Our Happen communication protocol
Earlier this week I was sharing my thoughts on the importance of good quality communication at the root of successful teams. In fact, at the root of all relationships and collaboration. Communication is clearly a multi-faceted thing, experienced on a host of levels but in basic terms we mean: “the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium” I want to share with you one tool that Eve and I have used at Happen to support our commun
Good team working: it's all communication
I’ve worked in, built and managed a lot of teams: teams developed from scratch to deliver new functions, teams merged as the result of corporate restructures, project teams with individual members delivering varied roles, capacity and to different levels of priority, small and specialist and large cross-organisational service teams. I’ve also been a member of charity boards, grant-giving committees and worked in a range of voluntary spaces where people come together infrequen
Eve's Now Page: What's happening now?
I started my ‘Now Page’ back in January 2016. Like many new year starts I didn't sustain it, but it helped me get back in the habit of blogging after a short break and to explore new ways of sharing my workings out. I’ve had a very busy ten months since then and my work has felt varied and changeable so it is interesting looking back to see how the same key themes dominate. So what am I up to now?.. 3...2...1... and launch... It has been a week of new launches. Despite sev
Locating my inner DIVA #divamanc
(As first published on DivaManc.org website) Many column inches have already been spent contesting and ridiculing the image of the signing of the DevoManc agreement; the infamous pale, stale and male scene. It may be suggested that you can read too much into one image. But images are an important part of the story and the fact is that it did happen and those who were there obviously thought it was acceptable, or worse didn’t even think about it at all as an issue. Well that
From solicitor to coach: reflections on my journey so far
I've always been driven by purpose and a commitment to help build a better world. I trained as a solicitor, seeing the law as a vehicle for social change and justice. But law and policy all too often felt disconnected from the people and communities I sought to help and disempowering. Something done to them. In contrast, coaching and facilitation tools and techniques enable me to work with people, help form inter-related connections and enable people and communities to d
Creating habits or bound up in rules?
In August on my personal blog I started a 30-day blogging/ brainstorming challenge. Over the first 22 days I delivered only 9 posts. The purpose of attempting the 30-day challenge posted by Learning Rebels was to support me in the practice of making my work visible - a key plank of learning to work out loud and creating it as a habit. As Shannon Tipton puts it when we don't do something we become rusty, "the more we turn our head away from what's important, the harder it i
A collaborator’s journey
I wrote a blog piece two weeks ago about my journey to ‘working out loud’. A reflection on my learning that I then hesitated to post because something felt inauthentic. After spending a Saturday night with a small number of the amazing women activists I have collaborated with over the last two decades to progress women’s equality I realised what that was. I had focused on coming to ‘working out loud’ in the last two years. While it is true that this time has been instrume
