Equity Inclusion Leadership

12 May 2021

I am about to finish up at one workplace and start at a new one. My aunt is very sick, and I’ve spent three wonderful days at home down in the South Island, supporting my large extended family in whatever way I can. I’m very grateful to live in the modern world where some of this work and life support can be remotely, by video or phone call, or email or text message.

I had not really thought about the importance of video call prior to the pandemic. It’s a great way of checking in, seeing how someone is doing and providing support. It’s a very beautiful thing when you’re feeling a bit under the weather and you get a video call from a loved one. I try to use it in non-invasive and supportive ways (tricky when you’re a talkative extrovert!).

Endings and beginnings – these are big times in life. The end of a chapter and the start of a new one, or sometimes the start of a whole new book! Trying new things can lead to all sorts of insights about yourself, your drivers, your goals and who you want to be ‘when you grow up’.

I’ve always said when I want to grow up, I want to be happy. At the age of 38, I’m starting to realise what that means to me. I like a life with a balance of planning and spontaneity, lots of friends but time to myself for reflection, beautiful things around me and work which provides me with purpose. This is what I need to be happy. What do you need?

I think a lot about how to balance the spinning plates and how to keep all those ducks in a row (and those ducks keep quacking, and walking around, and having chats with other ducklings, and it’s all very cute but chaotic).

What if we don’t need to keep all the plates spinning? What if some of them fall and break, and that’s ok? What if we ask – which plates need to be spinning? Why?

What if we let some of those ducks have chats with the other ducklings, foster their growth in a disorganised, messy way, and ask the ducklings to have chats about what they learned?

What if we can coach people to realise what they need from work? From life? From this nonsensical idea of work-life balance (as if we could ever just turn off life to start working…)

This is a whole new systemic approach to organisations. Life is messy, business is messy. Mess is ok – let’s try for quick wins. Let’s make it safe to fail. Let’s support our people to be the best they can be, to be honest about their mental health, and what it means to be human.

I mean, I’m human… humans are pretty messy sometimes.