Altona, 9 July 2019
Hi Marlis,
It’s been another eventful 2 months
since I last wrote and Winter is trying to arrive in Altona! I hope you are
keeping warm too. Before I launch into all that’s happened, let’s get the
logistics sorted first. I will be coming to the ACT for some ‘work’ related
stuff! I was hoping to stop by for a visit on Thursday 5 September around 10.00
perhaps? If that suits your schedule, could you maybe give me a call closer to
the date? A week in advance should be enough 😊. My best contact number is 0438 724 364. I could also
do Friday morning if that works better, but then I have to drive back to
Melbourne again to help Yumi with her event on the Monday after.
Now that the important stuff is out of
the way, here’s what’s been going on for us:
Canada trip
We are nearly ready to go, just 3 more
weeks and we’ll be landing in Calgary. Yumi has the whole schedule sorted, the
GPS is updated for all the main and back roads and the grizzly bears have been
told to expect us. I really do hope we get to see some of the bigger wildlife,
but it’s the peak of tourist season, so I’m trying to keep my expectations low.
We’re actually going there to see our friends from the Netherlands get married,
but as long as we’re there, might as well make a 3,000 km road trip out of it,
right? Canada is like Australia that way. You can travel for 3 weeks and then
look at the map and realise you’ve basically seen nothing yet, just a
stamp-sized piece of a table-sized map. Oh well, it’ll be fun for sure and we
can do with a bit of a break from Melbourne.
Yumi’s business
Yumi has been really busy (and happy)
over the past 3 months and now she can finally take a breather after having
worked 12 weeks non-stop. Her clients love her, the work and money is coming to
them! She’s doing what she wanted to do for years, so it’s all
completely as expected and no one is really surprised. But I am very proud of
her all the same. They are planning another event, still not doing their
promotion as impactful as I could do it, but I’ve come to realise that I am the
worst possible advisor for them. Everything I say is 100% true, but because I
say it, they just have to do something else. At first, I got a bit upset
with that, now I just let them do their thing, like those millions of other
businesses that somehow all seem to manage just fine without me too, haha.
She’s got work lined up until next year and now national organisations are
starting to find them as well. It’s great to see her do so well and learning
all these new things. I hope she never goes back to working or a boss!
Chameleon Cards
Today my friend Peter Phan and I
launched the website for a game we’ve been working on. It’s a set of 120 cards that’s
supposed to help all sorts of professionals make sense of the roles for change
managers in the near future. It started as a bit of a joke, but we got so much
positive feedback on what I wrote and showed as a prototype that we’ve decided
to just give it a go. It turned out to be (sooooo) much more work than
anticipated, but also very rewarding and full of learning. By the time I come
to Canberra, I’ll bring a set for you so you can see what that’s all about. I
could try and explain, but I am not great at explaining and if I show you,
you’ll immediately get it 😊. It’s the other reason I am coming to the ACT. A long
time ago I promised I would do a presentation for the Change Management
Community of Practice and now I’ll bring the cards, talk a bit about the Change
Rebellion and hopefully inspire a few people along the way. Not bad for
something that started as a joke!
Clean ups
Yumi and I have been keeping up with the
clean ups. I think I am now up to bag 750 or so, since I started. I have lost
count a bit, but still enjoy keeping the town free of litter on most days. A
few weeks back I did a 2-hour super-clean in an area so polluted I didn’t
really know where to start. I waited for a sunny day and then got into it. 20
(!) bags and a lot of walking later, it looked a lot better, for now at
least... We also had a good community event with a group called Fishcare as a
joint event with Beach Patrol. As a vegetarian I couldn’t really get excited
about someone telling people about how to enjoy themselves while hurting
animals, but at least they are trying to make it less painful and look after
the environment. Also, I am just the coordinator, no need to make it all about
me and my values 😊. The kids had
a great time and the parents learned a thing or two as well. It did help that
the sun came out right on time, so we got a lot of work done and had a good
time. My proposal from December 2018 for a community-based approach to
clean-ups is still on the council’s radar, but it’s all so slow that they’ll
get around to it by next year or so. Whatever, we’ll just do it ourselves then!
The current coordinator has moved and now lives a bit further away and she’s a
mom with lots of other commitments, so Yumi and I take on a little bit more
every now and then. Sometimes it’s a bit annoying, but then I remember that
we’re all volunteers, she’s trying her best and it should be fun, not like
work!
