The excitement of resigning...

What a lovely bunch of friends, colleagues, curious individuals and others you are!

I have had the most amazing responses to my last blog on resigning.There have been four distinct themes to your emails and calls:

1. Outright curiousity .... No one can understand why I would quit a decent job, with a decent company, on decent conditions in a decent industry. Sorry folks... I am still working on the answer to that one.
2. Blessing and confirmation on the expressions I want to avoid .... It's time for a confession now... (shhhhhhh .....) I have actually uttered the words 'learnings' and 'syndicate' in earnest. So ubiquitous is their use, I failed my very own challenge. I'm appalled at my behaviour when 'lessons' and 'discuss' would have been perfectly suitable alternatives. The universe has never spoken to me before, but I take this transgression as further proof that I really have to move on from the loving arms of my current organisation.
3. Shared excitement ....I am starting to notice a lot of articles and participating in a lot of discusisons about the benefits of change and resigning. The article below jumped out of my twitter feed. 6-big-reasons-why-you-should-quit-your-job-and-follow-your-passion. I latched onto the 'big reasons why you should should quit' bit. Having numerous, confused and obsure passions, I am not sure which to follow though. More on this in another blog ... Make sure you check out the video at the end. It's absolutely delightful. I've got a few more days in the office so watch this space...
4. Special thanks too for all of your great suggestions on what I could do next too. Here are a few gems:

• Throw in mining all together and buy the IGA at Dongarra
• Start an all women mining junior - any all-women tech company shells out there?
• Champion for geeks
• Champion for women engineers
• Champion for working mums
• Champion for geeky, women engineer mums who aren't actually that geeky, dont work and not very good mothers...
• Travel
• Spend more time with my kids (they clearly haven't met my kids or have suggested an evil curse on me)
• Lie on the beach and read books
• Write the great Australian novel
• Just go out and get another job and start raging for the machine again (any machine - the propellerhead's suggestion)

I'll keep you posted.

 

I did it... I resigned... Now what?

Ideas please. I am serious. Having never quit a perfectly reasonable, well paid job before with no other plans, I'm open to inspiration from all quarters.

There are no specific reasons for resigning but there are lots of things I am mightily excited about avoiding when I leave the office... 

Send through your ideas, offers and advice but only if you can assure me that I'll NEVER ever have to utter any of the words listed below:

1. Syndicate - I'm just a simple engineer. Syndicate will always be a noun for me. i.e. I will form a lotto syndicate. We will win millions and then we'll all buy big yachts and sail away. I know technically, you can use it as a transitive verb (??) but why? It sounds so ridiculous. Why don't we just say, "Go out and sell your ideas Lucy". Rather than, "you need to syndicate this plan..."
2. Learnings - It's not a word OK! Just don't use it. Ever! This abomination has become so prevalent that there is a whole generation of professionals who need to know that lessons come from what we learn.
3. Don't boil the ocean - Just say "your scope is too big". Or possibly, as Daryl Kerrigan would say "tell him he's dreaming".
4. Socialise - Not the fun sort. Where we socialise with colleagues over a few drinks.The 'socialise' I refuse to accept is when it's used like 'syndicate'. eg "Lucy - I think you should socialise this new process". We socialise our pets so they don't rip each others ears off in the park. Is it really necessary in the office?
5. Take it offline - It simply means that you want to postpone addressing an issue. Unless of course you are referring to actually taking something offline (Facebook, LinkedIn, DoS attack???)

I know this will be painful and offensive reading to some. I can hear the concern: "If I cant socialise my ideas and syndicate them with my peers, I might just end up boiling the ocean, miss out on critical learnings and taking my brilliant plans offline. How could I survive in the office then?"

So adiós my corporate buzzword little friends.

10 big (and little) dreams for 2013...

I have loooooooooved my Christmas break. Almost everything has been perfect. 

The food - plentiful 

The drinks - cold and frequent. The sun is well over my yard arm by 11am...

