Lessons from being made Redundant: …sometimes what you get is even better.

In the broadest sense, my plan is to Stop-Recharge-Reengage-Restart – I intentionally wanted to take time out from work, as this is (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

I've been unemployed for eight weeks; it started with some complete downtime, but with a big hole where my job used to be, I went through a funk (see article one), and now I am Recharging (see article two), had a few ups than downs.(see article three) and looked at the challenge ahead. (see article four) I realised that you don’t always get what you want (see article five), but now I know that sometimes not getting what you want leads to something better

Job Update

I got a Job!

Yes, it was one of the three that I applied for earlier, and it might not be what you expected.?I couldn’t be more excited about it.

Scroll to the end if you want to skip to the part when I tell you “what” / “who”

“When” is the 6th of June.

Reconnecting

I shared a few coffees, beers, lunches and teas with recruiters and friends old and new and visited my old team at Open Polytechnic. ?I received lots of valuable feedback, ideas and offers of support. Good times.

I can tell the people I met were operating at a different pace than I am. I have the luxury of time on my hands. A busy schedule has me doing three things in a day.?I liked catching the train or driving into the city, having an appointment on my calendar, and getting home in the evening; it gave me a taste of 'normality.'

I get the sense that when my first day comes, I will enjoy the comfortable shape of a working week schedule again and will learn to treasure my weekends and evenings even more.?That’s not to say that it might take me a couple of weeks to get back into the swing of things.

My approach to reconnecting with the world of work was a good one, with the idea of ensuring I got a wide variety of leads and even offers and then choosing between them. It should come as no surprise to those that know me that I didn’t actually follow that plan and followed my heart instead.

Just as I was meeting the recruiters and colleagues who we eager to help find me the right role, I received a verbal and then, shortly afterwards, a written offer from one of the three roles that I broke my own rules to apply for as they sounded amazing.

Restarting

Ok, so I have just over two weeks now until I start this new role.?My plan for restarting is to use those weeks for a final adventure but also to form some habits.

1.??????Stay on the Path:??This is my lifelong challenge to stay on the path of a healthy life, or at least recognise when it’s time to bush bash my way back to it.

• Getting up on time
• Sleeping well
• Meditating
• Daily exercise
• Eating right

2.??????Read some (real) books:?Coach, Speaker and Author Jess Stuart , has a new book and programme out called Leader ZEN. I’ve got the paperback copy queued up along with her first book, I love Mondays. ?I met Jess during a fabulous resilience workshop at OPNZ where we talked about imposter syndrome; I’m excited to dive in.?Thanks, Jess!

3.??????Regular learning – be this short form (book summarisation service), Podcasts, online courses or learning to climb. The idea is to swap TikTok, Twitter and the like with things that educate.

OK, what's the job?

I’ll be working at the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) as the “Principal Architect”.

This is my first time working in Core Government. MSD is the largest IT shop in New Zealand’s core Government. They do important work supporting New Zealanders, from benefits to student loans, through to retirement, something that I will be passionate about.?It will be weird leaving Education after so long, but I am excited to get behind MSD and learn about this business.

I’ll also not be a CIO for the first time in a long while. I am swapping my breadth of skills for an opportunity to work on my depth of skill, especially around Enterprise Architecture (EA) and related strategies.?I love EA and EA’s and can’t wait to support, coach and learn from an expert group who are part of an ambitious transformation programme called Te Pae Tawhiti.

I look forward to learning and growing personally but also sharing my broader leadership skills and experience gained in Education with my new team.

If you asked me two months ago to describe what my next job would be, I would not have told you I’d become the Principal Architect at MSD. I would not have imagined that this is what I’d end up doing. I would have unimaginatively said CIO or Director in Education. In fact, the CIO of Massey University was the role I narrowly missed.

A thread of worry and anxiety about redundancy is focusing on what you don’t get, what you might lose. It’s never what you might gain.

You might not get what you want, but sometimes what you get is even better.

But what about the adventure and my mussing on the redundancy journey?

Well, I’m not sure; I really want to close the arc of this story in the next couple of weeks. I’ve really enjoyed my time writing these articles and the time I’ve inhabited your mind as you read them. There will be article seven.

There are lots of things I enjoy thinking and talking about; perhaps I’ll muse over those things and write some more from time to time.

My adventures never end; they change and evolve, sometimes with a tent, others with a laptop bag.

No photos this week.

Future Paul here! these are the links to the rest of the blogs I made on redundancy.

• The Post that started me writing about normalising redundancy..
• Article One: Overcoming a funk..
• Article Two: using Adventure to Recharge..
• Article Three: Adventure bound..
• Article Four: The Challenge Ahead..
• Article Five: you don't always get what you want..
• Article Six: sometimes you get something better..
• Article Seven: Life is full of OR's not And's..