Designing a Change Masterclass for Deakin
MBA
About the time I left Deakin, the director
for the fancy Master of Business Administration school asked if I would be
interested to get paid to deliver a series of classes on change management. It
sounded very interesting and it certainly was fun to design and put it
together! We had to go back and forwards a few times to get it right though. I designed
something truly challenging, lots of topics, the real deal for what change
management is. He basically just wanted some tools explained, but I could not
agree to that. I compared it to giving an 8-year old a loaded gun. They’ll just
shoot at anything and never consider the consequences. We landed on a happy
compromise where I get to do 2 classes about context and big picture stuff and
2 classes on the tools for change. It will only start in September, but with
our month away to Canada, it’s good that I finished my first draft on 30 June.
It’ll be completely online, so everyone will be on a screen and camera in their
living rooms, bathrooms, offices or sheds, who knows?! 😊. I am hoping
for people from all over Australia and possibly even abroad. We’ve limited it
to 25 students, to see how we go. If it’s successful, we’ll do a more elaborate
design which will use more and different media like video, audio, books,
articles, real-life scenarios. I hope that happens, because that’s the education
of the future I think the profession needs.
Coffee-dates I go on
Now that I have a lot of time on my
hands, I go out and meet all sorts of people for coffee, lunch and sometimes
just walking around town. I could be fancy and say that it’s networking, but I
just like listening to their stories, what keeps them busy at work and how
their lives are going. I do get lots and lots of ideas and inspiration from it
for all the things I am working on, so we both get a lot out of it. Sometimes it’s
just a quick pitstop 30-minute conversation or a 1-hour Q&A sort of talk,
but I’ve also had times where we sat there for 3 hours exchanging ideas and
thoughts. Yep, there is that much to say about change work, haha. There’s this
mindset in corporate land that you should not give people free advice and I see
where they are coming from. That being said, I get wonderful cards, lovely
messages and heartfelt expressions of appreciation that are priceless. I also
get the opportunity to talk to people all across Australia, Denmark, Germany,
the UK, Canada, the USA and Singapore about change management. That’s over the
internet of course, but such a good experience still. I’ve never gotten any
work out of it, but I’d like to think that I’ve improved the lives of some people
at least. Another benefit is that I get a good idea about venues to meet and
work from as I travel across the city a few times a week, always good to know
where to go for good food and free wifi! Every now and then, I just need to get
out of the house and out of my head a bit, I guess.
Reading
I’ve been doing massive amounts of
reading of late. I read a great book called “The Land Before Avocado”, which is
all about how Australia used to be in the 60’s and 70’s and it made me think of
some of the conversations we had. The writer talks about how people today think
that Australia of yesteryear was the promised land, but it really, really wasn’t.
Not for women, gay people, foreigners or anyone else who was not white and
male. Food was not awesome, coffee terrible, politics about the same and professional
standards nowhere near what we have today. But we like to pretend that it was
much better anyway. Another book was about Eating Animals and it was beautiful
and terrible at the same time. It made me give up eggs after I researched what
was available and it turns out that despite paying for ‘free range’ what I am
getting is not what I imagined. The writer asks this question near the end: “What
will you do now you know the truths of eating animals” and that’s been on my
mind a lot ever since. Don’t worry, I am not turning vegan any time soon, it
just sounds too hard and sour, but I might be closer thank I think anyway. Then
I also read a ton of books about human behaviour and change management, to
prepare for my performance as the ‘expert’ for the masterclass, but it was all
rather disappointing. I know a lot more about it than I thought and after book
10, I decided I knew enough not to embarrass myself when lecturing for students.
Walking and baking
Well, not at the same time of course, but
both in equal measures! A few months back I found this recipe book for colossal
cookies. As a life-time fan of Cookie Monster, of course I needed to have this
book. Just looking at the pictures makes me genuinely happy. They’re just cookies,
but plate sized and so very good. And terrible for my diet of course, hence the
walking. I’ve tried a few different recipes and found that even more than
eating them, I enjoy the creative element of it. Putting everything together,
working with my hands, throwing in a few new ideas and changes and then see
what happens. I’ve not yet landed on a masterpiece just yet, but Yumi and I
score most of them 7 to 8/10, so not too bad. All that baking, sugar, butter
and chocolate wreaks havoc on the diet, so I now walk between 10-15km a day to
stay in shape. So far so good. Sometimes I run out of places to walk to, but
just yesterday I created a new route trough an area I hadn’t been before and
got some beautiful view over the bay in return for my efforts. It also helps
with the litter picking, so everybody wins.
