Altona, Friday 10 May 2019
Hi Marlis,
I hope you are doing well and that the post-Anzac Day cold snap
has not really come into effect just yet, but those night temperatures must be getting
close to freezing…It’s been a fast two months since I last wrote and as always
lots of things have happened, so let’s get started!
Sydney trip
Yumi and I were in Sydney for 4 days at the end of April and
stayed with her work-buddy Caroline in their gigantic house in Glebe, one of
the many suburbs just outside the CBD. A bit like Brunswick, but without the
hipsters J.
They have 2 dogs, Zebra and Rhino the Dalmatians. 10 and 13 years old and still
so energetic I had difficulty keeping up! It was nice to see a different side
of Sydney for a change. So far I wasn’t a big fan of the city (the beaches are
nice though), so busy and loud and dirty, but this was a different and more
green, quiet and friendly side of town where she lives. Yumi and I flew in on
Sunday morning and the weather was gorgeous, so we spent most of the day outside,
storing our stuff at Central station and exploring new things around town.
We walked to the Powerhouse Museum and I was mostly impressed with
their space exposition and whole room full of dresses by an Australian-Japanese
designer, some were true pieces of art. There was also a Star Wars exhibition
going on, but it was stupidly expensive and after seeing 8 of the 9 movies
multiple times, I think I got it. We then moved on to the Chinese Friendship
garden which is so much bigger than I had thought and very well laid out with
nice pathways, lots of art, big koi goldfish and of course 1 million tourists
trying to take the perfect picture (of themselves in front of tree?). When it
was time to get back, we took our first tram and bus ride in Sydney and then
made our way to Caroline’s house with our very broken suitcase (broken wheel, so
annoying, but somehow we managed to survive!!).
On Monday, Yumi did work things and I had a client visit with some
banking people which was partly a favour to an old work friend, but also paid
work. I am not sure how much they got out of it, but I did my best to explain
why it was a good idea to pay more attention to change and communication. I
don’t think anything will come from it work-wise, they asked me what I could do
at what cost and then they asked me what I could do for less, so I politely
declined and truly wish them the best.
Then on Tuesday we had the big event with Yumi’s business ‘Purpose
at Work’ at the University of technology with a few speakers and a day full of
learning about different ways of getting good results at work being driving
things from the core purpose instead of just money. There were about 30 people
and as far as events go, I very much enjoyed myself. The run-up was a bit
frustrating as Yumi was steadily ignoring most of my tips and trick (I actually
know what I am doing in this space, I’ve done it quite a few times) and then at
the last minute we had to get all sorts of things sorted. Oh well, their way
worked too in the end and afterwards many people sent her messages telling her
how much they had enjoyed themselves. That’s all you can hope for and a great
outcome. On Wednesday I did some writing, got a good walk in around the CBD
(yep, still ugly and crowded) and managed not to get lost, while Yumi did some
more work and meetings. We flew back on a totally uneventful flight and were
happy to be home by 8pm.
Yumi’s new
business
I am so very proud of how well she’s doing, words really can’t
express it. It’s a very interesting experience to see how she figures things
out, develops her network and comes up with new ideas. I help out where I can,
but keep reminding myself that it’s really only just 2 months since they got
started and their official launch was just 2 weeks ago. She’s got about 10
clients now and her business partners are also going full tilt with people
coming from everywhere wanting to work with them. She keeps getting new
insights and ideas, it’s only a matter of time before she lands on something
and then she’ll really kick it into next gear. We’ve settled on the ‘office’
distribution, with her sitting upstairs (warmer, more space) and me downstairs
(already my spot anyway) and every now and then she wanders down, mostly to
eat, but it’s like she has new adventures to share every day and I love it.
She’s clearly doing what she likes and is already thinking about the next big
event, somewhere in September. But there’s heap to do before and after that
too.
Travel plans
Just back from Sydney, we’re now preparing for the big Canada trip
in August, then it’s the ACT in October (I think) and Berlin and the
Netherlands in November, then our big trip along the West coast, the NT and
back down through the middle in December/January and then Japan Olympics in
2020. Is that ravel enough for you?! J
These are of course plans and mostly holidays and not work, but there’s always
the option that more travel is involved if either of us happens to find a
client Interstate or internationally. I look forward to them all, but for
different reasons:
1.
