Are we sitting too comfortably?

Our biggest opportunities exist outside our own comfort zone.  It’s up to us to find the courage and self-belief to break out, grab them and grow.

As owners and managers of agencies we have a responsibility to enable our employees to do the same.

We need to make sure they feel supported, engaged and inspired enough to want to break out of their own comfort bubbles, reach out and grab those opportunities and in so doing, grow as people and professionals, and through that growth add value to the business.

The same of course, applies to us! We can only be better leaders and managers if we too are prepared to embrace change.

Easier said than done?

Engagement within the context of stakeholder alignment is clearly one of the biggest challenges facing agency owners. We all recognise that fully engaged staff who feel valued, empowered and supported are key to creating and maintaining an authentically sustainable business.

It’s not as simple as looking for the ‘right’ people with the ‘right’ skills. The right skillset is clearly essential but the real challenge is to bring together and unify that blend of passions, values and personalities that, with the right support, can enable individuals to be outstanding in everything they do.

Research shows that money is further down the list of criteria than we might think in people’s career aspirations. Important, yes but what ranks higher is feeling engaged and valued, and having the opportunity to make a difference, alongside enjoyment, challenge and social interaction.

At a recent Dale Carnegie event, it was revealed that a surprisingly low one in three of employed people in the UK today feel they are actively engaged in the workplace. The remaining two thirds feel either passively engaged, or not engaged at all. That’s quite a statistic.

It’s a fact too that 69% of workers interviewed would be prepared to move jobs for a pay rise of just 5%. If people are prepared to move for so little, relatively speaking, then clearly a lot of employers have a problem, one that goes well beyond the challenges of staff retention and continuity.

There are still too many agency employers paying lip service to engagement, as they do to values.

As agency managers and employers we need to make genuine, sustainable efforts to make our teams feel valued. The start of that process has to involve empathy and an in-depth appreciation of what our employees want and need, and what they have a right to expect from us. And it has to be genuine.

Rewards, training, clarity, empowerment and knowledge are all part of the rainbow of engagement but it starts with us, the owners and managers. Our teams have to believe in us as leaders. They have to see that we have passion, a sense of direction, ability and values. They also need to view us as effective role models and recognise our behaviours as reflecting genuine organisational integrity.

And that doesn’t just matter at director and owner level. The relationship employees have with their immediate line manager is even more critical. It’s not just what we do that’s important to the team, it's how we do it and the authenticity we exhibit.

The theory is sound and fairly simple. Making it happen and keeping it happening are anything but. We’ll have phases of everything aligning and working well and then, often imperceptibly we lose it. It happens.

The important thing is to know and believe that it’s the right way of doing business, to keep the aspiration alive prioritise and invest in communication with our employees. Let’s keep working at making it happen.

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Assisted dying – a different perspective

Assisted dying/euthanasia, call it what you will, is yet again under the news spotlight. At least it keeps the subject in our collective consciousness, and that has to be a good thing.

Euthanasia appears to be a word that makes many of us feel particularly uncomfortable which is probably why the softer, lead threatening concept of ‘assisted dying’ has become the preferred language.

So is a society that embraces the ‘E’ word an enlightened, caring and compassionate society or one that is cruel and dehumanised?

It’s an immensely difficult debate and we naturally come at it informed by our religious and moral upbringing, as well as by our life experiences, particularly when we’ve been part of the suffering of friends and loved ones who may not have had a ‘good’ death.

Few of us would argue against the concept of the sanctity of life. Life is sacred, every moment of it. But does that mean life should be preserved at all costs, in all situations regardless of the circumstances? I sometimes wonder whether some of the clergy who cling to their religious doctrines do so without the experience of seeing someone close to them suffer in the way that some of us have done at the end of life. Would that experience not cause those of the strongest faith to reconsider?

Two of my uncles were actively helped out their terminal suffering as long as forty years ago by doctors empowered to ease their pain. My uncles, several years apart, asked for help when the pain was too much and the situation was agreed to be medically hopeless. 

Their decision was discussed at length with their wives and their doctors while they themselves were in full control of their senses and faculties. Following a period of reflection they died as the intended result of medical intervention, with their loved ones around them. Let’s not beat about the bush here: they were put out of their misery. Is that really so bad?

How did this situation arise? We were in Holland where euthanasia has been tacitly tolerated for many years and more recently formally accepted.

It’s one of those issues you’ll have a view on whether or not you’ve ever been affected. When you are involved, directly or indirectly, you tend to rethink your viewpoint. 

I’ve long since accepted the notion, providing the safeguards are firmly in place. I know it’s never as simple as that but my own upbringing, established belief system and experiences tell me that the notion of euthanasia – alright then, assisted dying if you must – is one that our society should at least tolerate and accept, if not embrace and encourage.

