2016, and the new sensation of not wanting anything new.

So, I’ve been holding out on writing my usual inevitable new year blog post.  Normally I can’t wait, and post it a few days after Christmas, overly eager for the new year and its attendant exciting air of, well, newness – as described in blogs passim, I’m usually all about the new.  I have craved change my whole life, which has led to lots of exciting things and some rather pointless dicking around as I treated my life choices like some sort of eternal Pizza Hut buffet, sampling this and that until suddenly realising that it’s 6PM, all the staff are waiting for you to leave, and there is no more deep pan Hawaiian left which you now know was the only one you ever really wanted in the first pla- OK, may be getting a little too far into this simile.  I just really like pizza.  And change.

However, 2015 was what you might call an embarrassment of riches in that regard.  Everything changed, then changed again.  The boyfriend and I, after saving money for as long as I can remember, finally bought a flat together – but not before the one our first offer was accepted on just after Christmas 2014 was whipped off the table at the last minute, resulting in a process that had been plodding judiciously along for years suddenly becoming an urgent imperative to find somewhere, anywhere of roughly the right location, size and price like NOW. Which we did, with a bit of blood, sweat and tears (lots of that last one on my part).

We eventually took possession in June, and spent two months completely redecorating – a lot of work, yet more change, and a process which plunged me (and, by association, poor long-suffering boyfriend) into some pretty deep neuroses.  It was whilst I was sitting on the floor of our new bedroom covered in paint and sobbing like a baby because we had run out of masking tape and what were we going to do that I worked out that just possibly there was more to my angst than our differences of opinion about home decor, and that I was in fact having a meltdown because the responsibility of co-owning a property was freaking me right the hell out, in a way I had entirely failed to anticipate during the whole slow burn build-up period.  We got through it, largely due to his common sense, forbearance, and ability to provide endless cups of tea whilst listening to my insecure monologuing without reaching for a carving knife (thanks for all that, by the way xxx).

And now, the flat is finished (for the most part), we have been living here for nearly 6 months, and it is my happy place. There is really nowhere I would rather be. But giving birth to my grown-up, home-owning self was a surprisingly draining process, and would have been more than enough to be getting on with as far as I was concerned.

However, while all this has been going on, I have also begun two new jobs in quick succession, each exponentially more challenging and responsible than the previous one, and both in institutions where constant change is the status quo. During the same period, my best friend since schooldays undertook a complete, radical career-and-life change which included her leaving the country. Although obviously this is her change and not mine (and is, by the way, fantastic and wonderful and the best decision she has ever made – go Lucie!), it nonetheless made a huge difference to my life too, because of the huge part she plays in it.  I miss her enormously, and her absence has made me suddenly, belatedly aware of how few really close relationships I have retained into adulthood, how small the circle is of people I feel I can turn to when I am happy, sad or scared and be absolutely confident they are going to be able to give me what I need in that moment. Which has actually been pretty good for me in some ways, as it means I’ve had to really think hard about what is and isn’t worth worrying about.  If I let myself get upset about every little thing, then without the immediate catharsis of ranting to a sympathetic ally – guess what? I’m just going to stay upset. So I have to be selective; I have to learn to shrug the small stuff off all on my own.  It’s been a ‘put-your-big-girl-pants-on’ kind of year in that respect as well.

So in every sphere – domestic, professional and personal – the winds of change have been a-howling through 2015 for me.  And so forgive me if, when considering 2016, I sound a wee bit lacking in ambition. But what I’m really hoping for this year is for things to stay the same.  For the foundations of my life as it is now, laboriously laid in the last year, to settle. When I really take the time to look at my life, I find that I am actually… content. And I want to get familiar with that feeling before the next whirlwind rides in, if that’s all the same to you, universe.  So this year I’ve got no resolutions, no goals to smash within the next twelve months. I’m just going to live a little while. I’ve changed my hair; surely that’s enough for one year?

A year of change… My happy place; my best girl; a modest to-do list; new hair

Happy new year everybody.  I hope you get all the changes (or not) that you are wishing for in 2016.

 

 

Musings on management

Wow, long time no blog! I started this one about 3 months ago, and things have changed since then – but I still think it’s a useful reflection on management for anyone who, like me, is reaching the point in their library career where it is a consideration. Enjoy!
—–

I’ve been thinking a lot about good management recently, not just in the context of a library service but more generally, as a set of skills.

