Them days when they them wrote

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What happened to them there writers who

When they wrote we would be moved to write

Who would be called HR Juggler, or Garelaos, or MJ, or Fuchsiablue, or MHIOP (iykyk), or Punk Rock, or a DDS here and a Heath there. Oh, but oh

That it would be cutting, and direct, and attacking, hilarious and funny, and people would be upping their arms

That grammer be damned, spelling didn’t care, and pop culture be strewn, but damn the bodies and damn the high and the mighty

Where it took Superman to revolve through the door

Where a question left you thinking and searching

Where a comment encouraged further debate

What goes around? Madness in the halls, and those flipchart fairytales,

When I’d read and then want to discuss

Masters or bust? And those airmiles? Or our dear Flora who walked and camped the length of wonderful Britain

I am romantic for those days

Them days when they them wrote and we moved the goddamned fucking world.

We need improved general education for supporting others when they tell us they’re not ok

I’ve been thinking lately about the way we’ve been able to improve the conversation around mental health and wellbeing in the last decade. It really wasn’t that long ago that talking about mental health openly had significant stigma, which is surprising in many ways considering that mental health professionals have been around for a very long time. I guess seeing a therapist in days gone by was seen as something you needed if you were particularly troubled, and in recent years it’s becoming more accepted that seeing a mental health professional is an important part of regular mental health care.

An important part of that move to talking more openly has been the understanding that it’s ok not to be ok. At a personal level, it is a very healing comment to hear. We can’t always feel at our best, sometimes we might be in real distress, and for others they may experience any number of forms of mental illness. To be able to be honest with yourself to acknowledge that you may not be ok is an important acknowledgement. The encouragement to let others know we may not be ok is also important, but I don’t think there’s been enough awareness to understand how to support others when they’re not ok, and also how to deal with the secondary effects of knowing someone isn’t ok.

I think there’s a number of things that get raised in different ways when someone tells us they’re not ok.

I think for some they don’t know how to respond because we’ve never really been taught how to provide that general care for people in our lives. We’ve always been told it’s important to take responsibility for your own wellness, but what happens when you need others and they aren’t capable to help? We then reinforce the inability of some to help others because there was never education around hearing difficult emotions and thoughts from our friends and families. So when someone tells us they aren’t ok, they’re left in a vacuum of having people who care for them, but unable and/or incapable of helping them.

I think for some it raises awareness of their own problems and mental health, highlighting that they may not have the capacity to help others because they themselves require help.

I think for some they can’t understand why someone may have mental health problems when they seemingly have many things we would deem as required for normal mental health. E.g. someone may have a house, but we don’t know they also have mounting debts creating high levels of worry and distress. Or someone lives with their family, but we don’t know that they have very difficult relationships with some family members. Or someone has a job, but we don’t know they’re being bullied at work. It’s very easy to misunderstand that even though things may look “normal”, there can still be very difficult things happening for that person.

I think for others, they see mental health as being a choice and therefore not a real health problem. They may hear some people in their lives talking about poor mental health, and equally see them at the shops, on holiday, at a party, or going to work everyday, and then think they must be lying about their mental health. Similar to the above point, people may be doing “normal” things, but we don’t understand that having mental illness doesn’t mean others can’t also function in everyday life.

I also think social media has been a double-edged sword for raising awareness of mental health. Many more people are having conversations and sharing what their daily lives look like living with mental health. At the same time, we have pseudo-psychologists, faux life coaches, and alleged wellbeing practitioners discussing mental health in incredibly unhelpful and harmful ways. E.g. there’s a difference between having a bad break up from a relationship, and from it being traumatic. Trauma requires very clear intervention and support. If someone isn’t actually experiencing trauma, it is unhelpful for them to think they are, and the support they gain may not be right for their needs. This is as much a problem of so called influencers trying to talk about subjects beyond their understanding as it is opportunists who are trying to manipulate people into seeking their services.

