As I step into this new week I’m reminded of a quote by T.S. Eliot: “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice.”

Each week presents a fresh canvas, an opportunity to write new stories and chart unexplored paths. The lessons learned from the past blend with the possibilities of the future and give an opportunity for a new approach, a new outlook. Onwards. Shaping my journey one moment at a time.

Some things I did this week

I’m feeling reflective because last week was A LOT.

We kicked off the week with a remote workshop. Experience has taught me that running activities on Miro in organisations which don’t use Miro a lot can go either way. They need careful planning and thorough board-testing to give them the best chance of success.

Fortunately this time we’d done plenty of both and came away feeling it went well. Participants understood the assignment, we got loads of great inputs and only a few very minor (and easily resolved) user problems. We could even see people going back to the board days after the session to add additional ideas and inputs. We’ve got far more and far better-quality inputs from this session than we expected to, which is great.

Another focus this week was a big board meeting. It was a tough one, with a central message that there will be some tough decisions to be made, and soon. With any call for compromise comes the admission that not everyone’s desired outcomes will be met, and inevitably that leaves people disappointed and concerned.

It went pretty well, but between the work getting slides ready for this, and presenting and answering a lot of thorny questions on the day, I came away feeling pretty drained after this one.

It was timely, then, that an old colleague dropped me a line sharing a Facebook memory of a similarly bruising day back when we worked together. I realised that I used to have a meeting like that at least once a week, but in a culture that was much more combative and political, and also where I had far less time or support to be properly prepared. It made it all so much harder, with everyone competing rather than working together to find the best solution, and I couldn’t help but take it personally when people were rude or uncollaborative, or I didn’t get what I wanted.

So much of the discourse about resilience at work is bullshit; you can learn to let toxic politics wash over you, but if the toxicity is still there it’s still an epic waste of everyone’s time and energy that produces sub-optimal outcomes for everyone.

So that gave me pause to reflect. In this week’s tough meeting I didn’t take any of it personally, because it wasn’t about me – or anyone else at the meeting for that matter. While it was tough, it was deservedly so and even the most challenging questions came in the spirit of finding solutions. It was hard work but it wasn’t a bad day.

Finally, we had an end-of-discovery report back to do at the tail end of the week. We try to get these things finished and presentation scripted at least a day or two ahead of time, so we can reflect on it before we deliver. But this week we didn’t have the luxury of time and it was all a bit more last-minute than I’d like. We’d done the analysis as we went along and had our recommendations nailed almost three weeks ago, so we were confident in what we were saying, at least, but the slides were metaphorical wet paint. I hate that.

I was pleased, then, that the client said “this is a great piece of work and you’ve been a pleasure to work with”. A nice note to end that project and go into the weekend.

Non-work things I did this week

Very little indeed. It was one of those weeks where I worked late every day then all I was good for was sitting on the sofa reading the entire internet on my phone.

Coverage

I wrote a piece for Reworked on how internal comms teams can build capability in AI. It’s not simply about learning how the tools work, but understanding the possibilities they offer (and the shortcomings they have too), and playing around with them. That process, called interpretive flexibility, is how we make sense of technology until it becomes part of how we operate.

Travel

This week coming I’m in Cambridge and London. I have a little spare time in both so shout if you want to grab a coffee.