Professionally, I’ve never previously considered myself to be ‘management material’. In my working life, I have always positioned myself as someone who delivers results, rather than someone who makes decisions about what should be achieved – I found the idea of management-level power and responsibility scary and not at all appealing. I’ve always been happy to subscribe to strategies dictated from higher up, to aim to exceed the bar that someone else has set. My attitude has always been can-do, and I’m quite good at identifying how to – but what to do at the macro level has mostly been someone else’s department.

I had framed this lack of lean-and-hungry zeal in the context of my chosen profession. I’m a librarian, a naturally assistive rather than assertive role, service-orientated, helpful. And having always been lucky enough to be managed well, perhaps I had been content to follow simply because I had had great confidence in where I was being led, and in the people doing the leading.

Moreover, I feared that management would take me away from what I love most in my job – direct contact with service users: forming strong relationships with them; the high of getting it right for them, and of seeing them benefit from that.

My last post had a much more diverse and devolved range of responsibilities than I had had hitherto, and this along with other factors got me to thinking about myself as a professional, and the career path I would like to carve out for myself in years to come. For the first time, that wish list now includes a wish to take charge. Take charge of more than just my own workload: of procedures, of planning, of people. Call the doctor, I’ve contracted managerial ambitions!

I think the main lightbulb moment behind this change has been my realisation that, if you are a manager, you do still have direct contact with customers of sorts – that is, with people to whom you’re delivering a service. It’s merely that the service you are providing is good management. And the client base you are delivering it to is not the service users, or even the person paying your salary; it is the people you have been assigned to manage.

Management, like government, cannot be effectively imposed. If you can’t persuade your team to buy what you are selling, you will fail as a manager. Even if your team nevertheless succeed, it will be in spite of you, rather than because of you. If, however, you can offer leadership that they can confidently follow; authority that they can respect; and support that they can trust, you can enable them to achieve far more than they ever could have done without you there.

Looked at from this perspective, a desire for managerial responsibility has no conflict at all with a service-oriented work ethic. And so, I can confess: I’d like to manage staff one day. And I’d like to be great at it, thank you very much. And so I’ve been giving it quite a bit of thought.

It seems to me that there are three core attributes that have been shared by all the excellent managers I have had the good fortune to work under. These are the traits that I should seek to emulate to prepare myself for a future managerial role.

Competence

This is probably the most important thing for anyone who seeks to tell other people what to do – they should be demonstrably knowledgeable in their field, and capable in their own role within the organisation. It is possible for managees to forgive their manager any number of shortcomings and irritating quirks, as long as what needs doing that only the manager can do gets done efficiently. It’s not the only thing that matters, but it’s the bedrock on which everything else is built. Competence at the top inspires confidence in the workforce, as well as simply serving as a good example.

Clarity

As a manager, a good bit of one’s time will inevitably be spent telling people to do things they don’t want to do, and making sure they do it. Nobody enjoys this. However, from my observation, management style is key to how painful this process is for all parties.

Most workers accept the fact that they will sometimes have to do things they don’t like. However, if you want co-operation and commitment, rather than mere mulish compliance, it is essential to communicate clearly what exactly it is that must be done; why it is that it has to be done; and when exactly it has to be done by. This covers the manager’s back as much as it helps their team to find focus.

Clarity is also about everyone knowing the difference between a discussion and a decision, an idea and an instruction. The clearly written summary of assigned action points is the manager’s friend. Nobody likes being told they have failed to do something they were never aware they needed to do in the first place!

Consistency

This goes back to confidence, which is to my mind the lynchpin of the relationship between a manager and their team, and the effectiveness of the team overall. Nothing will demoralize a workforce faster than a sense of instability. People who think that unpredictability as a management style is somehow motivating, that chronic insecurity keeps staff ‘on their toes’, are little better than sadists in my opinion.

Quite aside from the human element, it’s counterproductive. If half of a team’s time is spent trying to keep track of the fluctuating tides of their manager’s mood and allegiances of the moment, then that is half its potential productivity lost. If your team is hesitant to follow your instructions because they are often countermanded or simply disowned whenever it becomes expedient, then delays and failures of delivery will soon become systemic.

Consistency is also important when it comes to interpersonal behaviour. You can’t tell your team that you value and support them one moment, and then attempt to cow them by emphasising their disposability and dependence upon your good will then next. You cannot expect one member of your team to trust you, if you share their colleague’s secrets and shortcomings behind their back. It is important to remember – teams talk. If you try and play one off against another, you’re going to be found out.