I also think some people unreasonably think they have the required skills to support others, but actually are not well placed for this at all. For example, I have seen some say things like “here’s what you need to do to get better”. That isn’t the kind if help people suffering mental illness need at all. But through social media, some people over-inflate their sense of skill into topics and subjects they have no training or skill on at all.

I’m a big advocate for how we help others when they are in distress and require support. I think there’s a lot for us to learn when someone tells us about their mental health. Supporting and being there for others is far more about empathy and listening than it is about advice and guidance. It’s more about understanding from the other person what support is helpful for them, rather than making unhelpful assumptions and judgements.

As I’m learning, normalising conversations about mental health requires just as much work from those of us who can support others as it does the strength and courage to seek help from those suffering.

On toxic masculinity

This one’s been brewing a long-time coming. If you think toxic masculinity is bullshit then you shouldn’t read this piece. This is a long post. There is no precis or TL;DR version of this.

I think the best way for me to write about this is to address various unhelpful myths and share where they fall down.

I’m allowed to be strong – physically and mentally. No-one, but no-one is saying men shouldn’t be strong physically and mentally. Physical strength helps individuals live healthy lives. That’s true for both men and women. Where it goes wrong is when that physical strength is used to intimidate, abuse, or control others. If we have to use physical strength to get others to obey or listen, we’re misunderstanding how to listen and act with kindness.

Mental strength is probably the wrong phrasing. We can all learn how to deal with difficult emotions, difficult circumstances and difficult relationships. When we build those skills of self-awareness and emotional intelligence, we get better at feeling good about ourselves and the decisions we make.

I’m allowed to have an opinion. Again, no-one is saying you aren’t. We get better at friendships and relationships when we take the time to listen and hear other people’s opinions. Your opinion doesn’t have to be better than someone else’s. We can learn from each other – always.

If your opinion isn’t being heard, accepted or listened to, that’s probably because that particular relationship isn’t good or healthy for you. You’re allowed to pull away from those people, or interact with them differently so you don’t have to feel like you’re not important to them.

My problems are caused by women. Wow, that is a loaded statement in a lot of ways. We can’t and shouldn’t go through life trying to feeling that other people – in particular women – are the cause of our problems. If this is how you feel, you’re going to have to do a lot of personal work to unpack where this harmful thinking comes from.

This kind of thinking can only lead to men having poor relationships with women. Or having unrealistic expectations on the women in our lives. Women aren’t here to solve men’s problems – whatever those problems are.

And don’t forget many of the stereotypes men are faced with today are due to old ways of thinking and belief about the superiority of men over women in pretty much every aspect of daily life. That’s called the patriarchy and is the fundamental reason we have problems with toxic masculinity in today’s world.

Men are just better than women. Jeez, we are not in a lose – lose situation in life. There are plenty of ways to appreciate achievements and accomplishments of the women in our lives without feeling emasculated or inferior. Again, the patriarchy tells us that men are meant to be more high achieving and more accomplished than women. But women have been given systematically less opportunities for equality in every aspect of everyday living, so we have far less representation of women in pretty much every sphere of success. When we see less women as role models of success, we have to remember how hard it has been for the women who have reached those heights amongst a sea of men.

This statement also diminishes how much strength there is in diversity. If only men can achieve and accomplish, we’re limiting the full breadth of potential available to us. How can that make sense?

Men are smarter than women. The patriarchy has been so good at diminishing the value of women in our lives, that when very smart women achieve and accomplish whatever it is they’re doing, we aren’t taught to praise and value them. Instead we’re taught to diminsh those accomplishments with phrases like “it was probably a diversity thing”, or “yeah but there’s different standards for men and women”, or “but look at how many men have done the same as you”. Each of those statements is about minimising women and attacks the quality of “smart”.

Men deal with pressure better than women. It depends on the situation, surely? And, again, there is a lack of women in high pressured roles, so what are we basing this statement on? There are ample examples of women in high pressure situations performing brilliantly – we just don’t value women in the same way.