Would I take the option if I found myself in such an unimaginably black and hopeless place? That’s not once I can answer right now. I feel I might be too much of a coward in those circumstances but that thought stems from a 62-year-old who is in pretty good health and intellectually incapable of conjouring up such a scenario.

The issue came to affect me more personally in the last couple of years. My aunt had been unwell and had been diagnosed in her mid eighties with cancer, having already been affected by other ailments that left her disabled and in constant pain. She was the last of the father’s seven sibblings and we were quite close, as I was with her son, my cousin.

It became all too personal rather suddenly with a call from my cousin in Rotterdam one Monday evening. “Mum will be dying this Wednesday,” he told me with quiet emotion. “She would like you to come to the funeral on the following Saturday and wants an opportunity to say goodbye. Could you call her and have chat?”

It was a shock. It’s not a situation I’ve ever been faced with and it was, I’ll be honest, shocking and uncomfortable even though I’ve lost parents, been with a number of people at their last moments and seen plenty of death at close quarters in my time as a newspaper reporter.

It was agreed that my cousin would call me on the morning of my aunt’s last day of life in two days’ time so that I could ‘say goodbye’. I couldn’t sleep at all that night: what a surreal situation. What do you say to someone under those circumstances? I’ll admit to feeling very uncomfortable about what was to come.

The call came. My cousin handed the phone to my aunt. She led the conversation. I wasn’t to be upset, she said. She had had the most wonderful life, was tired of taking without, as she saw it, being able to give any more, and was fully content with the decision and what was about to happen within the next couple of hours.

I explained that I really didn’t know what to say to her. With calmness and even serenity, she just invited me to wish her a good journey. 

It was at that point that I had a real epiphany. One of those moments that really does change your life for good, and for the better. I suddenly realised the only thing left to say to anyone in those circumstances, and the only thing that really matters and means anything at all, is that you love them.

That’s what I told her. I thanked her for the love she’d shown me and my children over the years, and that I would never forget her. Two hours later, after a cup of coffee in the comfort of her own bed in her own flat and with her son by her side, two doctors arrived and within half an hour she was dead: on her terms, in her time.

A police surgeon arrived soon after to ensure that all the necessary ‘rules’ had been fully complied with.

Let’s be clear about this. She didn’t fall asleep or pass away. She died. It’s better to be up front and honest with our language in these and all other circumstances, in my view. She died and I have no doubt from what I felt during the conversation and at the subsequent funeral that she died easily, accepting and fulfilled. It was right for her and I accept that.

A few years later, my father - my hero - became very ill and suffered what I still consider to be an obscene death in the Intensive Care Unit of a local hospital, kept alive in his late eighties through medical intervention, completely unnecessarily and inappropriately in my opinion, although by the most caring and committed group of people I’ve ever met.

I counted no less than 13 tubes going into him with most of his functions maintained on his behalf and he having been sedated to a state of deep unconsciousness. He wouldn’t have wanted that. His family didn’t want that and it was clear that the staff felt he should have been allowed to go - no, to die - at a much earlier stage. As it was, and because of the circumstances that had been allowed to arise, it was left to my sister and I to take the decision to cease intervention. That wasn’t a difficult decision at all.

I have no doubt knowing my father as I did that he would have much preferred to have been spared that ordeal in favour of a more controlled death with choice and dignity. There was certainly no dignity in that hospital bed, though plenty of love and care.

By all means let’s debate, argue and disagree but let the debate be led by compassion and humanity rather than dogma and discrimination.

Serving more than time at The Clink

I just love those days when you’re presented with something completely unexpected and you find yourself surprised, delighted and inspired.

It wasn’t a lottery win but still pretty special!

It was a bit of a coincidence that on the morning I set myself the task of blogging about a great experience, I found myself listening to Justice Minister Michael Gove announcing that as a society we had collectively failed to attend adequately to the redemption and rehabilitation of large sections of our prison population.

So what’s the connection between my experience and the justice system?

Arranging a trip last week to Cardiff to witness my daughter’s graduation, we asked her to book somewhere for a celebratory lunch. She announced that it would be The Clink. That’s all we knew.

We arrived to find the restaurant located just yards outside the walls of HMP Cardiff. Interesting. I just assumed it was the location that had inspired the owners to come up with that name. Wrong.

Welcome to dinner with a difference at The Clink!

It looked at felt like a normal though top end restaurant with a great feel and design, and an open kitchen. We got a great welcome.

It wasn’t until I started reading the introduction in the menu that we realised what was different.

The kitchen and serving team, and the cleaning staff are all serving prisoners. Those with less than 18 months left of their sentence can apply to train for a City & Guilds NVQ in Hospitality & Catering and Customer Service, including food preparation, front-of-house service and industrial cleaning.  

They work a 40-hour week, under supervision, and train for between six to 18 months.

