Why Shout?

Here it is the latest version of the personal ramblings of an interim Director loosely relating to work. For those of you who have not read this before, I apologise for the poor humour and inane musings of a cynical man who has been spending too much time on trains recently. Reflection has therefore been the order of the day. For those of you who have read this before, you know what to expect so I have limited sympathy for you as you know what you are about to endure. This article is really purely cathartic for me in sharing my reflections that have been bottling up inside both professional and personal.

I have now finished my latest contract working at Hampshire County Council (HCC) based in Winchester. Actually I am on call for this month for the new permanent position holder. I thoroughly enjoyed my time working in an area I have not really been to before except probably passing through. Some really great people to work with, with some amazing agendas around Devolution, Freeports, LEP integration, LVEPs and so on. Working for a County Council was also a new experience but of course, a lot of the same challenges applied.

As you can see above, one of the prerequisites of where Daddy works is that the family arrives for a visit. This of course impacts on my accommodation requirements and the food and non food retail expenses for me. As my day rate fee is all inclusive of expenses, the client need not worry. It is only I, that has to cope with this actually wonderful increase in living expenses. It is lovely when they do come. However, it is always a strange feeling when they are excited to go off exploring for the day as if we are all on holiday and I am off to work. There was a huge benefit of working in HCC with my Economic Development role including the Tourism team in that recommendations were easy to get for their Hampshire and New Forest expedition. Where would they see the ponies, donkeys, the sea, Spinnaker Tower, independent shops etc etc. A great few days was had by all. A real treat was coming home to the excellent accommodation of a converted Sunday School to our daughter Zahra cooking the evening meal. The usual pots of soup for me in the microwave were not missed. Of course, there was the carnage in the kitchen to clear up but they all seemed to do that in someone else's house as well!

One of the main reasons, I started working in the interim world and previously the Government advisory roles was always about making a positive change in what I was doing. At HCC, I have felt at the end that I did not achieve as much as I would have liked. I think this reflects a lot about me and my personal ethics about representing good value for money and not exploiting the public purse especially. This is something that does annoy me when I see it where I become aware of people taking the money and in my critical cynical view doing only enough in their interim role. I have met some that have exactly the same approach in whatever circumstance they are in. Anyway stop sidetracking me away from the point so back to Hampshire.

Sometimes I am probably too hard on myself with this in that I wanted to be able to see that positive change played out and therefore think that this should be extremely visible. I asked a couple of colleagues at HCC who could see my frustration with this at the end. They expressed the view that the stability I brought during some turbulent times was extremely valuable. I then had this reaffirmed by the senior political and management leadership separately which was something I needed to grab hold off and appreciate. Being honest, this is a struggle for me but something I have to learn to do.

In the world of business social media, should I be shouting about my ability to stabilise? Should there be a picture of myself in an X factor style end of the episode sad, on a difficult journey but pulled through story line of all that I have learnt from this? I do struggle with some of these type of posts especially as an old git when I look and think but you have not experienced a work life as yet. By the way, I am not phishing for compliments at all but reflecting my emotions at the end of a contract.

Now for something completely different. Going to the title of this article, why shout? I have been watching various sporting events recently where I am trying to understand the mentality of shouting out a form of encouragement to your favourite player or team. Watching the golf is a classic where people shout "in the hole" or "one time" or the players telling the ball to "sit" etc (add in your own). Are they talking to the golf ball expecting it to listen and change course to go to the hole or avoid a hazard because a random person has told them to or the person that has hit it. Is this a form of madness talking to inanimate objects in such a way or will it be a new medical syndrome shortly.

The tennis is the same as before a serve or after a point or at the beginning of a game, people seem to want to be the last to shout out some random encouragement phrase that to me means absolutely nothing. Will it make a difference? Why are you shouting out? Sometimes it is funny and I can get that if the time is right. Please see previous articles on my love of the Pantomime and the therapy you get from shouting out.

However, I don't get it in a sporting context. Is Andy Murray suddenly going to change his approach to the game because of your random advice from limited experience of what he is going through? Will the encouragement that interrupts and stops him playing the point, help? What I love as well is the Britishness of what I imagine the people standing or sitting around them are doing. Absolutely nothing I imagine. Those further away may shush or say something so long as they can get away relatively quickly and easily or hide in the crowd somehow.