Also, no-one is more adept at dealing with pressure than others. There are a lot of men who can’t deal with high pressure situations, and that’s completely ok. Dealing with high pressure situations isn’t a yardstick for how manly or masculine we are.

Men need women to be protected. The huge oversight here is that male violence against women and girls is a massive societal problem. Yes, women can attack and harm men, but men are not having to navigate daily existence to avoid being attacked, harassed or anything untoward from women. That’s just not happening for the majority of men – whereas that is completely true for nearly all women.

Most attacks against women and girls are from men in their lives. Not random men off the street, but men in their lives. That’s you. That’s me. That’s a work friend. That’s a male relative. It is happening to women and girls today and in all likelihood a woman in your life has experienced a sexual attack of some sort that you have no idea about as a man in their life.

Are you personally responsible for what happens to women from male violence? Probably not as long as its not you.

But you know what leads to male violence against women and girls rapidly? Making sexist jokes that demeans women and the role of women in our lives. But it’s a joke isn’t the great response you think it is. If we joke about important things we deny the importance of those things. If women are important to you in your life, don’t make sexist jokes otherwise you’re just proving you don’t believe women in your life are important.

A sexist joke leads to an easy discussion where men believe they are superior to women and can demean them with jokes. We shouldn’t be demeaning anyone, not ourselves, not the women in our lives, no-one.

Women don’t need protecting from men. Men need to learn how to control any impulse or thought which leads to male violence. The key and main point of clarity here is that men and male violence are the common denominator. Yes, women are also the common denominator but remember – male violence is far more an issue for women than female violence is an issue for men.

But I am / was a good guy. Good! Remain that way! Being a good man in a woman’s life is its own reward. We don’t get rewards for being good from women. That’s not how it works. We’re not in a contractual agreement with any women in our lives where there’s a clause that says “as a good man in your life I get to have sexual relations with you”. That is a horrific bit of thinking which is the antithesis of being a good human being. Do you know what men need to focus on? Being a decent human who isn’t violent or sexually attacks women.

You’re just saying this cos you are anti-masculinity. No, I’m discussing this because male violence is a very real problem, and we only improve that situation by having very honest discussions about the impact toxic masculinity has on men and the impact male violence has on women. I have real clarity about what being male means to me. It means being healthy – I eat well and exercise regularly. I have good male friends in my life that make me feel good about who I am. I have healthy friendships with the women in my life. I’m fortunate to have family relationships that I care about. I love my children and nurture our relationship everyday even though I don’t live with them. None of this should sound anything other than good everyday acceptable behaviour.

I hate feeling like I’m attacked as a man. If anyone is making you feel like that – that’s the patriarchy at work. The patriarchy doesn’t exist to develop self-worth or valuing our individual and unique strengths and skills. The patriarchy works by demeaning anything that happens which creates equity, fairness and inclusion.

Stop consuming that kind of content. Stop watching those videos. Stop reading those blogs. Stop listening to those podcasts. Pay attention to the things that bring you joy and help you feel good for who you are.

But I like listening to that Popular Guy. There are many popular men who post a lot of content. Don’t forget, social media isn’t about creating empathy or improving our relationships. It’s about creating content. And the content which tends to go viral and creates a lot of debate is content which is designed to be controversial.

Controversy doesn’t equal kind. Anyone can be rude and demeaning to others – it takes courage to be kind. Controversy isn’t about being smart. Anyone can be an asshole, that’s not being controversial or smart. Controversy isn’t funny. Controversy is about causing friction and fueling anger and hate. There are really good ways to encourage debate, critical thinking, dialogue, and better solutions. Being controversial isn’t how you get there. Ever.

Defeating toxic masculinity takes work from all men. We should be looking at the patriarchy and all the ways we’re stopped from being our best selves as men – because the patriarchy doesn’t care about us being our best selves as men. The patriarchy cares about individuality and looking after #1 where #1 equals being a man.