There are plenty of other characteristics that may be desirable in a manager, and different teams will want different things at different times: charisma; creativity; caution; compassion – these attributes and many more may be called upon at different stages of any management career. But without the holy trinity above – competence, clarity and consistency – you will not be able to provide a good management service to your team; they will not buy in to your management of them; and everyone will suffer as a result.

Come on 2015, let’s be having you

In a bit of a lull in the festive season, I have decided to get cracking on my new year’s resolutions.

I mentioned last year how I like to compartmentalise my past, and 2015 more than most years will give me ample opportunity to do so. This December has been very much a month of cutting off and letting go, and January will be a fresh start in more ways than one. I’m going to be so busy that if I manage to achieve anything at all, I’ll consider myself to be doing well, what with a couple of fairly hefty resolutions being more or less thrust upon me:

1. Do fantastically well in my first permanent post-qualification Library role.

The University of West London have very bravely agreed to take me on as Academic Support Librarian for their School of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare, and I will be starting on 5^th January. This is a logical sort of follow-up to my most recent role at LSHTM, but will also include a lot of new responsibilities, as well as a new institution in a new part of London, eventually within a new campus. I’m very excited, and a little bit terrified, but what I mostly am is grateful to be given such a great opportunity, and determined that UWL will have no reason to repent their choice. I plan to exceed their expectations and expand my own experience, and this is the main thing I intend to devote my energy and resources to this year.

2. Make a home

Having been saving about a third of our incomes for four years, my other half and I are finally ready, at 30, to join the adult population and buy our first home. I know this is something most people do, and often much earlier than we have managed it, but I am still unreasonably proud of us for having reached this point at last. Things are now moving fast – I put in an offer on a very nice flat just yesterday, and while that is of course no guarantee the whole thing is all sewn up, I’m excited by the idea that we may very soon be shutting our very own front door, growing weedy tomatoes in our very own back garden, and screaming blue murder when our very own boiler explodes and costs a small fortune of our very own money to repair. Ho for belated grown-up-ness!

Frankly, I think those two things together will be enough to be getting on with, don’t you? 

No?

Oh all right then…

3. Devise and keep up a new fitness regime

New job has the slight disadvantage of being the other side of bloody London to where I live (one and a half hour commute each way is looking likely). This is going to throw my fitness regimen (such as it is) all to hell – farewell, lovely scabby affordable ULU Energybase!

I’m going to have to come up with a new one that fits in with my new life, or resign myself to ever-encroaching blobbery. I fear that workout DVDs at sparrow’s fart may be involved (sorry, downstairs). And maybe even Kegels on the train (will have to learn not to make that funny face when doing them).

4. Make lots of jam and chutney and foist it upon my friends and loved ones.

Not much to enlarge on here. I have the kit, I have the jars, I have the time. Beware, oh friends, an avalanche of preserves is coming your way.

5. Get more involved in my profession

Conferences; articles; the Twittersphere. There’s a lot of library-based action going on out there, and I want a part of it.

6. Make some progress on my family photographs archive

Work on this was brought to a slight standstill last year when my laptop up and died. The Apple Genius said that it was the logic board, but I believe it was simply a dirty protest against having to receive so many scans of my gurning infant visage. New logic board is now in place, so we shall find out who was correct in the coming months.

7. Make a start on The Quilt

Along with the crates of photographs my mother offloaded on me (see blogs passim), I also received a rather lovely thing: the top half of a patchwork quilt. It’s in a thousand shades, with scraps of a huge range of vintage fabrics, all tacked with newspapers and magazines of the period it was made. It was pieced and stitched together by my mother and grandmother back in my mother’s late teens, a time when she and my nan could barely me in a room together without biting each other’s heads off. I like to imagine them stitching up the quilt together as a sort of stalemate or truce. A year or so ago Mum suggested I might like to finish it off, as I had been making a desultory attempt to learn quilting from my very gifted craftswoman, my boyfriend’s mother Pat Ashton-Smith. It has ever since been scrunched up in a bag under my desk. This year, I want at least to get it padded and pinned preparatory to stitching it up – in the long run, I’d like to give it to my niece, so that it will have passed through the hands of four generations of the family.

And those left over from last year…

8. Finish knitting this jumper…

…if only so I can start knitting something else. I am sick of the sight of the damn thing.

9. Learn French

If there’s one thing long commutes must be good for, it is surely listening assiduously to the adventures of Didier and Patrice and the improbable series of events that lead them into reciting irregular verbs by the hour. Oui je peux!

