Ups and downs

Well, time for another update, apologies to the hub for not having posted more often. Positive things first.

Our development program seems to be running well,  the presentations, school visits, visits from potential candidates all went fantastically well. We ended up with more people that we wanted to bring into the program than we were allowed to do. The fact that we found them makes me very proud of the team and the effort they put in. We are now in the next phase, the program is running. We (the engineers from the departments involved) have had to re-assess the goals and objectives that we originally defined a few months ago. To be fair, we always knew they were a bit vague, but there's nothing like being put on the spot to focus your attention. We have had several of the pre and post departmental rotation meetings, are getting good feedback from the candidates that we chose, and are developing our coaching and mentoring skills very well. Those hub members who also participate in this program will, I hope, add a few words here. 

The leadergroup is causing me some concern though. Since we are all becoming very busy, what with the general state of the global construction industry, our training program, promotions and the usual daily stuff, attendance at the regular sessions has fallen way off. To the point where there would be periods of several weeks with maybe one or two people in attendance. This then makes for a very disjointed group. Some knew what we were going to do, some hadn't prepared, others had been away for so long that there was no common subject etc. It also seemed that the state of the group at that time didn't seem to have a core of satisfied people. This was one of those situations of feeling like you'd run into a brick wall. So, what did I do. What I always do if I run into a brick wall, decided to try to fly.

In an effort to try to get something new happening, and in discussion over several weeks with those that did turn up and also those that hadn't, I have started to send two or three emails every couple of weeks, to the group members, to try to offer a variety of different subjects. (I have taken the analogy of snowballs being thrown down a mountain, some will stick, others will roll and grow.) The hope is that, since I can't satisfy all of the people all of the time, that I should be able to satisfy some groups some of the time. What I am trying for is to get an idea to spark a conversation, by email. When that gets to involve two or three people, then that's the time to get a few people in a room together. At the moment I am experimenting with different subject matter, to see what works, what people are interested in.

I have some company sponsored leadership training coming up in September, so will be in sunny Slough for a week. I'll let you all know how that goes.

 Regards, Colin.