The company - fun and interesting. 

The weather - awesome. Feeling quite smug at Ledge Point while Perth swelters.

The boogie boarding - refreshing and life affirming.

The novels - weird yet engaging in the case of Cormac Macarthy's, The Crossing. And confusing - if anyone has any idea what happened at the end of 'A Sense of an Ending's, ending, please fill me in...

I've had time to read the papers too. If you you look carefully between the ads in the holiday papers, you'll see 'top 10's', 'hot trends', and 'year in pictures' passing themselves off as news while the journos do like the rest of us, and lie around drinking and eating for a few days. Today's blog builds on this fine cop out. 

So here are my 10 dreams for 2013...

1. I dream of giving up screaming at the kids and working on hiding places instead: Screaming at my kids makes no difference. None at all. My head can explode in rage and all I get back is a quizzical look, the briefest of pauses and then a continuation of the whinge, whine, demand, recalcitrance that set off the aforementioned rage. Instead I'm building a good list of hiding places in the house. Not for them - but for me. If they can't find me, they won't drive me crazy. The washing line and their own bedroom is working so far...
2. I dream of applying some of the few things I have learnt about lean and six sigma... The team still has it all over me but I occasionally pick up some useful titbits and hope to perform QCO's on getting the kids out the door in the morning, 5S'ing the leftovers in the fridge, PPS'ing the reasons why my kids don't listen.
3. I dream of supporting the wonderful women in mining. There are no sharp elbows among the women I work with and those I know in the industry. Seriously. None. There are a few that I treat with caution only to discover that they are supportive, generous, great leaders and shaping the mining industry. They all deserve support, encouragement and development.
4. I dream of encouraging the wonderful men of mining too...The leaders I most respect and admire consistently mention growth and opportunities when talking about their organisations and teams. 
5. I dream of organisations that promote diversity and flexibility as the main levers for engagement, sustainable decision making and business success. 
6. I dream of workplaces, families and communities that look after each other. Mental Health issues are real and serious. We need to listen more and support each other. 
7. I dream about geeks being recognised and thanked for their contributions to society and business. So that one day our kids will aspire to be great engineers or scientists rather than pop stars or sportsmen.
8. I dream of happiness and health for my family and friends. 
9. I dream of making the perfect paper aeroplane and drawing great dinosaurs to bring a years worth of smiles to my two little men. 
10. And finally, I will learn to say 'cheers' in 10 different languages, including Hindi, Mandarin and Indonesian. Being able to toast or say thanks to anyone, anywhere will always be valuable.

Happy New Year my friends. I look forward to sharing 2013 with you.

Cheers

Lucy

Mulled wine, police choppers and long walks ...

I have the most wonderful assistant. She's brutally honest and provided very clear boundaries when I was interviewing her. She said:

"I don't do: Christmas in July, Country (visits or the music), Late finishes - although very happy to do early starts, or Fancy Dress..."

I was not really after any of the above so she got the job. We've been getting along just fine in the 18 months or so that she's been working with us mainly due to my observation of her rules. So it was with some trepidation that I confessed to her that I had to attend a Medieval Themed Fancy Dress Banquet. Her opinion of me shattered, I vowed to make it a memorable night and truly show her that dressing up is indeed one of life's great pleasures.

To get my Medieval on, I borrowed a wenches dress. Yep - someone I know had one just hanging around and offered it... Sir Velence (the Propeller Head) looked resplendent in a Knights costume bought online, with chain mail, foam shield and a plastic sword. The kids wanted to be in on the action too. Max is never held back by convention. Or any other restraint really so he joined Oscar the dragon, Sir Velence and Lady Likesaslot as Buzz Lightyear for a quick family pic before we headed out for a night with the other Dungeons and Dragons support acts and a few gallons of mulled wine to make it all bearable.