10. Write. Write write write write write!

It’s been a good year for writing. I’m going to keep it up. Watch this space for more gibberish, excerpts of novels in the works, book reviews and maybe even some poetry (oh God).

EDIT: and a few more…

11. Pass my driving test

Self-explanatory really.  This will seal the holy trinity of adulthood – employed, property-owning driver 😛

12. Birth Companions

I am doing some voluntary literature search work for Birth Companions, a very worthwhile organisation.  Finally have some time to devote to this over the holidays, and will be proud to get it done and hopefully help them extend their influence.

SECOND EDIT: and two more…

13. Self care

I am extremely bad at this.  I am going to make 2015 the year I give myself a thorough and long overdue MOT – actually register with a doctor and a dentist, and sort out a few niggling problems that have been hanging around (and no doubt getting worse) for years out of idleness.  I’m an old girl now, can’t just keep expecting things to sort themselves out.

14. Join the British Bone Marrow Registry

Saw an interesting feature about bone marrow donation on TV over Christmas, and read some more on t’interweb – it really doesn’t sound as horrible as I imagined it, and it offers a fairly unique opportunity to save somebody else’s life without having to do anything unreasonably heroic (I am a colossal wimp, so this is useful).  I’m already signed up for someone to have any of my bits and bobs once I am dead – no reason not to offer up the regenerating parts whilst still alive.

And one more for luck…

15.  Learn to jive

Got a swing dance class with Swing Patrol for a Christmas present, which I just cashed in.  I SUCK like the suckiest thing to ever suck, but I loved it.  I am going to follow this up and get splendid at dancing, like the fabulous ladies I saw tonight whose calves seem to be spring-loaded.

Work worth doing: a meditation on meaningful employment and professional development

It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious.

• William Morris, ‘Art & Socialism’

About 7 months ago, I left my role as an assistant knowledge manager at a silver circle law firm, where I had been working for 18 months, to took up a maternity cover post as an assistant librarian in a specialist health research school. This was a slightly scary, but ultimately brilliant decision. I have remembered what it’s like to get up in the morning and genuinely look forward to getting in to work, and I will miss the place and the people hugely when I have to move on in February next year. When contemplating making the move from private to public sector, from business support to customer service, and from permanent job to temporary post, and now again as I turn my eye reluctantly back towards the jobs market, I have given a lot of thought to the worth of work: to what extent it has meaning (and to what extent it should); what it gives, or can give, beyond simply getting paid; and, most importantly, what makes for a good job, a happy worker.

To some people, of course, work is simply a means to an end – they put time in, get money out, and consider this a price worth paying in order to support their ‘real life’ – their home, their family, their social life, their hobbies. For other people, their work is the cornerstone of their identity, central to their conception of themselves. It would be easy to imagine that the former, lacking the emotional investment of the latter, would be less committed, less focussed, more prone to inefficiency and errors. But I think someone to whom work is so much more than ‘just a job’, whose job is not giving them what they need, can be far less competent than someone to whom the nature of the work they do is a matter or serene indifference.

I think a good analogy is food. Like work, we need food to live. Some people’s relationship with food does not go beyond that simple fact – they eat what they need, when they need it, and that’s the end of that. However, a lot of people’s relationship with food is much richer, more emotional, less rational. Food is not just fuel; it can be love, comfort, fellowship, sensuality; or it can be compulsion, distraction, guilt, self-loathing, punishment. This connection can also turn completely on its head; food – previously merely a stage upon which to act out one’s internal psychodramas – becomes instead their subject, either as a glorious, fulfilling passion or a destructive, dark obsession. So it is with work. The more work means to you, the more it can do – both for you or to you.

I am – in case you hadn’t guessed – very much in the latter camp (in both respects). Food for me will never be just fuel; and work for me will never be (no matter how much I might sometimes wish it would) a simple exchange of labour for cash. I have been in employment in one capacity or another since I was 14, and have had wonderful jobs and awful ones. The work I have done and the environment in which I have done it has had a massive impact on my general wellbeing, at least as big a factor as my personal relationships. Work matters to me in ways that go far beyond being able to make the rent. A bad job can make for a bad year, all by itself. A good job, on the other hand, can give an otherwise difficult time in one’s life real joy and meaning.