Canada: there’s a wedding, a party and
cake. Oh and beautiful nature, grizzly bears and lots of big nothing, that too,
but mostly…cake!
2. The
ACT because I plan to visit you, do some change community volunteer work and
hopefully visit friends and the places in Canberra that make me happy
3. Berlin/NL:
the Berlin Change Days are fun enough as it is, but the added bonus is of
course seeing the friends and their kids, my parents (my dad turns 66 today),
Yumi’s parents and Rotterdam of course!
4. Roadtrip
WA/NT: this has been on the list for so long that we’re now just going to do
it. With the new car Yumi is more confident that we’ll actually not die…yeah, I
know, she’s not the adventurous part of our duo, haha. I get excited just
thinking about all the new things I will see.
5.
Japan: ever since we went there for a
few days in Tokyo in 2016 I’ve been keen to get back and Yumi always wanted to
visit the Olympics, so we’ve decided to combine the two and make it into a
really cool trip.
It’s a good thing we don’t have pets anymore, they’d forget who we
are after all that time away J.
SES
Things are ticking along at SES. Not too many call-outs which is
sort of okay, but less fun. But when we get to go, it’s always fun. I still
manage the finances, which is super easy now and as no one really wants to
spend any money or get more strategic about things, I feel like I’ve done my
best work after a year and told them that they need to look for a new person to
do it next year. Sometimes it’s a bit annoying that the management team just
doesn’t respond to news they don’t like (well, only 2 really, the other 2 are
cool), but I’ll do everything Finance until July and then get about a day a
month back in my life. We did a BBQ at Bunnings about two weeks ago and that’s
always good fun, lots of friendly people and it’s good money but the team is
getting a bit over it as it’s always the same people showing up (yup, including
me). So now I’ve suggested we should just stop, if there’s so little interest.
No response so far, haha. I mean, I get it, the old guard has been there for 30
years, they don’t want all this fancy new stuff, wearing orange is enough for
them. The ‘younger’ people (also me, I am sort of young at 40, right?!) want to
do all sort of things, but there’s either no response or the answer is no, so
they stopped suggesting things too. Not great, but we’ll see where it goes.
This weekend we had a rare emergency call-out (it’s mostly
non-urgent things) for a potential self-harm involving water, which normal
people call suicide by drowning and everything was just wrong. We didn’t
respond in time, 8 people showed up (as fast as they could, we only need 4, but
8 is better), we get everything sorted and then it gets called off because
other agencies were already there. All that time we could see exactly what was
happening because it was just 300 meters from the unit. Aaaargh! Never found
out if the person had come to harm or not, I hope they are fine.
Seems like a terrible way to die, not just the drowning, but in
Cherry Lake, which is only waist-deep, that would take some serious effort, meaning
you’d have to be pretty confused and desperate to go there. We had some
terrible weather here in Melbourne today and my pager has been buzzing
non-stop, but it’s been quiet since the afternoon, so it should be fine again,
I am happy for the duty team to go out and fix people’s roofs for a change. A
tree had taken down some powerlines near our street, but the fire people and
council were there, politely thanked them and walked home to finish this letter
instead 😊.
Work at Deakin
University
About 8 weeks ago I started again with Deakin, same team as before
and I have to admit it was a mistake. The team still love me, the work is
simple enough, but everything else just feels wrong. It’s like something
happened to the culture over the past 8 months and now it’s just ‘get it done
at all cost’. It’s also very possible that it was already like this, but I can
be so incredibly naïve sometimes and not notice it until the facts really stack
up. Fortunately, I always manage to deliver good work from day one, that’s the
advantage they get when they hire me, I know enough to start immediately.
The project I am now on is up to its 9th project
manager (which is truly and utterly ridiculous) and nothing has really been
done, other than fixing issues. I agreed to write a review report, got it all
sorted and it’s been sitting on a desk for 2 weeks now, waiting for the
politically correct moment to speak some unpleasant truths. And that’s after
they asked me to remove basically all criticism of avoidable mistakes and clear
cases of people and groups not taking responsibility. Not sure what happened to
the Deakin I loved when I went away, but I found myself recommending a someone
NOT to apply to a position a while back, which was a real low point and
eye-opener at the same time. I told them I want out, gave five reasons, the
main one being that I have no faith in a good outcome and find it unethical to
take their money any longer. They want to talk about it, which is fine, but
right now I don’t see me all of a sudden put my values and morals aside just so
they can continue the charade of overloading teams and not being accountable. I
think I should have stuck with my guns and learned from last time. Either way I
should probably not go back again until they improve or I find a way to deal
with this. Both seem very unlikely at the time, haha.