Now let's move on to the cycling, the Tour de France over the last three weeks. Why do people especially on the high mountain tops run along side the cyclist who is struggling up a mammoth climb, shout in their ear, words of encouragement. They will also stand in the middle of the road and shift only at the last minute. They will drape flags over the competitor and worst of all set off canister flares of various colours that are surely not going to help their hero who is already gasping for as much mountain air as possible to help get up the horrendous slope. I know there are the ones who want to get on the TV, dressed in strange attire with sometimes a cardboard placard with random phrases. The dreadful crash last year that ensued because of a spectator with a placard wanting to get on TV was so odd.

As a very bad cyclist, seen twice a week on a small circular route around Nidderdale, I have had the hilarious situation were I am going up a minor hill which seems incredibly steep to me and people have spoken to me. Firstly my head is down not looking at the future; I am panting so much that any other noise surprises me; and the words of encouragement to "keep going" break my concentration and resolve very easily. I then have the perfect excuse to stop and push the rest of the climb. I am not sure I will be able to tempt my family into arriving at the summit of the minor hill with placards, flags and smoke canisters at 6.45 am on a Wednesday morning to encourage me. I am sure the Dales farmers who are the only people out at that time will look on this activity as somewhat odd.

One early evening I was struggling up one of the minor hills when two lads came past me very easily talking to one another. One of them must have seen my agonised face as to how was this happening as I am putting in a real shift, by my standards anyway. He reassured me by saying "electric bike; don't worry!" I obviously said nothing witty in response as I was gasping for air but thought about it afterwards about the great opportunity to be humourus but still could not come up with anything. Answers on a postcard please to that address in Derby that seems to handle all TV competitions. PO Box 7558 for those who are thinking about this now.

As I said at the beginning of this article, the time of reflection of being on an LNER train to London and a South Western train to Winchester most weeks has been fun. I do spend time working on the train as it is for me a time that I can really get a lot done and can get some thinking time in as well. Obviously interspersed in here is some people observation and reflections of a random nature. However, it is funny with the laptop positioning for me. I am odd but I do laugh at the train adverts where they are all working and have so much space to do so.

I don't like a table seat unless there is no one else in the four with me which is very unlikely on my chosen routes. For some reason the game of who has what area of the table is not one I like and kicking each other accidentally under the table I do not enjoy. So it is the double seat cross for me. To be able to type and see the screen easily with my belly I have to sit with my back to the window and have the computer wedged into the gap between the seats in front. It must appear very odd to my fellow passengers but is also a great deterrent to those who want to invade my space and actually sit in the seat next to me even if they have booked it.

Train culture is something unique. That staring up despairingly when you get onto your preferred carriage as you walk down the aisle at the seat reservations electronic sign despite having already looked numerous times on your ticket for the seat number. The LNER traffic light system does not seem to help some as we seem to have to look and read each one as we go along. Then when we get to our seat we read our reservation and seem to automatically believe that it is not our reservation. Someone else is in my seat reservation. Then as similarly when you turnover the exam question and see only questions you cannot answer until we actually read it, you realise - Oh look it is me, I am going to York......

I love the moving cinema that you can watch out of the window whilst others seem to want to watch a very small scale cinema on the smallest devices with Dolby surround sound for the rest of us as well. You see so much random life going on as you go past. In London you are almost seeing into the houses adjacent to the track; in the flat lands as you head towards Grantham the multitude of farming going on is good viewing; and the passenger get ons at the various stations is excellent. I love the couples and the luggage game of who wants to put what where and who completely disagrees.

For some reason I seem to want to guess where people are going to based on the amount and type of baggage they have. The food options are stunning - those who bring it with them prepared in various boxes who get out the full cutlery and candelabra on the table; those who purchase immediately prior to departure the smelliest hot food possible and then the tango dancers of shall we go to the cafe bar or not but we could now order from our seat. Will they wont they. Endless viewing. Now back to work.

