May, 2021

Hi

It’s Harriet here.

I hope you are keeping safe, well, and in touch with friends, family and colleagues.

Thank you so much for all of your amazing insights, ideas, resources and networking this month – it fills me with joy to read your comments and recommendations. Keep them coming!

I want to start with our three red threads for this month as we all connect, coach and collaborate whilst acting as a strong community together. Whether you are returning to the office or continuing to work from home, our activities should, I think, be governed in ways that help us to be productive and happy as we continue each of us to deal with this intense vortex of change.

Skills The World Needs

I have spoken often about skills – both technical and life skills – and was surprised to read this BBC article with a warning that the UK is heading towards a catastrophic digital skills shortage disaster.

According to the third edition of the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report, half of us will need to reskill in the next five years, as the "double-disruption" of the economic impacts of the pandemic and increasing automation transforming jobs takes hold.

All of us as modern workers have little extra time for learning, and yet continuous learning is vital for anyone who wants to maintain their edge.

There’s a significant pressure on us all to learn the right stuff, for ourselves, and the world as we build back better, but how do we identify what that is?

This amazing HBR article has a fabulous time-utility analysis that can help us decide what to prioritise in the learning jungle.

By examining how useful a skill should be, and how much time it would take you to learn, you can plot various skills on a 2×2 matrix: stuff that’s easy to learn and really useful is a clear quick win, while you’ll have to carve out more time for useful skills that take some time to learn. And for those truly useless things? Think about how much time you can afford to invest in them, and then learn as you can — or just move on with your life.

Try being a beginner again – it helps develop your skill base

Having a deep sense of curiosity and loving to learn new stuff means that I am often at the 'beginner stage' which some may think is to be gotten through as quickly as possible!

But even if we’re only passing through this stage, we should pay attention to this moment according to this sensational piece from the Guardian.

For once it goes, it’s hard to get the feel of the beginner's phase back.

Think of a time when you visited a new far off land. When you arrive you are alive to every novelty, the smell of the street food, the calling to prayer, and curious traffic signs! In this new territory, you are filled with sensory overload and absolutely ripe for learning.

It’s a very important time I think to expand and invest in our networks so you may enjoy these suggestions...

Our Networking Power & Metcalfe’s Law

Metcalfe's Law states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2).

This Harvard Business Review article suggests we are right now losing touch with our networks.

As I began to explore this question and the richness of my networks, particularly virtually, I was intrigued to read about the distinct styles we use when building communities.

We have conveners, brokers & expansionists.

• Conveners - who form close, interconnected groups. Conveners, tend to have social networks populated by mutual friends.
• Brokers - tend to have social networks that overlap less. Brokers may have several friend groups that don’t interact with each other. At work, a broker might be someone who has connections across different parts of the organization & serves to facilitate collaboration across departments.
• Expansionists - these are social butterflies, they often have extremely large social networks with numerous acquaintances, connections & content!

This resource will help you identify your networking style: http://ow.ly/glbS50DQMCV

There are plenty of reasons professionals don’t network enough – for many years I did not see the value in networking. But I watched others doing it – particularly men on aeroplanes speaking to the person in the seat next to them and leaving with new insights and a connection that I learned that networking is important, and connections made are hugely powerful! I encourage you to have a read of this article that focuses on why you should build a network even when you don’t think you need one!

Human Interactivity & Play Central To Building Back A Better Normal

In addition to skills and networking, there are other factors that are central to building back a better normal.

I have shared several posts on emotional fitness (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harrietg_how-to-strengthen-your-emotional-fitness-activity-6764815101410324480-Qhtj/), and the importance of play (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harrietg_emotional-fitness-play-deep-dive-further-activity-6767714309675085824-qkvA/)

Your feedback inspired me, so I wanted to share with you this wonderful Caitlin Quarrington Educational TedTalk, "The key to work is play".

Of the two traditional forms of play, recreational (basketball, board games) and integrated play into work, it is the latter I want to explore particularly for the central theme of human interactivity.

This has been, I think, the most missing element of life under the varying forms of lockdown and the biggest single limitation of VC’s!

At work, building back a better normal of innovative growth solutions requires us to do this with vigour, empathy and lashings of agile delight, fun and play!

As we think about our hybrid working models, returning to the office for coaching and connection, to collaborate and enjoy our working community seems exciting but this can create anxieties; these top tips might help you deal with them…

Return To The Workplace Anxieties & How We Can Help Each Other

In my latest mutual mentoring meetings, two talented Gen Z’ers have expressed real anxiety about returning to their place of work in countries that have fully exited lockdowns.

I shared some thoughts & ideas plus a practical article:

1. It’s totally ok and normal to feel uncertain & distressed at this incredibly challenging time of transition when the brain is alerting us to big change & some perceived risk.

2. Try to maintain a good routine & positive structure to your day scheduling in a few of your favourite things giving yourself a mental health boost as well as a welcome distraction from your anxieties.

3. Take it steadily, don’t try to go from 1 to 100 on your first day back in the workplace, keep things simple, give yourself time & get a new good schedule going! You get to design this & stay in control.

4. And to the point of noise and inability to concentrate in the office with many interruptions - talk to your colleagues, help each other as you form the new build back better community! Learning & creating new boundaries together.

Above all right now I think we have to demonstrate kindness in word and action.

My heart goes out to all those caught in the eye of new terrifying storms right now.

Especially as I talk to my friends & families in India, I am struck by the huge need to actively reach out and be kind. 

Written In 1978, drawing on a jarring real-life experience, Naomi Shihab Nye captured this difficult, beautiful, redemptive transmutation of fear into kindness in a poem that has since become a classic. Her words include:

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

I think this is rich and moving because nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness,” Leo Tolstoy — a man of colossal compassion — wrote while reckoning with his life as it neared its end.

“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now,” Jack Kerouac half-resolved, half-instructed an epoch later in a beautiful letter to his first wife and lifelong friend.

Please, stay safe and in touch. If there is any advice or resources I can share please get in touch via a comment or private message. My thoughts and connection are with you all.

Warmest wishes,

Harriet