The first Clink Restaurant opened at HMP High Down in Surrey after Alberto Crisci MBE, then catering manager, identified the need for formal training, qualifications and support for prisoners in finding a job after release.

Since then Clink, now operating as a charity, opened in Brixton, Cardiff and this year in Styal, Cheshire. The restaurants at HMP Brixton and HMP High Down are actually located within the prison walls.

Mentors help graduates find employment and mentor them weekly for six to twelve months to support their reintegration. On average, 50 prisoners a year from each restaurant are released into employment.

It’s not just the food that’s provided by the prisoners. The tables, chairs and artwork in each of the four restaurants currently operating have been produced in various prisons across the UK.

Much of the food has been grown in prison gardens. The prisoners’ poems etched into glass panels in doors and around the restaurant are particularly poignant and really quite moving. They come from the Prisoners’ Poetry Book and A Collection of Art and Poetry, both filled with work by prisoners at HMP High Down.

So how was dinner?

Stunning and memorable for all the right reasons. The service was exemplary, the menu choice, although perhaps a little limited, was innovative with high quality dishes beautifully presented. The fresh ingredients were cooked to perfection. A fine lunch by any standards and highly recommended as a great dining experience.

What was noticeable was the kitchen team’s intense but in no way intrusive interest in our reactions to the food they’d cooked for us. It was obvious that it really mattered to them. During a brief conversation with one of our waiters, he confided that he had been working at the restaurant for only five weeks and was striving for an NVQ. It was said with real enthusiasm and pride. This was a clearly a place that makes a difference.

The initiative has been an enormous success. Within the first year of release, 46.9% of all adult offenders reoffend. For those serving sentences of less than 12 months this increases to 57.5%. Within five years, 75% will reoffend. Those who have been part of the charity’s programme have shown a reoffending rate of just 12.5%.

That’s got to be good news for all of us given that the cost to the taxpayer of keeping just one prisoner incarcerated for twelve months is £44,000. And that’s quite aside from the social, emotional and financial impact of the crimes that are committed through reoffending. It makes you wonder just how effective imprisonment is as a long-term solution to reducing crime, let alone rehabilitation.

There may never be a good excuse for crime. You might have views about giving prisoners a second chance. Clearly not for all offenders and I recognise that there’s no such thing as a victimless crime but I can't help feeling that for a certain category of offender who has it in them to recognise their wrongdoing and who wants to change, the opportunity should be available.

I have a real passion for trying to make a difference and for searching out opportunities to touch people’s lives for the better. That’s precisely what’s happening at The Clink and at other projects where the prison service is working with industry to create other opportunities for offenders to engage, learn and rehabilitate.

The charity aims to open ten units by the end of 2017. Currently, up to 155 prisoners are training at any one time.

Take a closer look http://theclinkcharity.org/the-clink-restaurants/cardiff-wales/

Too many forgotten days!

I’m a massive fan of TED (http://www.ted.com). Some of the featured talks are real life-changers and I was lucky enough to stumble across one this week that had a massive impact.

It reminded me of an uncomfortable moment a few years ago when the eldest of my three children was moments away from leaving home to go to university. The first of our offspring was flying the nest!!!

I suddenly found myself staring at her with a sense of growing panic – I remembered her being eight and there she was, a glowing 18 year old. How on earth had that happened so quickly and, more importantly, where I had been all that time?

Throughout all those years I may have been listening but was I hearing? I may have been watching but was I seeing? Sure, I’d been busy earning a living and all that goes with it but what had I missed?

I set my intention at that moment to be more ‘present’, mindful and aware for the sake of the children I still had at home. I’d like to think that I have succeeded in getting better, at least a little, at seeing and hearing.

But what else have I missed? How many events and magic moments are never registered; how many days and experiences forgotten completely?

I guess that as you get older, you become more aware of the finite nature of life. You become more conscious of wanting to make the most of the time you have and remember more of the good bits.

Cesar Kuriyama has clearly had a similar experience and in his superb TED talk - http://www.ted.com/talks/cesar_kuriyama_one_second_every_day - he explains how he now takes one second of video each and every day to remind him of the day and help him focus on its highlights.

I decided to do the same, though with camera and iphone stills, rather than footage. It has been a revelation. I’ve discovered that this one daily image has immense power.

It gives me a sense of continuity, a feeling that I’m living a fuller life and a much greater awareness of time. I guess it makes me stop and think about what I’ve been doing, be more aware of people and places and appreciate the good bits more. Give it a try!

Meet one of my heroes...

I’ve always thought it a privilege to have opportunities to spend time with like-minded people. I’ve been lucky enough in the last ten days to be with a few of them.

They’re authentic, generous of spirit and loyal. They’re all people I look up to and who have made my life and the lives of others that much better. I want to introduce you to one of them.

