Another pretty brutal week, although I found myself with pockets of 1 or 2 hours outside of meetings which made it feel like a different job! All in all, I’d call it a net positive.
Rose — What went well?
- I got up to Manchester, which was great, and spent some time with our Enabling team working through some of the detail around finances and commercial. Definitely some of the unsung heroes that keep the wheels on TS.
- I had a really productive coaching/ mentoring session. Having had pretty mediocre experiences with coaching for most of my professional life, I’ve really been supported by some excellent people in last 2 years.
- We’ve got things ticking along in the right direction within SLT, slowly building a plan for change.
- I had 2 exciting conversations with people I’d love to get on board.
Thorn — What didn’t?
- Those emails just keep mounting up — and I need to get better at delegating!
- The negativity in the press around the civil service is an unnecessary, and unwelcome distraction. It reflects poor briefing, management and decision making.
- There’s just so much exciting stuff out there, so many opportunities for impact, moving so quickly, that it’s addictive.
Bud — Opportunities for the future
- There’s a lot of exciting stuff coming up — I genuinely think if we can get the people and the delegation right, then we can transform how we ship services across DfE.
