This is just a short post to share a learning practice I’ve found personally valuable and which is showing early promise to be valuable to the organisation. In at least one of his talks, Jabe Bloom mentioned that leaders should encourage employees to read at work and should be seen reading at work themselves. I heard him say that while watching one of his videos with my boss and two other employees. We were watching it together because six weeks ago I started watching a conference video every Wednesday morning in the office and inviting anyone who wants to join me to do so. I do it because there is some great content out there that I missed because I wasn’t at the event, rx I choose to attend a different track, or I was speaking during another good talk.
The first week I was alone. For the next few weeks, my boss (Paweł Brodziński) joined me. Today there were four of us. I hope that’s indicative of a trend.
A few points about how I am doing it that are mostly a function of my personality but may contribute positively to the effect of my approach are that:
1) It’s for me. I watch a conference video that I want to see. If no one comes, I still do it. People are invited to join me in my private activity, but it’s not a company function aimed at any company goal.
2) I curate the event. I watch what I want to see and learn what I want to learn. I announce it in advance, but I don’t negotiate about the content. It’s my thing. If people don’t like it, they can do their own thing. Of course, I like suggestions, but I make the decisions. I’d love it if someone else started doing Tuesday evening learning sessions in protest of my inflexibility.
3) I do it at 9AM. Most people at Lunar Logic start work between 9 and 10AM. That makes it somewhat less of a company function which people can incorporate into their Wednesday or not without sacrificing family time to do it. I think most companies and professional organisations have too many evening activities already. I agree with my wife’s definition of work as anything that takes you away from your family against your will. That includes networking functions, office parties, evening user group meetings, and conferences.
4) I feel a little more comfortable doing this since I resigned from a position of authority in my company and gave the job to Pawe?*. If folks follow what I’m doing, it’s not to kiss up to the boss, because I’ve given up the power to influence their career directly.
Like I said at the start – nothing brilliant here. I just wanted to show how one employee could take small steps toward influencing the culture of the organisation.
*For those who don’t know, I founded Lunar Logic in 2004 and ran it until last year when I hired Paweł Brodziński to take over as CEO so I could focus on coaching, sales, and building Kanbanery. Effectively I hired my own boss, which is kind of a cool thing to be able to do.
Comments on this entry are closed.