Mea Culpa

OK – message received! Readership figures have this month plummeted – despite posts continuing to come in every second day or so. I admit that too many are on the long side. So I will (try to) take a vow of BREVITY. After all, the blog is 12 years old – surely I’ve said most of what I need to? Except it’s not as simple as that – most blogs have a specialist focus, be it economic, political, sociological or cultural and apply that lens to the latest fashion of the day. This blog celebrates the butterfly approach viz it depends on what what catches my fancy – generally a book or article, sometimes an incident, painting or piece of music. And I like to offer excerpts from the books and articles I feel positive about – as distinct from offering opinions. 

It’s time clearly for another of these stock-takings about the blog. When it started – in 2009 – it set out three aims -    

·       “This blog will try to make sense of the organisational endeavours I've been involved in; to see if there are any lessons which can be passed on; to restore a bit of institutional memory and social history (let alone hope).

·       I read a lot and want to pass on the results of this to those who have neither the time nor inclination to read widely.

·       A final motive for the blog is more complicated - and has to do with life and family. What have we done with our life? What is important to us?” 

The first two objectives are still important. After 12 years, it’s fairly obvious from the unfinished nature of my books on administrative reform (“Change for the Better?”) and on social change (“What is to be Done?”) that there’s still work to be done – although I often feel I’m just going round in circles.

And I’m still finding fascinating books and continue to have this urge to share relevant insights with posterity. But I should probably stop imposing these rather forbidding reading lists.

But I have to recognise that the blog has been weak on the final purpose. Indeed a friend once queried the absence of the personal touch – feeling that the tone was too clinical and aseptic. And it’s certainly fair comment that the blog is a bit “scholastic”. A couple of other friends have indeed called me a “scholar” – which I used to take as a compliment. But perhaps they meant “bloodless!?

As I move through my “autumn days” and feel the approach of winter, the “settling of final accounts” (in the spiritual sense) should, certainly, loom larger. Charles Handy is a real inspiration here – someone constantly challenging himself and making fresh choices every decade or so about where to put the energies and skills he’s been endowed with. One of my favourite fellow-bloggers is Canadian Dave Pollard - a few years younger than me - who is constantly offering valuable insights from his life experience. A lot of this touches on inter-personal relations – one of my weak areas. In that spirit let me apply the Johari Window 

	strong                               Known to me                            weak
Strong     Known to others     Weak	Open   “The Arena”	Blind   The “blind corner”
	Hidden  “The Façade”	Unknown

 Our public self is something we try to control – but rarely succeed at. People notice things about us which we ourselves are not necessarily aware of (our blind corners). Friends should be helpful here – but we often resent critical comment and they soon learn to shut up… 

For 20 years I had a nomadic life – living in some ten different countries – generally leader of teams in which I would make a few new friends. Both the contexts and my particular role were very different from those in which I had spent the previous 20 years. But I was very aware of this – even so, it took me almost a decade before I was fully up to speed and confident that my skills were producing results. Those skills were broadly the same mix of political and scholastic I had used in my previous life - but the context was so very different. And my new skill was being sensitive to that and making the appropriate adjustments to the tools I used. 

As a Team Leader, I had, of course, to be sensitive to the strengths and weaknesses of the members of the team – but it’s almost impossible to shake off one’s cultural assumptions and I carried the baggage then of a Brit still proud of what our democratic tradition had given the world (!!!). It's only perhaps in the past decade in Bulgaria and Romania I've really deepened my understanding of cultural contexts - and am still learning..... 

I write in English – but literally a handful of Brits read the blog. Americans are its biggest fans making up 30% of readers (for which many thanks!!) - with Russians, curiously, coming in next at 15% and no other country having more than 5%. But the scale of non-English readership is an additional argument for making the posts shorter. 

And because I have the time to read widely; live on Europe’s edge; and have been out of my home country for more than 30 years, I have perhaps developed a bit of the outsider’s perspective….But I remain painfully aware of my shortcomings in the inter-personal field - I learned so much when I first did the Belbin test.... 

Comment; This is supposed to be a shorter post???? Will I never learn????   

Charles Handy's Inside Organisations - 21 ideas for managers includes the Johari window as one of the ideas. It's a delightful and easy read which I strongly recommend