Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes to develop your skills

As professionals, we’re always striving to grow and develop and build our skills, right? Courses can help. Mentors are amazing. LinkedIn is a superb resource. But sometimes you need to try a different approach.

My discipline is communications. In Comms, we spend our days improving reputations through proactive, positive communication and engagement with stakeholders. Often we’re handling crises (normally out of hours!). And frequently we face opposition to plans, projects and proposals which we have to contextualise and persuade campaigners to at least listen to our point of view.

But how can you really do this unless you can understand where your adversaries are coming from? What’s it like to feel like an organisation or industry is doing you wrong?

?So, here’s where I get to the point about personal and professional development…this month, unplanned, I’ve decided to you’ve walk a mile in their shoes and become a campaigner.

When it is Baltic outside and you’ve got a demanding day job, frankly, reading some LinkedIn articles or watching some self-help videos sounds much easier.

I’ll spare you the detail as mine is a local fight in the beautiful Lincolnshire village of Nettleham, but safe to say that whenever there is heavy rain (and we’ve all had copious amounts of precipitation this autumn and winter) the drains can’t cope and the sewers outside my front door flood onto the pavement, across the verges and into the stream where children play every Spring/Summer.

With Storms Gerrit and Henk hitting the UK in short succession this new year, my neighbours and I found ourselves, once again, with human waste flooding out of the manholes outside our front doors, unable to reach our houses without wading through it. Postal staff doing the same to deliver our mail. Carers visiting elderly residents. Amazon delivery drivers. Friends and family all walking through this hideous health hazard.

Of course, we have logged calls with the water company every time the sewers have overflowed. And to be fair, the water company is extremely efficient in coming out to clean up each time (so, fair play to their customer services team). But the problem never gets properly investigated let alone fixed.

Now, when pushed far enough, even a mild mannered, balanced-view guy like me gets to a point where enough is enough. So I’ve started a campaign (note to my bosses – this is all in my own time!). And I’m using some of some of the tactics that I have faced so many times over the years. This is having some surprising professional/personal benefits as I am reminding myself of the importance of seeing and doing things from a totally different standpoint.

What I’ve learned so far (less than one week in):

1)????? Its not as easy to be a campaigner as I thought – I’m making decisions about what to do. When to do it. How bold or provocative to be. Who to write to. When to engage the media. How long to allow stakeholders to respond before calling them out publicly...

2)????? In this day and age, the battle of David vs Goliath is more balanced than ever. The little guy stands a much better chance than he or she ever has done before of getting attention for their cause.

3)????? The tools are out there and so far the campaign hasn’t cost me a single penny. Please, branding colleagues don’t hate me, but I’ve come up with a name and tagline, then used simple online tools create a logo, design an animated campaign poster/flyer/gif, complete with QR code, to promote my petition.

4)????? The petition is key…I need to show that this is a wider issue, not just my personal hobbyhorse because my tiny corner of the world is affected. Change.org, complete with AI assisted text generation, has allowed me to set up a petition quickly, reach people across the community and give them a voice by asking them to show support for the cause. Hundreds have already signed.

The motivation for all of this is injustice. Nobody should have to live their lives surrounded by raw sewage. Why should our children, friends and family have to wade through human effluent every time they want to leave the house?

If you’re interested, I've called the campaign No Sh!t! which is an acronym for Nettleham’s Overflowing Sewers need Higher Investment Today. See what I mean about being provocative?!?

Please do check out the petition and, if you feel so inclined, please do sign it. I truly hope it is going to make a real difference to my community.

In the meantime, I’m making a real difference to me by testing and challenging my established viewpoints, experience and professional skills. So, give me those shoes, it is time to walk a mile in them…I just hope they are waterproof as I’ll be walking through sewage-coated streets until this issue is resolved.

Some final notes:

• These are my own views and do not represent my employer's views.
• I am doing this all in my own time - including writing this article.
• These are my words - AI has not assisted in the writing of this article!