people

Ten ways to make a better day

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Is it me, or is there a general sense of menace and disgruntlement in society? Sometimes it feels like an all-pervasive nastiness is in the air – like atoms bouncing off one another, we go around getting increasingly grumpy with the world.

And of course whilst we can’t all sort the BIG issues of the day, we can do somethings, sometimes to make life a little bit better for someone else.

  1. Make a coffee for a colleague without asking. Just take them a drink along and say “I made this for you”.
  2. Have a conversation with a shop assistant. Not about your shopping, just make eye contact, smile and be nice. Treat them like a person.
  3. Open a door for a stranger. Not metaphorically, but literally. Engage your inner English Gentleman and hold the door.
  4. Let someone out at a junction. On that drive home, when you’re desperate to get back into your sanctuary, make a little bit of time to help someone else do the same.
  5. Ask someone who looks lost whether they need directions. Sure, this depends on where you are, but if you get the chance, give it a go.
  6. Introduce yourself to someone you don’t know. OK, so there’s a caveat to this – make sure it’s situationally appropriate. But take the chance to say hello.
  7. Send someone a thank you. Take a moment out of your busy life to write a thank you note. It doesn’t have to be for anything big or clever, just real.
  8. Give your seat up with a smile. If you commute to work on a train, a bus a tram or a tube give your seat up for someone else. It won’t hurt you to stand for one trip.
  9.  Buy someone a treat. It could be your receptionist or security guard. The person at the crossing by school. It could be a chocolate bar, biscuit or snack – just because.
  10. Take time to listen. I mean really listen Give up half an hour of your day to look the person in the eye, put your phone down and not think about anything else.

We can’t change the big stuff, but if we all change the small stuff, the world can be a slightly nicer place.

The blame game

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I understand your hurt,
And your disapproval.

I understand why you want to bring this to my attention,
And I’m grateful.

I understand why you’re upset,
And and I can see your anger.

I understand why you feel we could do better,
And how we could be more.

So I ask you.

What did you do recently that could have been better?
Where could you have done more?

When did you upset someone?
And how did you deal with their anger?

What did you learn about how you could be better?
And how did you take that?

And, most importantly, how do you feel,
When you hear disapproval?

Each time you complain.

Each time you forcefully make your views heard.

It’s unique.
For you.

But if you’re the person on the phone.
Behind the desk. In the office.

If you’re the person paid to listen.

You’re just another one.

Nothing special.

So what could YOU do. To make that experience difference?

To make it beyond the ordinary.

To really make YOURSELF stand out.

You’re so fit

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“I just didn’t feel they were a right fit”.

That’s the feedback heard time and time again in recruitment. But is it fair? Is “fit” something that you can reasonably justify and does it really matter?

As much as we would like to pretend recruitment is a science, so much of it still resides firmly in art. We make decisions not just based on technical skills and abilities, but on how we feel about the person. And the irony is that we both accept and reject this concept in modern HR practice.

On one hand we applaud the Google approach to assessment and selection being analytic and impartial. At the same time we congratulate Netflix for their intolerance towards mavericks and disruptive individuals. We want you to have the skills, but we want you to fit in.

Of course fit has a whole host of discriminatory overtones to it too. I’m not entirely sure I’d be judged as a good fit in a conservative, Catholic institution. But that is perhaps a too trivial way of looking at things. What about a woman applying to an all male environment, or a muslim to a secular workplace?

Yet at the same time, I understand the importance of “fit”, the need for someone coming in to the workplace to embed within the team and to gel with the organisational ethos. In many ways I think the organisational fit will be more important than technical skills in the future of our corporate lives.

But is “fit” ever justified? I think it is. As a candidate, I assess an organisation on whether I think I’ll be happy there, whether it matches with my ethics and opinions. So why shouldn’t organisations do just the same thing, providing it isn’t discriminatory?

I think that’s ok. Don’t you?

Four decades of connection

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I was born in Cardiff on November 11, 1973. It was the same year that Motorola showcased the first mobile phone, although I was ten by the time the first handset was commercially available. I’m not sure either of these things really concerned me, but for the record it was also the year that Ethernet was developed, in case you’d care to know?

By that time, I’d moved to the Isle of Wight. I moved there in 1979, the year the Commodore PET was released here in the UK. For a (then) astronomic £914 you could get yourself a whole 32KB of RAM. It was also the year that the compact disk was invented, but I don’t really think I cared. I was settling in to a new school and making new friends. Life is tough when you’re six, you know?

I was still there in 1990, when Microsoft released Windows 3.0 to take on the dominance of Macintosh and IBM. In 1991 when the first website was made publicly accessible by the clever chaps at CERN. And 1992 when IBM introduced the ThinkPad. But I was more interested in sex, drugs and rock and roll. I was a six former god dammit and I was ready to shape the world.

In 1993 I was living in France. That was the year that the IBM Simon was launched, arguably the world’s first smart phone it combined a phone with a pager AND a fax. It was also the year that the first Pentium processor was released by Intel. I’m not sure I noticed. I was too busy falling in love and reading poetry. These things take time to do properly.

I got married in 1995. The first Playstation was launched that year. I had other things on my mind. Hutchinson communications were launching this brand called, “Orange” and Sun Microsystems announces this thing called Java. I was more interested in coffee. It is important to get your priorities right.

When I was making friends, we hung out, we played, we talked. When we partied, we arranged things by phone, or letter, so we had to plan things well in advance. When I was falling in love, we braved the cold winter evenings to find a phone box at an allotted time. We hand wrote letters and we accepted silence.

On Saturday night, I got to spend an evening with friends and family to celebrate my birthday. It was a collection of the old and new. People there that had been with me throughout my life, people who I had grown up with, played with, drunk with, fallen in love with, cried with and married. And people who I’ve met more recently, that I’ve felt a connection to, that are close to my heart. We’ve got to know each other through so many different ways.

Whilst I’ve been growing up, technology has been too. And in the same way that it has become more consumer focused, I’d like to think I’m also a more sophisticated, more complicated, but ultimately more user-friendly version of my former self.

Yet still some basic facts remain.

The thing that connects my school friends, to my professional friends, to my social friends, to my family is mutual respect, love, understanding. It is true connection. It isn’t about the means or the reason, it isn’t about the timing or the technology. It is about the people.

I’m incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends, family and colleagues. People who interest, challenge and care for each other. And people who care for me.

So as I start my 41st year, as I write this blog on my MacBook Pro, using WordPress on broadband, before publicising it on Twitter and LinkedIn, I want to say an old-fashioned thank you. Thank you for being you, for those that were there and those that weren’t, for those that I speak to once a day and those that I speak to once a year. Life is nothing without people, life is nothing without connection. Both old and new.