When I was young my mum loved to take me and my brother to Alice Holt forest. It’s one of the largest surviving ancient woodlands with a history that dates back to the iron age. We’d pack a picnic and take our animal footprint book. I have lovely memories of eating sandwiches under the trees and walking for miles in the hope of spotting deer footprints.
In the early 70s, my mum was ahead of her time in her passion for caring for the planet. Whilst we were deep in the woods she would talk about the importance of not leaving a mark on the forest ‘it must be as if we had never been there’. Shut gates behind you, be careful where you step and leave no litter.
I grew up with this idea that to be a good human - you needed to do no harm and leave no trace. Any ‘mark’ you create is like a finger print on a photograph. It muddies the image and makes what was once a treasure, become as rubbish. One of mum’s saying [adapted from Mother Theresa] was ‘If each of us swept our own doorstep the world would be clean’. This further cemented a mental model of personal responsibility and each of us contributing our small part.
Then I read about ‘dust’ in Philip Pulman's Dark materials and it gave me another model. This might not be your take away from the books, but what sparked in me was the idea that all of your experiences and the stories that you create, if positive, would contribute to dust. Human love, truth and knowledge was the source of what is most valuable in existence: dust. To live a good life was to do something positive: so you would have a true great story to tell.
I started playing with the idea of ‘what is my truth and what story do I want to tell?’
I got a little lost at ‘my’ story. I don’t agree with the idea that you need to be a big voice and have a big life to matter. A world full of people thinking they are the ‘all powerful Oz’ isn’t one I’d like to be in.
I am and I think we are all as humans both a single drop in the ocean and the ocean itself.
I wanted a story with both collective impact and personal responsibility.
So the idea of what it means to add value, be a good human, have stories to tell and leave a trail of dust that burns brightly continued as an unanswered question in my brain.
The answer came - as everything seems to do with me - in coaching leaders and neuroscience.
How we add value at work
There’s an axis and a balance between personal responsibility and collective impact
My experience is that as you step up into leadership, staying as a great individual contributor isn’t enough. Taking full responsibility for your bit and making it awesome [even if that’s a team of 10, 80, 380 people] isn’t enough.
Here’s a personal example of why
In 1999 I worked at the National Centre for Popular Music [NCPM] in Sheffield [pictured below] as the education manager. I loved my job, I worked hard and my bit, my department, worked well. My processes, resources, client base and the relationships I’d established with the schools and colleges that visited were excellent. I got great feedback.
I was doing great.
But, after only 17 months of operation, the NCPM went into receivership. The £13m lottery funded building is now a students union.
It was a stark lesson that doing what you can as an individual contributor and creating a pocket of excellence isn’t enough - it isn’t leadership and it dramatically limits the value you create.
I can give you my excuses. It was only my second job after leaving teaching. The leadership team at the NCPM included Tim Strickland [pictured below with Terry Hall]. He was the original lead singer of the automatics. He became the The Specials band manager and had the best record collection I have ever seen. 80s pop stars from bands I had idolised as a teenager would walk through the building and have meetings with him about the exhibits. I wasn’t an 80s pop-star, I wasn’t involved in those meetings - so what did I know.
I was struggling with imposter feelings before I even had a name for it. The corncerns I had, my ideas thoughts and feelings - I kept to myself. It wasn’t my remit, it wasn’t my responsibility, I wasn’t asked.
I kept to my lane and my circle of influence.
When a top consultant came up from London to try and ‘save’ the museum; he invited all of the staff into the museum's canteen to share their thoughts. I was invited to share my opinion and in doing so my world axis changed.
I sat at the front of the room and was first to share what I thought wasn’t working and needed changing.
The soundscapes exhibit that was designed to transport you onto the stage at Wembly didn’t sound as good as the sound in the cinema; there was no pathway through the museum to guide visitors and take them on a journey.
When I was done, he asked people to raise their hand if they agreed with me and then asked me to look behind me. The shock of seeing that sea of hands has stayed with me 25+ years on. I still get goosebumps.
I learnt that having one cleanly swept doorstep in a world that needs your help and that you are doing nothing about is not enough.
My pocket of excellence was not enough.
If we had all used our voice, if we had all been prepared to take responsibility and feel a little uncomfortable - would things have been different?
Would the museum have been saved?
When coaching leaders I hear my old excuses echoed back to me. I don’t have permission. I’ll wait until I’m invited. My bit is excellent - they are the problem. What others do isn’t in my remit. The culture is not my responsibility.
What does adding value as a leader involve
Adding value is more than just meeting the requirements of your job description or returning the equivalent of your salary back to the business so you are at net 0.
This is also more than money. It goes beyond cost savings or sales made.
