#TheBigShift

#TheBigShift

We must all have worked with some people who felt they deserved all the perks for little effort or sacrifice. In my experience this approach never paid off and those individuals remained discontented for years. Why would a manager reward someone with trust and responsibility when they show little or no interest or initiative? Far better then to take the opposite approach.

I think this stems right from the outset with a willingness to want to try new things and to make a difference; and to aim those traits at the wider world and not for personal benefit. The personal enjoyment and satisfaction comes later.

In my younger days I was keen to learn about things and to understand in a way that enabled me to try new things that would lead to improvements. When first let loose on a BBC computer I spent all weekend writing programs to assist with surveying and setting out. I then extended this interest to noise and pollution calculations which, up until then, were being done manually from a Department of the Environment handbook.

The next phase of my career was more site based and I struck up relationships and partnerships with contractors and operators, all of which was immensely satisfying and something I treasure to this day - you can’t have too many contacts, especially when many become good friends. I think success in an area encourages more growth and I became relaxed about approaching people to get permission, to explore options or even to seek out financial contributions.

Much of this became reinforcement of my actions and a belief that anything was possible if we all pitched in and pulled together. The other side of this is to take on scary things and to put yourself in vulnerable positions. As supervisor you are often expected to know the answers and to come up with solutions. It doesn’t hurt to share these situations. Many a time on site I have shared problems and asked for suggestions on a way forward. Rather than weakness, the teams saw this as genuinely collaborative and always joined in - so much so that we often couldn’t recall who had the final idea.

Over the years I learned to say yes to most things (why not?) - to take on new projects, to deliver schemes with underspends from other departments and to take on new areas of responsibility, even if I had little knowledge of them. You can learn quickly when you need to and you get that unique opportunity to question why things are the way they are, when possibly they could be quicker, slicker, more straightforward.

Something I should have done better is to have kept good records; I think many people have a development plan these days and recording achievements and learning points is great practice.

In more recent times as I moved up the ladder and handed on responsibility to my team I still found many ways to freshen up my role and stimulate interest.

One good approach is to seek meetings will all comers. Let people bring you their ideas, products, processes and see if anything sparks. Keep an open mind and trust people's good intentions. Contacts like this led me into the world of the "Internet of Things" and I began to set up trials of new systems and technologies.

Another area applicable in my field was software systems. So many of us labour with poor, out of date systems and there are often opportunities to redefine your business needs and to commission new systems with forward-looking companies and start-ups. For highway inspections AI means that we can now video routes and detect defects from a standard mobile phone stuck to the windscreen.

Another new collaboration I enjoyed was with academia. Working with universities stimulates new interests and also fascination in the rigorous, logical approach they take. I was lucky enough to work on projects from autonomous electric vehicles to contract efficiency and this has reminded me that learning is not something to close down in your early twenties, but to continue into your third age.

As we discussed in the previous post there are good reasons for moving on, but don’t be bored where you are, there is so much to be involved in and to learn from.

Sent from my iPad