Ongoing thoughts of a new assignment – “the most important message?”

Continuing the lessons learnt from my new project: How do I ensure that it is really worth it?

Leaving home before six in the morning more often than not I find myself asking is it worth it. Indeed I use a stronger word than that in my sub-title… so I must be challenging myself hard to answer that question…

Ensure - ?n????,?n????,?n????,?n????/ verb

1.     make certain that (something) will occur or be the case.

a.      make certain of obtaining or providing (something).

b.     make sure that (a problem) does not occur.

Many years ago, when I led an internal communications team, I had a conversation with the Company Secretary about my role and a forward looking piece of vision that would be published in the business and that might then be shared externally. It was politely explained to me that the word above was not part of the ‘acceptable’ vocabulary. In the world of business the verb to ensure can represent a legal guarantee and that was not a desirable offer to create in an otherwise ambivalent comms story.

Obviously such advice has been filed in the section of my brain labelled “must always remember”. But here, in the question about my own priorities, I am choosing to use it for the very positive accountability that I trust it (the use of language) will hold me to.

I’ve been looking forward to writing blog #6 since I started. There’s something of an asymmetry that I like in this note that aligns to my dry sense of humour about life. It’s another piece of thinking from Benjamin Zander…

Two Prime ministers were sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: “Peter,” he says, “kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of this Rule Number 6?” “Very simple,” replies the resident prime minister. “Rule Number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.'” “Ah,” says his visitor, “that is a fine rule.” After a moment of pondering, he inquires, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?” … “There aren’t any.”

My wife and my friends are likely to find this rule very funny. Not because of its narrative, but because I’m one of the most “serious” people they know. I so often look as if I have the world on my shoulders. As an introvert I find it very difficult to unpick the troubles of life, and I have a tendency to bottle up (often unnecessary) worries in my mind. I argue that it is even more important that I therefore live in the possibility and realisation of Rule #6. 

Zander describes returning to an office where he’d shared this story. He discovered that on every desk was a simple plague on every manager’s desk in the headquarters reminding them of this simple message.

As I seek new ways to calm my daughter during her early evening efforts to practise dragon flame throwing or as she thrashes her arms trying to fly I can’t take myself too seriously. We dance around the house. We sing together. We are everything that one can do and be behind closed doors and all with the “permission” of calming a baby.

No invitations to sing in the office will be accepted, but I wonder whether I always remember Rule #6 in my work and home life... In remembering that an opposing view is one that has been constructed by someone else with the same passion that I have sought to construct mine... In remembering that few people seek to be recklessly malicious in life… In remembering that people have lives outside of work, and worries of their own that might be weighing on their minds… There are times when taking things too seriously just won’t support an end goal for the benefit of the collective.

If personal friendships are about building relationships of trust, humour, collective understanding and a shared appreciation of individual belief systems and building blocks of each individual’s moral compass, then on a different level work presents the same opportunity. Once again this is a possibility to choose – or to live into – if we remember the words of blog #3 and the giving of an “A”.

As a father I find the use of the word “ensure” easy when it is about finding the balance between, on one hand, the commitments I have made to provide for and support my family financially and, on the other hand, the desire to be playing around the living room with them. As I look back across my career the best moments that I have had (and am currently having) are when I carry that same energy and freedom in my heart and in my eyes into the workplace. A conversation about shining eyes will have to wait for another day, but I do encourage you (and myself) to live in the possibility of not taking oneself quite so seriously…

I’d love to keep using these blogs to engage and challenge myself. I thank those who have done so offline and who are helping me to grow. If you find something that resonates (for good or because it challenges you) then I’d love to have that conversation – via a comment to the blog or over a coffee…