The banquet had the potential to be great fun... If you enjoyed sword fights, suckling pig, candelabras, overflowing bosoms, goblets and Greensleeves... We were on the verge of having a brilliant time when I realised that we had hit the mulled wine pretty hard and should probably get out before the Chain Dancing started. This is where our trouble and brush with the law began...

Taxis don't visit Guildford after dark unless they are passing through on the way to the airport. Being a beautiful suburb wedged between Midland and Lockridge has never run in Guildford's favour and on this night, no taxis were running in our favour. We started walking in the general direction of 'home'.  After a few kilometres walking along the main road, we ditched plans for a taxi (along with sensibility  and decided that back streets would get us home quicker. The back streets of Bassendean, Ashfield and Bayswater had the occasional working streetlight and we had comfortable shoes on so we kept walking and walking and walking. Two guys came past on bikes (or one guy came past twice). Another person sat in the gutter with a backpack and didn't look up when we staggered by. Other than that, it was all rather quiet until about 15 mins from home and a police chopper shined its big yellow light down on us and started following.

We were very drunk and very tired by this stage. I was grateful for the assisted passage but really didn't think much of it until a police car and 2 officers pulled up within a couple of minutes. With their lights shining on our sweaty red  faces, Sir Velence was offered, "Good evening Sir - is there any reason you are dressed like that?". WTF? You mean people actually dress like this without a reason? I started rambling about dragons, damsels in distress and pitchers of mead... The cops didn't wait for an answer, took a brief look at my Knights blunt and obviously plastic sword, got back in their car, called off the helicopter search light and took off into the night.

Two hours after departing the banquet, we made it home and flopped into bed.

In between doses of panadol the next morning, I was curious about the police, so I had a look at the local news to see if there had indeed, been anything newsworthy happening in the hood last night. It turns out that yes - there was a service station hold up, by a man with a hood and a large knife. 

We were a block from a real and serious crime, yet in my lovely assistants eyes, the main crime committed was Fancy Dress. It will never happen again.

How to survive a plane crash

Fear of flying? No sir-ee. Not me. Not much scares me. 

Sharks do a bit... Bogan's put the wind up me too. Cancer would be quite scary. Public speaking is fine. Unless I imagine the audience naked... That's scary and the worse bit of advice I've ever heard. Spiders and snakes are creepy too.

Ok. So there a just a few things that scare me a little bit. But not flying in a plane. No fear. None.

Apologies in advance to those I've inflicted this story on before. Despite my claimed fearlessness, I've lived a fairly safe existence. No bungy jumping, sky diving, canyoning, drug addictions... So my near-death experience catalogue is a bit thin. Whenever I have to talk up the adventures of my youth, my plane crash story is about all I have to lean on. Here it is:

In 2003 I was in a light plane crash in the Pilbara. The plane was a Beechcraft Baron – there was the pilot and 4 passengers. I was sitting right down the back. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It was hot and had been a long day. I nodded at all the right places during the safety briefing but was more concerned with finding a magazine for the 45 min run from Pannawonica to Karratha. 

The dirt runway was rough and there was a big cross wind so I sat back looking forward to getting in the air and levelling out. We were up and I was momentarily relieved to be off the runway when we were suddenly sideways – one of the engines had conked out. 

Then the other engine stalled and I found myself looking straight down a wing at rapidly approaching scrub. No one screamed. We just all looked down our wing pulling us back to the scrub and rocks on the edge of town. We were only metres, if that, from the tree tops when the pilot and plane managed to level out and we started  ploughing through the bush on the edge of town. 

I'd like to think that in the face of disaster, I am quick to respond and saved by intellect. But no.  I am however, a fast-follower. So when I saw the other passengers bracing, I thought I would too… We bumped along the ground for a few hundred metres losing propellers, undercarriage and a few other bits as we went. When we finally stopped, I again reverted to form and looked where the other passengers were escaping and followed – despite the fact that I was sitting adjacent to an emergency exit. 

