Choppy waters ahead!

Day 123

A mixture of excitement and dread as today we unveiled the new organisational structure. It really has been a sleepless couple of months and wasn’t expecting to be doing this quite so early on. Yet there’s some great opportunities. It’s not a huge shake up, just creation of a couple of roles and realignment of groups. Still braced for fall out though.

Spoke with a few people afterwards, and it felt a bit muted. Some questions, concerns, but difficult to gauge exactly how it’s gone down. I guess time will tell.

 

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Day 124

Not heard much since yesterday’s announcement. Can’t tell if that’s good or bad! I’d cleared my diary in anticipation and it’s been a surprise how few people have come to speak with me. Maybe I should get out there? Maybe it’s just a matter of time?

Had a one-to-one with Amanda and touched on the announcement. She asked a number of questions and seemed reassured that it wouldn’t affect her hugely. Not at a personal level. Which is certainly helpful right now. She works hard and is diligent. I’d like to delegate more to her, just worry that she’s not up to it. She seems so uncomfortable taking on new things, and worries so much about whether she’s doing it right or not. Somehow I’d like her to have a bit more belief in herself and what she’s capable of.

 

On the other hand, my one-to-one with Joe wasn’t so great. Always asking ‘why?’ And of course it’s good to question, just sometimes I wish he’d stop and realise some things JUST ARE. Questioning it won’t change anything. And I really do wonder whether there is anything he actually enjoys about his job. Maybe I’ll have to ask, because day simply felt like a battle.

 

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Day 125

People have started to questions. Had a number of informal meetings today about the changes and started to hear some of the thoughts and opinions on what we presented. Some unexpected stuff came up. Some of which don’t seem relevant, but I guess it’s worth considering how we respond. A few have been a bit more interesting, thought-provoking. I’ll take those away for discussion, be interesting to see what others think to those points.

 

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Day 126

Inconvenient timing but nothing I could do to change the date. A full day out of the office, at a one day conference. Talk went well and spoke with a good number of people. Must remember to follow up on some of those connections, some potential opportunities that would be good to look into further.

I’m tired though. Day’s like these are exhausting, always hard work. I don’t know how some people seem to thrive doing this sort of thing. I’m always so glad to get home and take off my ‘game face’.

 

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Day 127

Back into meeting and another fractious one with Paul, Cathy, Laura, Gary and Stuart. Brought up some of the points I’d got from the informal conversations a couple of days ago and suddenly old wounds re-opened and we were going around in circles arguing about everything all over again. Perhaps naively I thought after the announcement we’d all agreed, we’d be on the same page and moving on. How wrong was I?!??!

 

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Day 128

Today was just chaos, more questions, antagonistic points of view from unlikely sources, frustrations from yesterday’s senior management meeting pervading into other areas, and an informal complaint about Mark which I’m going to have to deal with. Again. Argh!!

Saving grace was a late afternoon coffee with Laura, out of the office. Perhaps I shouldn’t have ranted about quite so much, but it felt good to let off some steam.

It’s going to be a long weekend trying to catch up with all the stuff I really should have got done earlier this week.

A good night’s sleep would help.

 

Past the 100 days mark and so much has happened. And looking back I realise how much I’ve settled in and got to grips with stuff. Still feels like I’m in the deep-end. But at least I feel I have a semblance of control of things that side-swipe me when I least expect. I’ve stopped moaning about the workload. Not sure if that’s the right attitude. It’s never-ending, yet somehow, I’ve managed to keep my head above water. These changes look like they’ll rock the boat a bit, but hopefully not enough to tip over. Guess I’ll have to keep a tight grip as it starts to get choppy!