McKeown; if it’s people bringing you down, stop spending time with them; if people change their mind every five minutes, perhaps introduce something like the RAPID decision-making framework and force people to take some responsibility.

    Develop Escape Plans

    And, if it can’t be prevented, fire breaks out – then you need an escape plan. Getting away from your desk for a minute to assess the situation, having a friend to call, taking a holiday, going for a walk all may be release valves for dealing with these situations.

    There’s a reason firefighters have to have breaks and spend a lot of time training – it’s not tenable to be doing it all the time. And it isn’t for us either. We need breaks, we need training, we need recovery if we’re going to have to fight fires at work.

    These are some ideas I’ve been kicking around on firefighting. What other techniques could people try to change the system and stop the arsonists?

  • Back to nature and back to sketching

    Back to nature and back to sketching

    Thought I’d take a couple of days off to wander round in nature and do a little sketching.

    I bought this one.

  • Is there a Place for Seasonality at Work?

    Is there a Place for Seasonality at Work?

    One of my favourite places to walk is Westonbirt Arboretum near our home. It’s a great way to get back to nature and clear my head whilst supporting conservation work. On my most recent visit, I was marvelling at the structures of the trees now that all the leaves have fallen. These marvellous, decades-old organisms are saving all their energy and growth for spring: fresh buds, flowers, leaves, fruit. And it got me wondering if nature can teach us something about this time of year away from the pressures of ‘new year’s resolutions’ and towards embracing seasonality in our working lives?

    From the first of January, the start of the new calendar year, we’re often encouraged to set new goals and resolutions, and yet it’s a very arbitrary date. If we look to the rest of the natural world, it’s not starting afresh – it is midwinter! Plants are saving energy for fresh buds; animals are hibernating and hunkering down to be ready for spring; and here we are ‘getting after it’, ‘living our best life’, making radical changes…then not sticking with it, getting ill, and burning out. It doesn’t make much sense, it doesn’t appear to be very sustainable, and yet LinkedIn is full of people ‘bringing it on’ and ‘owning 2023’.

    We are connected to nature too – being human beings.

    Yes, reflect on the lessons of the previous season, nourish yourself with wholesome food, more knowledge, and enjoy movement; clear out unnecessary clutter and excesses of the past, but also be gentle, warm, kind and compassionate to yourself too. And when the first buds of new ideas and new goals arise, they will do so with greater clarity and fresh energy too.

    This is an invitation to not feel as great a pressure to set all those big goals and get started on everything now. Listen to yourself and to the natural world and respond appropriately. Reflect on what’s worked, what hasn’t; think about what you want to try out; maybe even explore a couple of ideas and experiments but consider that there may be a genuinely more invigorating time for renewal later.

    I am not saying do not do anything now.

    I know that life continues, that business thrives, that organisations endure. I’m merely advocating for observing more seasonality in our work and life – to acknowledge that there is ebb and flow, rather than being constantly ‘on’. For when we are ‘on’ 24/7, we run down to nothing and have nothing wonderful left to give the world. And I know that each and every person does have something extraordinary to offer.

    Personally, I’ve set goals for the next quarter and have a vision for the longer-term, but I’m not worrying about new year’s resolutions.

    And when you are ready to make the connections between those big, far-away goals and the experimental actions you want to start with today, then check out my Outcomes Tree idea. It’s an agile, responsive, and natural way to live in alignment with your purpose, bring value to your work, and change outcomes for the better.

  • The most stunning leadership statement I heard this year 

    The most stunning leadership statement I heard this year 

    Leadership is hard. In any organisation, at any level, being a leader requires clarity, calm and consideration. It requires people to paint such a compelling picture of a possible future that it seems like it could be a reality today. So much of the role of leaders is based on how they speak – and whether those words match their actions.

    I was wowed when I heard this statement from a leader’s opening remarks earlier this year. Rodrigo leads part of a large multi-national financial services provider. His words and actions impact work that serves millions of customers. He leads quarterly planning events that have thousands of attendees, and during his opening address, he said something that will stay with me forever:

    Your children know my name and I’ll have never met them. Your team members’ children know your name. What do you want them to say about you?”

    This was such an ingeniously human way of describing the impact leaders have, not just in the workplace, but in our lives more broadly. He knew that, whilst he won’t ever meet many of his team members’ children, they have probably heard his name at home. And he wants his people to talk about him positively to their children. By extension, he was making an extraordinary invitation to consider the impact his leaders have on their respective team members.  

    We can all think of leaders and managers we have talked about with disdain at home – to loved ones, friends, family (and children pick up on everything!). Those people close to us will have formed views and opinions of that leader and, potentially, by extension, that organisation. And because these people love us and want what’s best for us, their views will be strong-held based on what they hear. So, this wonderful statement was to ask us to consider how we’d like to be talked about when we’re not there. Do we want to be the leader that people are stressed and upset about and worry about interacting with, keeping people awake on a Sunday night; or do we want to be the leader that enthuses people to speak well about our organisation at home, to look forward to working with them, to bringing their best selves to work with us?

    As my coaching supervisor says to me, ‘how we do anything is how we do everything’and here’s a perfect example of how this can play out: our lives are complex webs of social interactions where each part of the system has an impact on the other.

    What kind of impact do you want to have on others?