Empathy and kindness are two important ways to defeat toxic masculinity. When we take the time to appreciate the women in our lives for who they are, when we listen to what they say, when we honour our friendships and relationships with women, this is how we show empathy and kindness. And remember, empathy and kindness are their own rewards. We don’t get a pat on the back for being empathetic and kind – that should just be what we do as men towards women.

An important part of that empathy is to make sure we aren’t just consuming content made my men. The books we read, the shows and movies we watch, the TV hosts, the comedians, the blogs, the daily posts, the podcasts and so much more – we gain improved appreciation for the women in our lives by ensuring we consume content made by women.

This post is a lot. I should say far more about each point. I haven’t even touched on intersectionality and all the nuance at play in how we live as men.

Can we just abandon GCSEs now?

My boys are going through their GCSEs right now, and as their father I’m finding I’m quite anxious about how they’ll perform. Good performance means they’ll gain places in their sixth form / high school of choice. Poor performance means scrabbling for a place on other courses they may not have wanted to pursue.

As an L&Der for 20 years, and someone who’s been part of the world of work for more than 30 years now, I have never been tested on my rote memory of the work I’m involved in. Not. Once.

I’m not writing anything new or differently critical than many others will have written in this space.

The modern world of work is focused on outputs and outcomes that are much more about collaboration, product development, scientific experiments, presentation and good project management. In amongst that we require really good grounding in core subjects for sure. We need maths and english for most of our daily roles. But we also need team working, emotional intelligence and ethics just as much.

It is a very rare occasion you’re expected to recall things from memory in order to have a good performance review. You’re not tested on the models and theories that inform your work for performance at work, you’re measured on your productivity. You’re not expected to recall formulae and equations for creating reports, you’re expected to understand how to use a system for creating reports.

At the age of 16 we’re setting up our youngsters to perform against their rote memory – and the more we’re learning about neurodiversity the more we’re learning that rote memory is an incredibly poor measure of performance. Being smart and intelligent aren’t related only to exam outcomes and its highly unfair we tie those things together.

We haven’t matched at all how school exams are set up for what the world of work really is. My performance at work is more judged on quality of thinking, actions I take, collaborations I’m part of, personal and professional development. I’m not saying education isn’t important, I’m saying exams in the form of rote memory are the wrong measure to set a 16yr old up for success in life.

I Didn’t Learning Anything New

It’s a phrase I hear so many times. Especially from L&D folk.

We have an incredible sense of ego and arrogance in L&D. I read this book, this one time. I heard this talk. I delivered a thing. I had this great feedback. I read blogs all the time. I listen to all the top podcasts. I am connected to 56078 people. I’ve spoken to the authors. I’ve been to the conferences. I’ve watched the videos. I developed this product.

And then, we have the arrogance – the sheer bloody arrogance – to believe we’ve heard it all before.

Oh you want to learn about that topic? You have to watch this video. You have to listen to this person. You have to read this book. You have to follow that blogger. You have to follow this Instagram account. You have to speak to that person.

It pisses me off.

We have an incredible level of access to people who think really well about their world of work. And yet, because many of us grew our careers by delivering training based on a book or even less than a book, we have the arrogance to believe we’ve already heard the best stuff out there.

Stab me in my eye and gut me alive, dear God.

And the number of L&Ders who have even more arrogance in believing they’re polymaths or equivalent. Polymaths are incredibly rare – incredibly rare. No, you don’t know about business acumen because if you did you’d be running an incredibly successful business, or you’d be an incredibly successful entrepreneur, or you’d be a highly sought after speaker by the best and brightest in the world. Polymaths genuinely change the world. You may be very smart, but trust me a polymath you are definitely not.

So here’s the thing. Learning is about humility. When we learn, we understand that we’re going to challenge what we think and embark on a journey of development.