On a more positive note, my last meeting of today was with the
people from the very fancy Master of Business Administration (MBA), also at
Deakin, which is the international flagship for rich students and they want me
to develop a Change Management Masterclass
for full online delivery (via the Internet). Now that’s my kind of challenge and I am even getting paid for my
intellectual property (not sure if I have any, haha). It should be for delivery
in September, but I am already so excited about it, it’s going to be fun and I
will learn so much!
Chameleon Cards
I might have mentioned earlier that I’d written a few articles
about the change roles of the future and how unexpectedly successful they were
and now my friend Peter and I are working on a whole range of things to share
the knowledge. The coolest part is probably the deck of playing cards we’re
developing for people to use in their team or for themselves to figure out what
new roles and skills would work for them. I am meeting him today and hope he’s
bringing some designs. I’ve done most of the writing work, which is soooo much
more than I had anticipated, but it was also a great experience to create
something out of nothing.
Beach Patrol
I am still going strong with the
litter picking, but it’s a bit less messy around town now that the weather is
cooling down and there’s less people out and about at all hours. Yumi and I are
now the official co-organisers and it happens more often than not that we end
up leading the clean up because the actual lead can’t make it. We weren’t sure
how to feel about that at first, but it’s really not all that hard and we are
quite organised anyway. One of my plans got accepted by the local council and I
gave them 13 ore ideas, so these people must be pretty ‘over’ me by now. I’ve
made quite a few friends among the council workers who keep seeing me and my
trusty litter gripper everywhere at every possible time of the day. I’ll also
be leading a group of six corporate volunteers in a clean up somewhere around
town. They actually get time off from work to do this, so I’ll make them work
extra hard (all for the environment of course 😊).
New career choices
It’s that time of year again where I contemplate if this whole
change management business is still working for me. I let myself be distracted
by all sorts of things, but at some point I have to just make a decision and move
on. There always seems to be a reason to stay involved or pick up some work, but
at the end of the day, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I am just too far
ahead or advanced for most and the ones that do get me and what I am trying to
do are often isolated in their organisations. I’ve always wanted to learn a real trade, like becoming a shoe-maker
or woodworker, maybe I’ll explore that a bit more in the next few months, but I
might also get more involved in Yumi’s business if an opportunity opens up. To be
continued…
Friends and
family
Everyone appears to be doing well, one couple are selling their
house and moving to a different part of the country, which will be weird
because they lived in the same neighbourhood as we did and then there’s really
now reason to go back there. Another couple are preparing to become foster parents,
which is totally something I can see them do. They both come from families with
4 kids, so I can see the appeal for them and it’s just so them. My parents and
Yumi are doing well, the Amsterdam family is also chugging along, with both
boys doing great in school and their youngest recently performing in an actual
grown up theatre production. His parents sent us all the movies they had, we
loved each and every one of them.
Small stuff:
1.
I am still walking a good 10km a day, but
had to buy new shoes, they still hurt a bit, but by the time we get to Canada,
they should be well worn in. People around town are now starting to recognise
me, haha, maybe I should get out a bit less.
2. I’ve
been going to different professional development events for a while now and am
learning new stuff and meeting new people. Sometimes Yumi even goes with me,
which is a lot of fun because then my network also meets the best part of my
life in person instead of just hearing my stories. Tomorrow is another one that
I originally came up with, but the team I left has really taken it to the next
level, introducing new and young people to change. They had 58 registrations,
that’s insanely good for a Saturday.
3.
Last month I made my 25th
blood donation and I was hoping for a stuffed pelican, my second favourite bird
after the magpie, but alas, I got a pin. Not sure what I am supposed to do with
it, it’s not like I will wear it every time I go. Number 26 is tomorrow at 8am,
plasma this time. 😊
I guess that’s most of it again, make sure to stay safe and warm, I’ll
write again in July!
Gilbert