The passenger I chose to follow was on the high end of 200 cm and 120 kg. He moved fast through that small emergency window though. In a manoeuvre something like a Fosbury Flop, he flung his frame out and on to the wing. I was so far up his bum trying to get out of there, I copped his size 11 in the chin on the way out. We ran like crazy, dusted ourselves off and thanked god (or science) that we had all made it relatively intact. Later found out that we shared a few broken ribs and collar bones but that’s tough miners for you…

I learnt something interesting about myself through this experience:

As the plane was crashing, I didn't fear death or injury. I didn't say a few last ditch prayers. I didn't scream. I simply remembered that I was going on break. There was another plane back at the terminal and that I’d get out of this mess … quickly … and get on the next plane out of there. Don't get between me and a holiday. 

How I work...

There are A LOT more geeks out there than I thought. Special mention must go to the Lightsaber owner-drivers club. I'm growing my hair long for a Princess Leia style and will post photos...

Despite some suggestions for changes to my top 5, your geeky protestations have been deflected. My poster boy geeks remain Brian Cox,  Leonardo da Vinci, Professor Frink, Alexander Graham Bell and, of course, the Propeller head. 

Given that one is too famous, one is fictional and two are dead, I have to take daily geek direction from the Propeller head and last week he shared one of his geek heroes with me - Chris Anderson...This Chris Anderson, not to be confused with another Chris Anderson (the founder of TED) has done some very cool things like:

1. Establish geekdad blog -  stuff for Dads (and Mums) to encourage the next gen geeks.
2. Editor of some pretty influential magazines like Nature, New Scientist, Wired and The Economist.
3. Founder of DIY Drones - yes that's right there is at least one other person on the planet besides the propeller head who is interested in building their own...

I particularly liked his article on how he gets things done. But I gather that the readers of my updates, while they love geeks, hold some firm views on overachievers so I thought I would compare his responses to ones I'd give... if anyone ever asked...

The similarities in our office furnishings and blog names ('geekdad'...'mininmummy'...) are eerie. 

Besides that, there's not much though. So there you have it - he's a super influential,  successful geeks geek and I'm well um.... normal....

Drafting... not the drawing kind... the path of least resistance kind

Today I rode a bike further than I have ever achieved before... I'm not going to tell you how far I traveled but rest assured it was a looooooooooong way in a very small and impossibly hard saddle. I hurt. Really hurt. Others might have trained or at least, taken their husbands bike for a test ride around the block before taking on an event like the Santos Great Bike Ride but I live an exciting life of last minute decisions and ill-considered commitments and so I find myself exhausted and suffering this evening...

There were a few thousand people in the event so hopefully they are not all feeling the same as I owe several of them a debt of thanks for letting me ride behind them and reap the benefits of their hard work. Most of all I have to thank my good friend and ex job-share partner, Fern. I roped her in to the event and then proceeded to ride on her tail for most of the course. She's fun and generous and pretended not to be pulling me along. It was while we were in the second half of the ride that my mind briefly wandered from the intense pain I was suffering and I thought. "Oh no, Fern's propping me up again, just like at work. She's doing the hard yards and I'm just sitting back and going along for the ride". This doubting self-talk is not typical of me. I suspected low sugar levels so took one of the red snakes she passed over and a barley sugar for good measure.

Deciding that a fit of depression was only going to add more misery to an already insufferable ride, I decided to think about all the good reasons for drafting. It's benefits are obvious in bike riding - when a steaming peloton comes shooting past -  but I think there are benefits in the office too. Here they are:

1. It's efficient:  NASA said one of its F/A-18 test aircraft had a 29% fuel savings by flying in the wingtip vortex of a DC-8. So if you are feeling tired, burnt out and frustrated, find the closest office DC-8 and hook on. A surefire way to get you re-energized and you'll use less sick leave.
2. Drafting is co-operative: if we take turns in the lead position and work together, we can actually be greater than the sum of our parts.
3. It can also be a bit competitive or tactical: stay close behind your competitors  leaving yourself  more energy for a break-away push to the finish line when they have made a wrong move.

