The opportunity to go on secondment to a large organisation is very curious:
It’s like being a natural history presenter- you never quite know why those studied truly have the characteristics they do, but you certainly are able to see what the impact of them is. Added to which you can sit and wait for that storm you saw on the horizon to hit them.
You debate how much you’re allowed to influence and whether whisking them away from danger will help them learn the lessons for themselves- not to mention whether intervention based on your knowledge in your life span will rock the balance of an ecology that’s been refining itself for centuries.
That aside- I was asked to do something quite particular- because I was only there for a short time, because that made me more impartial and an outside eye who gets their work is but doesn’t live within its culture – could I help them find some straight talking answers to some of the major hurdles faced by one of their teams?
Now some of those there hurdles they’ve put up themselves, some of them keep being hidden just out of sight so you have to keep changing your gait, and the rest of the time its like the departments are elbowing each other to win the race.
There’s a director I know who once spent ten minutes trying to politely give someone notes on a run through. He fell silent before citing “you see the thing is, you’ve just got to be better”.
And I think maybe that’s what’s been so haunting about the secondment.. it made me realise I want to be better. Daily. In the little things that I do, and the big things that catch my breath. I want to listen carefully so I can hear what’s being said. And I want to be part of a team that understands that for the whole organisation to be better elbowing your racing partners in the face is a waste of time.