It seems to me that there are three main factors that make a job pleasurable, although these factors can be broken down further. They broadly follow the Morris quote above, and jobs I have had could be plotted on the Venn diagram the three elements of the quotation form:

•  Work worth doing: You both understand and approve of the result of your labour – directly in the labour itself, and/or the larger aims and achievements it contributes to.
• Work pleasant to do: The process of the labour is interesting and enjoyable on its own account, quite apart from the value of the result or the remuneration offered.
• Conditions neither wearisome nor over-anxious: Competence is attainable, without the work becoming tedious. You feel secure but not stuck in your position.

Of course the content of these categories will be different for everyone, but theoretically, at the point these circles cross lies that individual’s perfect job. The real challenge lies in working out the elements that populate your personal circles, and perhaps even more importantly, which compromise will be most bearable if the perfect central sector cannot be reached.

Over time, I have come to realise that for me the most important circle is the first: if I don’t believe the work I do is in some way worth doing, it doesn’t matter how enjoyable it is to do or how well I am capable of doing it – my motivation crumbles rapidly, my self-esteem plummets, and I feel both frustrated and ashamed. This is why I haven’t pursued a career as an arts academic, even though I enjoyed reading and analysing texts and the research and writing up process, and even though I was quite good at it – I could never convince myself, either at undergraduate or masters level, that what I was doing was of any appreciable benefit to anyone but myself, and so over time became miserable.

This is key. My method of determining the value of my work is pretty subjective; there is no overarching ethical framework I refer to in order to benchmark the value of my contribution, despite my holding the usual left-wing inclinations towards a nebulous concept of ‘the public good’. Yes, I am much happier now I know that my daily graft is as part of an organisation that is trying to save lives, rather than one that is trying to move money around from one wealthy company or individual to another. But there is a lot more (or possibly less) to my newfound job satisfaction than that.

Fundamentally, my work attains value in my eyes at the point I see it make a positive impact on others. However, it is not always enough for me to know in the abstract that something I do has been of benefit to a colleague or a service user. Rather predictably, as for a mouse in a lab ever questing for the cheese, the effect is amplified exponentially through reward – not financial reward, but recognition of the value added and appreciation of my efforts by the recipient. A simple ‘thank you’ can make me a half-inch taller for the rest of the day.

This is why working bar was actually one of the most fulfilling jobs I ever had – the work/value/reward loop was beautifully simple: customer comes in and asks for drink; I bring drink; customer is satisfied and says thank you; I feel useful and appreciated. Job’s a good’un.

Of course, not all meaningful work is so obvious or so easy. My desire to provide a perceived benefit to others, to get that hit of recognition, can make it difficult for me to engage positively with more long-term, strategic or background work. For example, advocating changes and improvements can be difficult for me when the proposed beneficiaries do not immediately recognise the merit of my proposals. I can quickly lose confidence in what are fundamentally good ideas, and become easily discouraged by others’ lack of enthusiasm. I am much more comfortable delivering a neatly wrapped package of Desired Result to people than I am getting them involved with the process, to try and persuade them to change their ways, to help them find better ways to achieve results for themselves. I want to make it easy on them, to give them what they want. It’s the desire for that pat on the head, that sugar-lump. Quite embarrassing, really.

It’s also a dreadful way of working, for a number of reasons. For one thing, service users don’t always know what they want – they don’t always even know what’s possible – and they certainly don’t always know what they need. A lot of good ideas and projects will fall by the wayside if the person with the knowledge doesn’t have the confidence and charisma (and, occasionally, the brass neck) to push them through opposition or apathy. For another, being purely reactive and eager to please are not qualities inherent in good management. As I continue to progress in my career, I will be called upon more often to decide, to lead and to instruct, to go beyond my instinctive impersonation of the Genie of the Lamp.

The increased amount of information skills teaching I do in my current job (as distinct from the training I have delivered in previous roles) is an excellent remedy for this impulse. So much of it is about helping people to help themselves, and showing them better ways of doing things they often think they already know how to do ‘well enough’. I have had to quickly develop a thicker skin in the face of incomprehension or reluctance, and quell my instinctive urge to do things for people rather than helping them to understand how to do things for themselves. I literally have to sit on my hands sometimes to do this, but I am getting better with every session.

And I’m still getting my satisfied-customer kicks – the incredibly positive and generous feedback students give when they get it is unbeatable; being credited in the acknowledgments of someone’s Masters dissertation is a total joy. True, it’s a longer game than slinging drinks, but the payoff is a lot more valuable to me: not just the satisfaction of having delivered ‘a good result’, but the confidence to set the parameters of what that good result looks like myself.