SES activities
It’s been a busy time with the people in
orange the past couple of weeks. We’ve been out on jobs, but because some
people have work, life, family or personal engagements I keep seeing the same
people turn up for jobs. I don’t care too much, as long as we can work and
return home safely. We’ve had some very big tree branches that required a few
hours to cut up. One of them even impaled a roof and missed a bed by about 30cm!
Yikes! Then we had a roof collapse in a bedroom (no one was hurt) where we
waded knee deep through insulation in the dark, surrounded by really creepy
clown masks. I mean, who has 40 of those? And in their bedroom! Ah well, we had
a good laugh. I’ve indicated that I want to hand back the finance role, but so
far no takers, so I guess I am stuck for a while longer with it. I am now
finishing up the books for next year and the paperwork is just so stupid. But
we’ll get it done. Much more fun is that we’re recruiting new members and the
interviews are so much fun. I am really impressed with some of the young people
wanting to join. They seem to have really thought about it. I can’t remember
being that together when I was their age. Wait, I am not even that together at
this age, haha. It’s still quite enjoyable and you truly get out what you put
in, so I’m happy to continue a while longer, which is remarkable in itself,
because I generally don’t stick with things that long.
Berlin and Australian Change Days
Last year I put in a proposal to do a
presentation for the Berlin Change Days on a dare and never thought of it
again. And then they told me I could come and present. It was all a bit unclear
and weird, but I don’t mind that too much anyway. Then I got the idea that we might
bring this to Australia or even Melbourne, so I reached out to the organiser
and then things got a bit strange. About 10 people got involved, everybody
talked about all the reasons why we couldn’t do it and that only people who had
already been to the Berlin Change Days would be ‘allowed’ to work from a
mindset of ‘humility’ and be grateful for the opportunity. Excuse me?! Even if
accounting for some things getting lost in translation halfway across the
world, I don’t deal very well with asking for permission or being told to be
humble if I raise the idea and am willing to invest what will be 100’s of hours
of my and other’s time…So that died before it got started and I was ready to
throw in the towel for the Berlin Change Days as well, no longer feeling that
this was ‘my crowd’. Talked to Yumi and my co-presenter (Sarah) about it and
decided to still go and do it, if nothing else so I can at least honour my
promise and have an informed opinion. It was supposed to be the cherry on the
cake, now it’s just something to do. At least Sarah and I get along really well
and I am sure I’ll enjoy it once I am there. After all, Berlin is still one of
my favourite cities, change days or no change days!
Career changes
I’ve mentioned it a few times in various
letters, probably just slowly working towards it, but I really need a new
career. This whole change management thing is starting to get to me and as I
only have one life, I feel I need to do something else. Yumi and I have been
talking about it since October 2018, when she (jokingly, I think 😊) said that I should
find a real job. But then work finds me and I tell myself that I should just
stick it out a bit longer, which never ends well. I am now at this point where
the doubt and uncertainty are staring to negatively impact my mood, so it’s
about time I get decisive and stop worrying about how to make things work. We’ve
come this far, we’ll probably be fine whatever I choose to do next. I am
thinking of picking up a trade like carpenter, cabinet maker, stone mason or
shoemaker. Not sure where that will go, but it requires me to reimagine myself
in a whole new role. Maybe I am making it harder than it is, won’t know until I
try, I guess. I hope that I can tell you what’s next, come September.
Small stuff
· Mentoring: I’ve
picked up a new mentee, another Sarah, who works in a hospital as a change
manager and I help her not go insane, ehrm…help her to make effective decisions
about change and communication activities. She’s great and doesn’t really need
my help, but she has to figure that out for herself.
·
Volunteering
changes: I’ve said goodbye to a few
things I’d been waiting for more than a year or with organisations that only call
me when they need something of me. It’s a lot easier to manage if you do 3-4 things
instead of 6-8 is my experience!
·
Not writing a
book: I was planning to write a book
about how to make change management better, but through my reading I found that
basically everything you need to know is already written down and that there
are some excellent books on that topic freely available. It’s probably also to
do with me coming to understand that I am not especially good at change anyway.
I am sure someone else will write it though.
· Hester’s wedding: Yumi’s best friend Hester got married last month in the Netherlands
and through the miracle of the Internet we could be there live via videophone.
I know how the technology works, but it was still pretty magical to be there in
the moment. She looked gorgeous (as did he) and we’ll see them in Canada soon
to do it all again.
That’s about it for now, I hope to see you
in September.
Be well and stay warm
Gilbert