One of the things people say in a work context is to never go back. It is not a way I think as I have returned to previous roles and in the main enjoyed it. I am now working again at the GMCA as an interim Director. GMCA is a really interesting place to work with the continuing devolution of funding, responsibility and accountability. The need for coherent partnership working to benefit all means that consensus has to be built to allow the greater good across a wider area. Working again with the Delivery team, looking at maximising outcome spend in areas such as the Brownfield Housing Fund and capital associated with the Growth Locations is a world to get back into for me from one of reducing budgets and reshaping services. I have always enjoyed shaping delivery of large scale programmes and projects.

I am also working with a specific project remit in one of the Mayor's Development Zones and Growth Locations, Atom Valley. www.atom-valley.co.uk It is concentrated across an area in the Metropolitan Boroughs of Bury, Oldham and Rochdale with a vision for delivering 20,000 new jobs with 17 million sq.ft of new commercial development and 7,000 new homes. The exploitation of the university research in Advanced Materials and their manufacture is a key strand to the vision for the commercial floor-space.

This of course is something I have been involved in quite a few times in my career, It started as part of the first time I came to Yorkshire professionally for KPMG, working with Yorkshire Forward. This was the redevelopment of the former Waverley colliery site with the development of the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) at Rotherham and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC).

I have also since then worked on a number of research incubation and exploitation projects from both private and public sector viewpoints in Oxford, London, York, Northampton and West Yorkshire. The experience gained previously with Castings Technology International (CTI) at the AMP has been invaluable in giving me a grounding to work from in all these previous and ongoing situations. I really hope that my experience in research exploitation into commercial opportunities and large scale development implementation will be of use to this amazing opportunity.

To see a Vision that is anchored in real leveling up to make sure local residents and businesses gain the true benefits from this local regional and national Government backed initiative is wonderful to be a part of. However, effective and efficient delivery is always the harder part to do than the aspiration. Personally, it is so rewarding already to be involved in it.

Back to the title and my rambling thoughts in conclusion. Why Shout?

We seem in the days of more and more self promotion to have to shout instantly about what we have done. I am not sure I like it as with my nature I find it so much easier to give positive feedback than to receive it. I sort of get embarrassed when someone says something and make a joke somehow to downplay it. It doesn't happen that often so don't worry - that there is the usual add in by me. Is it really something that shouting about yourself or the way you look or exaggerating what you have achieved in a short timescale is a way to be more respected and get more work. For me, I still don't think it is and I hope it stays like that.

I learned very early on that shouting in a work situation, never really helped. I have found my heckles being raised and my voice getting louder in the last few years, of course, but I did used to lose my rag in my early work life. Nevertheless, what good was this? I stood up for something once that I truly believed in and felt I had to raise my voice against a known "tyrant" (who did shout a lot) I was working for as this was the only way to make him listen I thought then. It may stop his mistakes I thought. I knew and was told afterwards that despite being right that this was going to shorten my career in the role. Of course, it did as I sadly proved the "tyrant" had made some poor multi-million pound investment decisions that I was highlighting rather than hiding. However, I could have gone about this differently. The aggressive approach he was waiting for from me, that he was winding up, he could now use that against me. Deflection could then ensue away from the real issue. Sadly, it is an issue that has still not been resolved some 10-15 years later.

I do find it really interesting the psyche of shouting out loud to be recognised in public places or running alongside a cyclist. What does it say about us? Is it look at me? Is it I am actually very funny, can't you hear? I have a point and look at my witty placard. See how I can make inanimate objects move to my beck and call in a Uri Geller styli; what power I possess. We are an interesting bunch of people who are brilliantly different and that is what makes our work and home life so great to live in and of course watch from a suitable distance.

As I told you at the start of this, too much time on trains in reflecting mode. Lets get back to the wise sage, Dr Frasier Crane as I some times do in these articles.

Frasier: So how do the calls look today?

Roz: Well, we've got a couple of jilted lovers, a man who's afraid of his car, a manic depressive, and three people who feel thier lives are going nowhere.

Frasier: Oh, I love a Monday

This is Ian Gray wishing you all good mental health and thank you for listening.