#3.1: Through The Lens (Webcam)

My Home office

Like pretty much everyone else, my working life has changed a lot in the last twelve months. Whereas previously I attended meetings in person and either drove or walked between meeting venues, it seems I am now often just pressing the button to exit one meeting and heading straight into another, while juggling Emails and phone calls.

The thing is, although sometimes the meeting attendees are different, the venue is always the same. Yes sure, it can be any of a number of different platforms, including Microsoft Teams, GoToMeetings, Zoom or Google Hangouts, but its still me, sat in my office, at home. Some days I can feel like I have done nothing else but sit in front of the screen and be in one meeting to the next.

Early on during this change, people often commented that they were conscious of looking at themselves when online, but fast forward twelve months and the vast majority of us don’t give this much thought now. (NB: I am still a stickler for having a tidy office though, or at least as far as you can see on the webcam screen).

Water-Cooler Moments

One thing I have found myself commenting on more and more lately is the lack of those water-cooler moments. Back when I was working in the office, I would often find my most useful interactions during a working day were not during meetings, but in fact in places like the kitchen, hallways or the car park. These chance conversations were not staged and there was no pre-build up, unlike on-line meetings were its really difficult to ‘just have a catch-up conversation’.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of online meetings, having been one of the minority previously shouting about the virtues of this form of meetings, as it ties in nicely with much more agile working.

One problem I can see with the current set up is that although the digital side of things is working really well, with access to pretty much everything you could need at the touch of a button, there is no real agile working at the moment as we are all working from home. OK, yes, granted I could move from the office to the kitchen at times, but this isn’t quite the agile way of working that I was thinking of. Of course, its worth stating at this point that this is highly likely to be a temporary (albeit longer-term than originally thought) situation and I for one am looking forward to when we can work in a much more agile way.

Agile Future

As an organisation, one thing we have been working hard on during this last twelve months is our future agile vision. One simple aim is to keep the good bits from the way we have worked in the last twelve months and to articulate how we can continue to work agilely when things go back to some normality. This has quite rightly been a conversation that we have been having right across the organisation now for several months and we will continue to do so as we co-create what this will look like for us.

So how about you? Are you missing those water-cooler moments? Are you missing the office at all, or are you really enjoying the working from home revolution?

#1.2 ‘The To-do List’

In my working life (and personal life), I have pretty much always been someone who didn’t write ‘to-do lists’.

Its not something I have consciously fought against, but just found that I never really had to write a list of things to do. In my working life, I have used a combination of my Email inbox, my calendar and what I had in my head that needed doing. So each day I would have a clear idea of what I aimed to achieve and could assess at the end of the day whether I had achieved what I wanted to.

But lately I have been doing something I never really thought I would do:

I have started writing to-do lists for work.

It all started when the Covid-19 lockdown began at the end of March 2020. Things were so busy with work, that I found myself scribbling notes down on paper throughout the day, but I found after a number of weeks that I had just accumulated a huge pile of papers with notes on, that I often never went back to. The feeling when seeing this pile of paper on my desk (and on the floor) did not make me feel in control.

 

So one weekend a few weeks ago I decided to clear up all the papers and move them away from my desk. I also decided to stop writing further notes down. At first I made some notes on an Email and either kept this as a draft record or Emailed them through to myself. But I quickly realised I was in danger of just collecting a virtual electronic pile of papers instead.

Then when clearing some items from desk at work I found an A6 notebook I had been given some years ago (a promo gift). So one Sunday night, I found the A6 notebook and decided to write my first to-do list of things I wanted to achieve on the Monday. It was a revelation! I wrote a lot of the things going around in my head down on paper and was able to prioritise what I needed to do, ready for the next day. That Monday was probably my most productive day since the Covid-19 lockdown, with lots of items crossed off my to-do list. I felt I had some level of control.

The funny thing is, I have always been someone who is quite proud of not needing to write down lists of things to do at work. But I have come full circle on this, at least for the time being, and I am finding myself writing a list of things to do at work each and have expanded this into other lists as well!

In my note book I currently have:

• My daily to-do list;
• My medium/long-term to-do list;
• My longer-term personal goals list;
• Important meeting/training notes;
• Future blog post titles.

So now that I am ‘one of those lists people at work’, I felt compelled to share my experience in this blog post!

So what about you? Are you a to-do list person, or is it all in your head? Or do you have another method completely for work? I would love to hear from you!

Please leave your comments below.

Reflections on Completing my MBA

First of all, I have finally done it!!!!

After 3 and a half years of studying really hard, this year I successfully completed my MBA (Masters in Business Administration) through the Open University.

As I said in a previous blog post, an MBA is not often seen as a natural qualification in the field of Housing. But, along with always wanting to undertake an MBA, I thought it might be a good qualification to help me differentiate myself from other candidates in progressing my future career.

I can honestly say it has been one of the hardest but most rewarding things I have ever done. The nights and weekends spent studying and the time spent every day thinking about the course – it was intense. The first six months of the second year in particular were really challenging, completing ‘The Dynamics of Strategy’ alongside ‘Corporate Finance’. It was also really difficult reaching the finishing line as at this stage of studying I was ready for a break! But the feeling of submitting my last assignment was only topped by receiving confirmation that I had successfully completed my MBA!

I have previously blogged about some of my reflections from learning, including three reflections from 2 years into my MBA. These still hold true for me.