Be careful though. 

Having been at the back end of a peloton once that exploded into a sea of limbs, water bottles and falling bikes, I narrowly escaped with shot nerves and the sad realisation that there are no free lunches. If you are going to hook on to the back of superheros you better be prepared to get up the front occasionally or crash spectacularly with them...

How to be average ...

I know a few over-achievers. They are amazing people. Their efforts to save the less fortunate, climb mountains, excel in their careers, raise multiple children and look brilliant every day are worthy of note. They share their wisdom and then gush about our own (more mundane) achievements. They are put out there to set the example and shine a light on the hill for the rest of us but to be brutally honest, I am so over over-achievers. Their tales don't resinate. Their integrity is disconcerting, almost creepy. Their achievements are overwhelming and probably unattainable...

Sour grapes? No. Over-achievers contribute to society, their industries and families in ways I can't begin to emulate. I am thankful for their efforts but I don't want to be anything like them.

I think it's because I love 'average', most people I know are average and have average aspirations. After my friends have had a few drinks and tell me the things they like about me -It's normally just after I have slurred "I love you guys"... I'm often told I'm accessible. I take this as 'average' not, well umm, accessible...

Average is good. No great. It is to be revelled in. Do you want an easy and enjoyable life? Then harness your 'average'. 

It's good to be average at school because the teachers will be focussed on the naughty kids at the back and the naughty kids at the back will be focussed on the nerds at the front. Average school students can go a remarkably long way by just sitting in the middle and leaving them to it.

Its good to be average at the doctors, too. No one goes to the doctor wanting high blood pressure or low. We want to be told we are just like everyone else. Skin, weight, lumps and bumps. All average. Yippee..

I'm happy with my average family. No early starts for gifted children to get to tennis lessons or maths advanced tuition. No letters from the headmaster on delinquent behaviour. Two very average little boys is perfectly adequate. 

Average shoe size and dress size. Fine for buying whatever you want. In this case, there is a caveat on my push for average, it's perfect before the sales... Any woman who has scoured the bargain bins at the David Jones post-Christmas sales will not doubt have rued their average status when a fabulous pair of Jimmy Choo's was a available in size 11 only or those gorgeous Sass and Bide jeans were drastically reduced in size 4 (!!!!) .

Average at work...? Often neglected while we focus on the superstars and under-performers, but absolutely essential. Who else is going to keep the business running? Average employees are competent and comply with their terms of employment. They grease the machine and should be thanked. They don't tend to mess up their work life balance and don't darken your door with requests for their next promotion. More please.

So put down your book on Richard Branson, unsubscribe to your motivational podcasts and take a good look at your neighbours, peers and friends with small paunches, noisy kids and regular jobs. They (you) deserve a hearty thanks for being average.

PS... The other caveat on average. Best disguised at performance review time..

Why I love geeks .. every single spotty, speccied, stuttering one of them...

On Thursday night the absolutely delectable Brian Cox was talking on the 7:30 report. When I should have been hearing him say: 

"I actually think it's the Higgs Boson and the Higgs Boson seems esoteric sometimes when you talk about it, but this is a theory that's been around since the '60s and the proposal is almost bizarre - is that less than a billionth of a second after the universe began something condensed out into empty space and it’s the Higgs field. It's almost as if you could say this space now (holding hands in front of himself) is full of Higgs particles, really full of them. There's actually more energy in one cubic metre of space due to the Higgs field than the Sun outputs in 1,000 years. Bizarre theory. But the theory is that things get mass by bumping into those Higgs particles, by interacting with them, so rattling around, if you like, in this empty space."

All I heard was:

"I actually think it's the Higgs Boson blah, blah, blah, billionth of a second after the universe began blah, blah, blah is full of Higgs particles, really full of them. There's more energy in blah blah blah, interacting with them, so rattling around, if you like, in this empty space."

