2020 05 15 Weeknotes
2.19 — a really difficult couple of weeks…
So, last week was a really difficult week. We had a member of the service desk team suddenly pass away last Tuesday night, it was a complete shock to everyone. He was a shining star in the team and was a young guy — certainly taken from us too soon. He had a number of personal challenges, with health issues meaning he was in a wheelchair, but he never let anything get in the way of anything! Over the last week I have been overwhelmed with the positive and amazing stories of him: his love of Arsenal; cars; video games and his incredible and genuine passion for helping people — and he always went above and beyond to help. His impact on the organisation has been immense, and a huge loss to the council and the team.
This sad news comes at a time when we are not able to physically be together as a team, which has made it harder, but we will find ways to help everyone take the time they need, individually and as a team, and I have said that we will virtually come together to remember him. We have ensured that staff have access to the support they need at this time and have been able to take any time out they need. Although, we tried to close the Service Desk early at the end of last week to give staff some space but was received with a resounding, No! Aman wouldn’t have liked us to close early and potentially disrupt the business! His positivity and passion for helping people lives on in the team…
We had the second of the Hounslow Leadership Groups — the senior managers in the Council getting together virtually. It was a bit last minute pulling it all together with the team, but it all went really well. I have started to enjoy the MC role that I did again on Thursday, although can be stressful at times, when things don’t quite go according to plan. Pleased that the quiz went well and had a lot of discussion! We had multiple presenters, inside and outside the organisation as well as interactions, pictures and even a video this week!
We had 80 senior managers join the meeting and used the chat functionality in Teams to really get some energy and passion into the room. We had the external company who has been helping the council form our corporate values and behaviours over the past 6 months or so, present some of the final work. Given where we are with the response in the pandemic this was a great time to be doing in this and there was a lot of emotion in the virtual room. Five of our executive directors bought the new values alive by telling a story of an element of work over the pandemic. To say that these were honest and emotional is an understatement, they all certainly bought the new values to life in a very real way!
Sounds strange to say that there was a real passion and energy in the virtual room, lots of it via the chat, but there really was, this was felt by others as well. It really does continue to prove that technology can enable teams and organisations to come together and be as effective, or even more effective than they were before.
I have spent some time this week looking at the resources that we need in the team to deliver everything that we need to do in the Council. We are also looking at re-framing the #1Hounslow programme of work to ensure that the Digital Strategy and the recovery work for the pandemic is aligned.
For me, and I have bored the team many times about this, it is not about structure, as this just creates and reinforces silo ways of working, it is the ways of working that is most important. If this pandemic shows us anything, it shows that when we come together to work across boundaries that we make the real impact. We are spending just as much time on our own behaviours and ways of working — but this is going to be the hardest to change. I have put in a lot of time in the diary over the next couple of weeks to really think about his and work with the team more.
We also had the third of our Digital Strategy Board, responsible for the delivery of the strategy. We went through a number of the main projects and the work done to refine the portfolio that we have for the Council. Really important that we understand the detail so that we can resource it properly moving forwards.
Thursday evening was the first of our virtual committee meetings that we will be holding as a council now that the law has changed to enable us to run them virtually. The first was Planning Committee! Am very pleased to say all went really well — in fact the chair said that it was more organised than a normal planning committee due to having to have the rigour to as was being run virtually. Was a real team effort across the council to ensure that we were all ready to progress. We used MS Teams to run it and good to see that Teams is trying to improve functionality — although too late for the committee the new raise hand function is a welcome addition.
Next week is Mental Health Awareness week. I have been really impressed by the range of activities taking place next week across the Council, there is some real creativity in the Council. From mindfulness sessions and yoga sessions to physical activity and cookery demonstrations, together with taking time to have a virtual coffee/lunch with colleagues — something for everyone! And of course all virtual.
Tune of the Week: Robyn — Dancing On My Own (Official Video)