But now that I have completed my MBA, I can further reflect on how I have used some of the learning:

1. I now have a ‘toolbox’ that I can dip into when faced with any business problem that I need to tackle – anyone who has completed an MBA will know the power of a two-by-two matrix for assessing almost any problem;
2. I can successfully utilise my MBA skills and experience to provide added value to my role and organisation – I do this on a near-enough daily basis.

To clarify, the MBA units I undertook were:

Strategic human resource management (BB845)	2018	15 credits
Managing in the digital economy (BXM871)	2018	15 credits
Making a difference: the management initiative (B839)	2017	30 credits
Management beyond the mainstream (BB847)	2017	15 credits
Corporate finance (BB831)	2017	15 credits
The dynamics of strategy (BB835)	2016	30 credits
MBA stage 1: management: perspectives and practice (B716)	2015	60 credits

As part of the above units, I was also able to successfully pass three three hour written exams, in Corporate Finance, Dynamics of Strategy and Management: Perspectives and Practice (I never realised how much I could write by hand when under time pressure).

I can now also (proudly) sign off with:

Brett Sadler, MBA

Two years and counting…

After finishing the second year of my MBA studying through the Open University, I finally have some spare time to write a few blog posts.

So for this one, I will be again reflecting on what I have learn’t to-date from undertaking the course.

The first thing is probably obvious, but it has been a huge challenge. Not just in terms of the workload, but in terms of time management. There have been days and weeks where I feel like I have been solidly working or studying and doing nothing else. There have also been days when I would happily have thrown the towel in. But I have survived.

The second thing is that I have again broadened my knowledge. I’ve just complete the Corporate Finance module which has well and truly tested all students. I would be willing to bet that the drop out rate is pretty high during this course, culminating in the 3 hour written exam at the end. Again, I have survived (just).

The third thing is that again my horizons have been stretched. I purposely chose the course as I wanted to move outside of my comfortable ‘Housing’ bubble and build a network of colleagues beyond my usual circle. Along with this, the course content has stretched my horizons as well, to talk much more about profit, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and the big wide world of corporate finance. OK, so I may never be involved in floating a company on the stock market, but I have a much better idea of how companies are valued and the many intricacies involved.

But overall, I have survived the end of the second year. Roll on the third (and final) year.

 

Working Out Loud

Are you someone who likes to work out loud?

I have long been an advocate of working out loud and by this I mean being open about what I am working on and seeking advice and best practice from others.

The popularity and acceptance of social media makes this task so much easier. I can just pop a quick post on LinkedIn (or a quick tweet on Twitter) asking for some best practice advice, or even just asking a question I would like the answer to. It really has produced some views and information that I can honestly say I would not have had otherwise.

Of course, it doesn’t have to just be through social media that we can work out loud. For me, its a much wider approach that can be adopted, where whole organisations can be encouraged to work out loud through a transparent culture where customers and stakeholder views are really valued. I’m not talking about sharing trade secrets or commercially sensitive data, but just letting customer and stakeholders know what an organisation and its staff are working on and allowing them to help shape and influence this journey.

I realise that not every organisation operates a values drive culture where you are encouraged or even able to work out loud, but for me this should be the panacea for an organisation. Frederic Laloux in his book ‘Reinventing Organisations’ sums this up perfectly:

Any information that isn’t public will cause suspicion – why else would someone go through the trouble to keep it secret?

There is something really refreshing about being open, making connections and getting the best possible outcome, all of which can be achieved through working out loud. So go on, next time you are faced with a difficult issue or wicked problem, why not try and open it out to others. You might just get a useful answer.

An MBA (and Housing) – a perfect fit?

What relevance does an MBA have in the world of Housing?

As some of you will know, I have been studying towards an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) through the Open University.

As I am now half way through the three year distance learning course,  I thought it was an opportune time to reflect on a few of the key learning points from the MBA so far, to help answer the very question of its relevance. Here are the main ones:

I have had to step outside my comfort zone.  I don’t just mean in terms of the course content here. I am studying with a much wider range of people than I would normally work with; people who work in the for-profit sector, internationally, in family run businesses and global institutions. This is definitely not my usual close-knit Housing network and the diversity of students was one of the key reasons I signed up for the course.

I have a toolbox of useful business tools and concepts. I can now take these into my working career, whether that is ultimately within or outside the world of Housing. An MBA does not give you all of the answers, but it certainly helps to provide a wider and much deeper understanding of business. I feel more equipped than ever to tackle almost any issue at work.

The boundaries between for-profit and not-for-profit are difficult to define. The MBA course has brought this home to me on an amazingly regular basis. In Housing we are increasingly talking about profit, while in the next breath making it clear to anyone who will listen that we are not-for-profit. In a lot of ways, the definitions don’t matter – its more about having clarity of purpose within an organisation and ensuring that this is transmitted throughout the organisation.

There is a big world beyond Housing. I can’t stress this point enough. The MBA has shown me a taste of the big wide world out there beyond the Housing sector and I would argue that this ‘wide world view lens’  can be used to challenge and shed new light on old existing ways of working and thinking. I am the only ‘Housing’ person in my group and have really enjoyed being questioned and challenged on some of the Housing norms I have come to accept. I would like to think that I am a much better professional for it.

For me an MBA certainly has some relevance in the world of Housing. Sure, it might not be for everyone, but if nothing else it gives me a toolbox of theories and concepts with which to challenge the old ways of doing things, with a sound base knowledge of business which goes beyond the normal Housing world.

I for one am looking forward to taking this forwards in the rest of my career.