My reaction shocked me. Instead of listening intently to the wonders of smashing particles together and the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, I was gazing at this divine creature of science like a star struck tween watching her first Justin Bieber interview.

It got me thinking about geeks in my life and how brilliant they are. For a start, there is the Propeller head and father of our two children. Then there are the brilliant people I work with every day, solving difficult problems and doing more for the advancement of the mining industry than some of our so called leaders. I quickly realised that I love geeks. Does this make me a geek too? Those of you tuned into Big Brother on Thursday night rather than the 7:30 report will probably think I am but I'll use the following as my defense: 

Reasons why I don't think I'm a geek:

1. I know nothing about Star Trek. Almost nothing anyway. There are Cling Ons I think? But I don't know much more than that. In fact I just looked up cling on and discovered that they are actually Klingons.. Sorry nerds...
2. I've never read the Hobbit. I know that they are small. Do they have pointy ears like the people on Star Trek? Perhaps they are related somehow?
3. I don't know the difference between C++ and Java. It seems strange to name one coffee based on it's origin and the other after the average grade on my primary school reports though.
4. I hate hate hate hate hate role playing games. In fact dressing up for a Medieval Night Ball  a few months ago was terrifying. There is no visible difference between that and mock sword fights or playing Dungeons and Dragons. 
5. And, I'm too scatterbrained and impulsive to be a geek. Learning how to use a 16 sided dice, write in PHP or sit through all the Star Trek movies requires patience and concentration. I was provided a low dose in both...

Having established, conclusively, my credentials as 'not a geek', I feel I can objectively share my top 5 geeks:

Brian Cox
What I really love about this particular geek is his enthusiasm and passion for science. He smiles when he talks and he wants us to be as excited about smashing particles together as he is. I still don't get what he's talking about but he makes me want to. Judging by his Twitter profile there's about a million other people who find him just as nerdilly spectacular as me.

Leonardo da Vinci

Surely the king of geeks. Sculptor, musician,  mathematician, botanist, writer, geologist (!!!), architect, painter, artist, poet, scientist and engineer! No wonder Mona Lisa is smirking. Those super-strong connections between his left and right brain dreamed up helicopters and solar power about 500 years before we really needed them!

Professor Frink (the Simpsons)
Every town needs a Professor Frink. While he invented a death ray, he didn't really want to use it. His other brilliant gems include a house that sprouts legs and runs away when burglars arrive and hamburger earmuffs. 

Alexander Graham Bell
Without the phone, would we have the smart phone? I rest my case. 

The Propeller head
The man responsible for introducing me (well introducing me to their ideas anyway) to the wonderful contribution of geeks is my husband the Propeller head. He is the only person to have ever said "when nano-bots take over the world' at a dinner party" and managed further invites. His hobbies include building drones and working on the next 'big app'.

Geeks change our world in wonderful ways and I love them all.

I salute you geeks. Make that a Vulcan Salute! 

Engagement part 2

Sunday is traditionally a great day for confessions... So here's mine.... I wrote Engagement part 1 in an attempt to drag myself out of my pit of despair... it was a great exercise because it made me realise that engagement is a choice.

Having just returned form holidays to a tonne of work, end of year targets and a long time until the next holiday, I was doing a bit too much moaning... Everyone I was talking to (or moaning to) agreed politely that the structure, culture, cost saving, project list, blah blah blah were all making us feel disengaged. It took a respected peer to say "you're not real happy are you Lucy" to make me reflect that I was sounding just a bit negative... a misery guts... So I did some navel gazing new millennium-style and looked up 'Engagement' on the web.

I fully expected to see all the great reasons for having engaged employees:

• Companies with engaged employees have 52% higher performance operating income than those with low engagement scores*
• Companies with high levels of employee engagement improved 19.2% in operating income while companies with low levels of employee engagement declined 32.7%*
• Companies with both highly aligned cultures and highly aligned innovation strategies have 17% higher profit growth than companies with low degrees of alignment**
• Engaged employees are more likely to promote your organisation, your products, have less sickies and innovate.

