Summer of Sunita - Filling the Cup

This is my fourth week of taking the summer off. Here I am on a morning walk with Harvey the Doodle, who is now four years old and doesn't mind 5km of brisk walking at all.

My mind should be carefree on such a beautiful summer day without having any meetings or emails.

But it's not.

As I walk, I'm thinking of last night's meetup with the Canadian Analytics Collaborative and our discussion about best practices. I discussed 3 areas of project management best practices and critical elements within each: technical acumen, leadership acumen, and emotional intelligence (EI) acumen.

I noticed many of the questions and discussions were about EI, which I described as bringing your heart to the workplace to build civility, credibility, and creativity.

One comment from the discussion kept playing in my mind this morning as I walked: work can treat us as machines rather than human beings, especially those who need their jobs.

How do you push back when work asks you to do too much?

I think about the times I've pushed my team too hard because an executive above me is making me. It does feel all wrong, yet it's a reality of the IT workplace that it's difficult to say "no" if you don't have power and influence.

I'm grateful to have this break from work to 'fill the cup' and get perspective on how to advocate for well-being in the workplace.

After I gave my career story at the end of the meetup, I was told that I demonstrated resilience at work. If we're talking about project management or leadership best practices, it has to have an element of resilience for the leaders who bring their hearts to the job.

Even if you don't have the summer off, take time to ‘fill the cup’ and develop the resilience work demands of its leaders. Walk and enjoy the simple things. Which I did when I passed this dazzling display of Mother Nature's beauty.