I haven’t written Yearnotes this year
Last year (2015) I posted some Yearnotes on Christmas Eve, (oh, come on…you’re always pointing to things you did or wrote last year…or four years ago. Or 15 years ago), which served as a post-hoc rationalisation to the events of a pretty tumultuous year for me, professionally and personally.
This year has been fairly tumultuous too: for me personally and, well, globally. By anyone’s estimation, and whatever your personal take on the political turn of events, we are turning a page as we enter 2017. There are opportunities, but we do have to seize them. And search for them. And create them.
This year, I can’t find that narrative thread that I’m searching for to write my rationalising Yearnotes. Not notes any that make sense, or do justice to the year as I experienced it, in any case. I’m left wanting for those signposting stories that, for whatever reason, I failed to mark, or find, or build. My path through 2016 was led more by the twists of the landscape formed by the year’s events rather than by a path I aimed to lay down.
At the end of last year I had no idea I would be entering the civil service, in such an exciting department; nor that, just as I was figuring things out, they’d be shaken up quite so much. I have been incredibly lucky to have worked so closely (as a ‘dotted-line’ ;) ) with (or really, as part of) the Data Transformation Programme, with some of the cleverest, boldest and good people I’ve ever had the chance to meet. It turns out we don’t always wear suits (sometimes, not even shoes and socks), but I’ve witnessed astounding levels of commitment and professionalism: people doing the right things and doing things right, but also valuing doing things differently. People who understand change means challenge, who aim to fail fast and learn.
It must also be said that we’ve also been incredibly lucky to have leaders who embody civil service values. Not just to be ‘objective, honest, and impartial’ but also the threads that tie these values together: boldness, openness, humility and trust.
I’m glad we’ve started to tell the stories about how our department and group are changing, but there are so many that weren’t told. Stories about how better use of data is transforming how we work, bringing benefits to the organisation; but also stories that show how this change is primarily cultural.
What this does mean is that there’s lots to do in 2017 in terms of building those stories that will help me define and understand events, and create opportunities for more positive stories. Stories, and the common language they spread, break down silos: in organisations, between social groups, and in our own minds.
So I’m going to set myself a challenge: to find, convey, and facilitate as many useful stories around me as I can so that I have the tools to build that narrative thread, not just so I can make sense of the changes next year, but to help point the way through the year. As an ENFP, this future-focus suits my visionary (/dreamer) sensibilities well; in teamwork measures, telling/producing stories satisfies my desire to innovate and shape the conversation. But I do have to become better at being a completer-finisher, otherwise next year’s Yearnotes will suffer the same fate as
;)