I was at school with Dave Beevers. We worked in journalism together and we’ve both shared some ups and downs. He’s a creative force, a brilliant writer and possesses one of the sharpest senses of humour ever. We laugh a lot together.

He’ll forgive me for sharing that he was never the fittest, most exercise conscious or lightest of human beings but in the last twelve months, he lost more than five stones, competed in half and full marathons and has become one of the fittest people I know. This weekend he'll participate in the Rotterdam Marathon.

Until few short months ago, he had never learned to swim or even ride a bike. He’s now competing in triathlons and his goal is to compete in an Iron Man event. If you care to look that up you’ll see that it ranks amongst one of the toughest organised physical challenges of their kind.

What a transformation. All this is achieved under the banner of Running with Diane. It’s Dave’s tribute to his beloved wife whom he lost to breast cancer in February two years ago. Her memory, personality and love drive him, inspire him and help him in all these impressive endeavours.

Having lost his anchor, and to some extent his reason for living, he’s found a new purpose and is achieving what we all want -  the feeling that we’re making a real difference.

Dave was 24 stone when Diane died. He joined a local gym in April 2013 and went on to lose eight stones in 12 months, weighing in at 16st when he ran the Rotterdam and Liverpool marathons last year.

If you want to be moved with some great writing, and perhaps spare him a thought - or something more tangible - take a look at http://runningwithdiane.blogspot.co.uk or better still, https://www.justgiving.com/rotterdamdavehttps://www.justgiving.com/rotterdamdave

This bit of inspiration is taken from one of his blogs:

‘Change your mindset and suddenly what you are capable of becomes an unknown. And that’s the exciting bit. When you stop saying ‘I can’t’ and start asking, ‘I wonder if...’ that’s the adventure there, in a nutshell. The shackles come off, your self-deprecation evaporates and you start to think of what might be.

Look up and not down, ahead and not behind. Don’t let how you are determine how you will be. You have no idea how far, how long or how high you can reach because you haven’t tried to find out yet.

When you start to dream, simply start to imagine how much better you could be than you are today, that’s when you feel the irresistible urge to get off the sofa. And that’s when you know you’ve conquered the most difficult part of all: reaching the start line.’

When words aren't enough...

When words aren’t enough

Our overuse of superlatives sometimes leaves us grasping for words that can adequately convey what we want to say. What happens when I experience something that really is ‘awesome’? If ever I needed a better word, it was today.

This doesn’t make easy reading and it wasn’t easily listening but the experience of a tour of Claire House Children’s Hospice at the invitation of the wonderful Amanda Mitchell really does deserve a better word than awesome.

Right now, as I write this, there’s a young couple from Merseyside saying their intensely personal goodbyes to their stillborn daughter.

What was supposed to become one of the happiest of all life events ended in the unexpected shock and unmitigated tragedy of the baby dying in her mother’s womb as she approached full term. And that after months of growing expectation and preparation by family and friends for a completely different outcome.

There are two incredible spaces at Claire House called Butterfly Suites where bereaved parent and their close relatives have all the facilities, privacy, dignity, specialist support and, perhaps most important of all, the time they need to begin to come to terms as best they can with what has happened.

They are able to say their goodbyes, over several days, with hugs, words, photos and the opportunity to take treasured memories such handprints and footprints. Precious time together.

This particular family had no previous connection with Claire House but was referred by a caring hospital doctor – apparently not many are aware of the superb end of life facilities that Claire House offers. The alternative? Probably the best they could have hoped for was an hour’s visiting slot at a local undertaker’s chapel of rest.

It was moving, amazing, incredible to think that this heartbreaking scenario was being played out while we were in the building.

Claire House is a place for the support and end of life are for children and teenagers with life-limiting conditions. There’s seldom a happy ending and yet I have never seen so many smiling people in one place who derive massive satisfaction simply from using their skills and time to make a difference to those young people. As one of the team told us, it’s sometimes the little things that make the biggest difference.

The place is bright, filled with love and some superb facilities all designed to provide comfort, enjoyment, sensations, experiences and above all, happy memories.

We all know about hospices and many of us have visited friends and loved ones there but if we’re honest, they're not places we like to keep front of mind.

Our tour was as harrowing an experience as it was inspiring and uplifting. This is a place full of smiles and optimism, brimming with love and dedication.

Listening to the professionals when they speak of the joy of being part of giving young people and their families special memories is really humbling.  Goodness only knows the price these people pay for the emotionally challenging work they do. Awesome doesn't come close.

I’ve always thought it not much short of a scandal that such places have to rely on the generosity of companies and individuals for donations to sustain their work. Given their massive contribution to society, they deserve proper Government funding.

I was struck by how grateful the team is to do what they do; time and again we were thanked for the interest we’d show by just turning up for a tour.

It’s not the easiest of visits but it’s certainly one of the most emotional and thought-provoking. Go and see for yourselves and then tell others what you’ve seen.