Category Archives: Work / office

Human bandwidth

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Human bandwidth is a new term for me, which somebody used in conversation yesterday. They meant it specifically in relation to being able to deal with the amount of information that flows into our inboxes, TV sets, radio stations, newsfeeds…..but I think it's a useful, more general way of thinking about our own personal capacity to do things, or process them. Or, as this post puts it, "what can you eliminate from your routine?"

Which, given that there seems to be an increasing trend for deadlines around the Christmas period, resonates strongly with me at the moment.

Longer posts to follow when bandwidth increases…..

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Clearing your head, and getting headspace

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This great, rambling (in a good way) post from Sam Conniff, one of the Social Enterprise Ambassadors got me thinking about how a de-junking process can both bring things to light (that document halfway down the pile with URGENT! scrawled on it), spark ideas, and help clear the decks for a new beginning. The irony of this is that I am perennially awful at doing this, so my desk usually looks like an explosion in an origami factory. When I do clear it, it’s inevitably more beneficial psychologically / mentally than in any improved administrative efficiency.

[my desk at its neatest; large piles to left and right obscured in photo]

Nickdesk

Anyway, Sam’s post is entitled "So I spent the day today clearing seven years of shit out of my office", but you could also end that with "….out of my head", and there’s some great (and very funny) stuff in there:

– "now we have the case studies, the client base and proof of the business and social benefits of our approach, seven years ago we just had some really crazy folding, flapping cardboard props we’d produced in a moment of madness"

– "whilst there was no mention of ‘Social Enterprise’ in any of the old papers I was going through, the ideals, the ambitions and the emphasis of everything we were trying to achieve was clearly all heading towards the place we know are in"

– "to start a charity [the Livity Trust] that opened it’s doors with £50k in the bank from the UK music industry to fund disadvantaged kids to take on work placements at independent record labels was yet another seven year lesson that being ‘flexible’ makes business sense"

When I wrote "SSE will co-ordinate the Ambassador blogs" in our project proposal as one of the partners in this scheme, this is exactly what I hoped would be the result. Unfettered, direct, passionate, insightful communication from someone who wasn’t much known in this world a year ago. And for Sam (who I’ll ask in a few weeks time), I hope it’s been equally beneficial: as an archive, a place to communicate freely, and as a way of clearing headspace.

And for me, I’m inspired…and off to tidy the desk.

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Eco-friendly office printing

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Inspired by Greenpeace’s new EfficienCity, I have been trying to cut down on my printing in the office; although we do all the stuff you’d expect (double -sided, re-use of one-sided, recycling cartridges), my big problem was with widows and orphans…the unwanted few lines + images which cause you to print another page.

Delightfully, I can recommend GreenPrint World, a free bit of software (endorsed by a whole range of US eco non-profits) which you select as your default printer. It basically introduces on extra stage between pressing Print and the printer starting to whirr; at this stage it offers you the option of cutting off extraneous pages, removing images (great for website ads) and removing unnecessary text. Best of all, it keeps a running total of how many pages you’ve saved, and how much money this has saved you/your organisation. You can use it in your office if it’s not for ‘commercial’ purposes, and use it at home as well.

Takes a bit of getting used to, but very useable once you get going. Their special font, on the other hand, I’m not quite as sold on….but you can’t have everything.

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Why SMART goals are MT

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No matter what type of organisation you work for or lead, the acronym SMART will most likely have crossed your path several times by now. For me, it’s popped up in government tenders (“demonstrate how your deliverables are SMART for your programme of work”), funding applications (“your project outcomes should be SMART”) and several times within SSE, be that operationally or strategically.

So what does it stand for? Well, this is where the problems start, as there are a few variations. The most widely accepted seems to be:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-based

But the A can also be for Attainable, the R can be Relevant or Results-oriented, and the T can also be Tangible, depending on which management bible or “how to act SMART” guide you read.

While investigating effective goal-setting in one-to-ones, I ran across the Manager Tools podcast, and these posts about goal-setting and why SMART is anything but. This made much sense to me, and chimed with some stuff I’d previously thought about this widely-used tool. Their objections include:

1)  You don’t need Specific, because if your goal/target is measurable, it must be specific (enough) anyway. Let’s get rid of the S.

2) Achievable and Realistic are virtually the same. If you make the R Results-oriented, that’s pretty much there in Measurable. And who’s going to set, or be allowed to set by their line manager/colleague, a goal that isn’t Relevant? That’s the R gone.

3) The same applies to Achievable / Attainable. If someone is setting a Measurable goal or objective, and they’re putting a deadline on it (Time-bound), then why would they make it unachievable? It’s in no-one’s interests to do so, either the person who has to achieve the goal, or the line manager who wants the organisation to achieve the goal. And so, A is gone.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us MT, people. And full of clarity and focus. As long as we use Time-based (or Time-bound, which I prefer). Tangible makes little sense to me: a) because how can you touch your goal / achievement and b) because how can you have a goal that isn’t Time-based (i.e. without a deadline)?

So it’s Measurable and Time-based. And if you select a Measurable and Time-based goal, you’ll find it is pretty SMART as well. That’s because MT is the heart of SMART.

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Intern-ment

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Whilst reading about Derek Conway and the other MPs paying their own family for internships and work experience (even the Third Sector got briefly drawn in), I got thinking about how this related to the use of interns by third sector organisations, particularly in the fields of policy and research. As regular readers of this blog will know, SSE recently had an intern over from St Olaf College in Minnesota, which was pretty much an unqualified success. Using volunteers in this way can clearly make a substantial difference to an organisation like SSE whose capacity is still relatively small, if growing. And (I think) it can be a genuine win-win, with significant personal development, learning and contacts/networks for the intern in question.

The problem, which we have debated a fair bit internally, is how to ensure that this doesn’t run counter to our other principles: namely, the need for diversity in the third sector, the need for entrants and new leaders to come up from the grassroots as well as from the ‘grad-routes’. For, inevitably, for someone to take a full-time three-month position at an organisation in (usually) London, unpaid with (possibly) some expenses, they have to have support from elsewhere. This is usually parental, either in the form of direct monetary support, or in the form of free rent & board. Or they are in university full-time and can afford not to work during some of their holidays. Generally (and this is a generalisation), these means of support skew the potential intake to those with a more privileged or well-off background.

So how can we ensure internships go to a real cross-section, to the best people regardless of background? Clearly, bursaries and sponsorship is one way: some universities arrange placements and support expenses, such as identifying cheaper accommodation or directly paying expenses. In Thor’s case, this meant that he could afford to not do his restaurant manager job for a month in the holidays, and come to SSE.

But how to also extend these opportunities further out? Our neighbours Operation Black Vote recently won an award for an interesting shadowing scheme which focuses on political internships / work experience, precisely to avoid the old-boy networks we see continuing in those establishments;  these might provide a useful model; or something along the lines of this scheme, Leaders Together. Maybe there is a case for something similar in the third sector: funded internships that take the burden off the organisation and the individual to find the money to make it possible, and allow for a broader, more diverse intern network. Happy to hear of any such initiatives or ideas: there could be a social enterprise in this….

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