The thing that grabbed me though, was an article about getting on with it and working with whatever culture you have. http://www.strategy-business.com/article/11108?gko=f4e8d

Lots of us complain about poisonous cultures and the resultant lack of engagement. This turns the defeatist argument on it's head.


*Towers Perrin-ISR (2006) The ISR Employee Engagement Report

**Strategy + Business:The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture Is Key, Oct 2011

Ps.. If anyone catches me moaning about work this week, you have my permission to beat me around with a hard copy of the attached.

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Anyone who has worked with me would have heard me use the expression "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission".This little gem is whipped out frequently, either to give guidance to team members or to excuse myself for making independent decisions. It's effective.. most of  the time...

Working for a pretty conservative organisation made me somewhat nervous about the application of this wisdom until I read something a few years ago from Colin Powell: 

“You know the expression – it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. Well it’s true. Good leaders don’t wait for official blessing to try things out. They are prudent, not reckless. But they also realize a fact of life in most organisations: if you ask enough people for permission, you will inevitably come up against someone who believes their job is to say ‘no’. So the moral is ‘don’t ask’. Less effective middle managers endorse the sentiment “if I haven’t specifically been told ‘yes,’ then I can’t do it,” whereas the good ones believed “if I haven’t explicitly been told ‘no,’ then I can”. There is a world of difference between these two points of view.”

Who am I to disagree with a four star general? Using the 'Powell defence' enables me to get things done in a large organisation. I've crashed a few times though and have leaned heavily on the 'forgiveness' side of the expression...

Every day we are presented with opportunities to use our judgment. So use it. Weigh up the threats and opportunities and be bold in your decision making. No change or innovation comes from sitting on your good ideas. The resources industry is changing rapidly and with good planning and confidence your decisions will shape the future.

Engagement (part 1)

Sometimes I feel incredibly disengaged with work. I'll sit in meetings nodding and smiling at my colleagues but really I am thinking "how the hell can I get out of here and do something more interesting?" I had a particularly harrowing meeting a few months ago that coincided with my 4 year olds kindy concert. At the time of dropping my son off, I was not at all concerned about missing a bunch of kindy kids go through the noise and painful antics of "ag-a-doo-doo-doo, push pineapple, shake the tree,.. ." It took an arrogant peer dismissing some work that I'd done, feeling that I was being let down on a change I was pushing through and HR bogging me down in a policy point impacting my team that made me really question why I was at work...

That night I gave the propellor head a full debrief. He gave me a glass of wine. I went through all the usual wine-fired planning sessions (buy a newsagent, start consulting (what?), move to the big Australian, be a stay at home mum and adjust lifestyle accordingly,...). I then enjoyed the rest of the weekend. 

By Monday I was back in meetings nodding and smiling...

The fact is I did not really want to quit. I just wanted to enjoy what I was doing and make a difference. I wanted to feel engaged.

Here's some research on engagement:

• Engaged people have less than half the sick leave of the disengaged*
• Engaged employees are 87 less likely to leave the organisation than the disengaged**

Changing the organisation around me to make employees feel more engaged is a task for those with more influence and determination than me. Here's what I do for me when I am feeling disengaged:

• Talk to people, and work on projects where individuals feel excited, happy to share and enthusiastic. It rubs off.
• Its very tempting to grizzle to colleagues and most of the time they'll grizzle back. It's fun for a while but still leaves you in a pit of despair.
• Think of all the jobs worse than my own. I don't mean sewer repairs but other corporate jobs like mine that I still wouldn't want.
• Keep smiling and nodding your head... something better will happen soon...

Having engaged employees is good for business too. I'll cover that in part 2!

*CBI-AXA (2007), Annual Absence and LabourTurnover Survey

**Corporate Leadership Council, Corporate Executive Board (2004)’Driving Performance and Retention through Employee Engagement: a quantitative analysis of effective engagement strategies’