If we read something that is familiar, the kind thing to do is acknowledge the writer for writing their truth. The learning we could take is reflecting on what we know and what we’d like to do more of. When we say, I didn’t really learn anything, what we’re doing is discounting the opportunity for growth. We’re also demeaning the work we’ve just consumed and maintain an arrogance of thinking we could have done better. If we think we could do better, then we need to show up and do better. Otherwise, we’re just being useless trolls. And no-one likes trolls.

If you didn’t learn anything new, that’s fine. Don’t be arrogant about it. Use it as an opportunity to offer respect and appreciation for someone who did the work for you to realise you’ve done some good work yourself.

My growth as an L&D leader

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My growth as an L&D leader has been closely linked to the roles and career path I’ve taken.

I’ve been really clear since I started out in this world of L&D that each role I’ve taken has to help me grow. That growth has meant many things.

I have been accredited in many L&D tools that in some way or another are centred around personal development. Early in my career, it was MBTI Step I and getting trained as a facilitator by a vendor who supplied very scripted facilitation kits and VHS resources – yes folks, I started out my L&D career in the days of VHS. I honed my facilitation skills further with a programme at Roffey Park. In these early days of my career, facilitation skills were high on the list of L&D skills for potential employers. Digital learning at that time (circa 2004) was mainly e-learning and computer based training. I didn’t give any focus or effort to developing any skills with digital. LMS’s at this time were simply about booking onto courses and tracking course completion. It was a very weak digital market.

After several years, circa 2009, digital learning became a lot more sophisticated. You could take bite-size learning in content libraries. Content libraries were becoming bigger, and e-learning was becoming more mainstream and more common skillset in businesses. But, it was with a real immaturity from many business leaders in thinking about e-learning as anything but compliance and mandatory training. Online meeting platforms started becoming more sophisticated and I started playing with virtual and online facilitation. It was very new to me, and I was keen to explore this digital learning space more. Social media started to become more prevalent from 2010 onwards, and by 2012 YouTube, Twitter and Facebook were incredibly common everyday apps we would access. People sharing learning openly through these (and other) platforms was becoming a thing.

It was in these years I really experimented with my L&D practice. What could I do with teams? Management development? Individual development? Blended learning? Collaboration? Informal learning? I learned an incredible amount because of this autonomy. It was my first time I also learned about organisational politics and how this thing could undo any of my efforts.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was really immature with my understanding of business acumen. I felt I knew what it meant to be an organisational leader, but I really didn’t. How does a sales leader become better and stronger at sales? What is the potential of marketing and how do others in the business collaborate with marketing better? What was the importance of product development? What was the role of networking for senior leaders? How do I navigate organisational politics?

It wasn’t until around 2014 until I really started to pay attention to the LMS market and what was possible. By this stage, I was leading organisational development for a housing association, and with that came budget responsibility and my first real line manager responsibility. I was learning about employee engagement platforms, LMS platforms, and social learning. I was still able to experiment further, but in a very different way. How do I understand the organisations aims and objectives? How am I connecting with senior leaders from across the organisation and what am I learning? How did I really understand business needs and how did I build learning courses and solutions that met those needs? This is where I started to become far more attuned to needing to raise my game. Good facilitation techniques weren’t enough. I was learning about the importance of leaders and how they could lead and influence on learning solutions.

Push forward some years later, and after 2017, I worked for a multi-national company which was a FTSE top 30 company. For those not in the UK, that means they’re a listed company on the stock exchange. I purposefully sought this work because if I wanted to advance my career, I recognised the importance of such experience. I learned an incredible amount in this organisation about business partnering and how business partnering can impact on all things talent development, talent management, learning and development and organisational development. I got to work with MDs of markets and SLTs in ways I had never done before. Advising on people matters that had a line of sight to organisational performance. Actual business outcomes and performance based on the conversations I was part of. That was eye-opening in so many ways.

Come the pandemic and lockdown, I entered the world of consulting. I was super clear with myself, I was not going to do work which was about delivering or facilitating courses or workshops. Yes, I did that work, but 1) that work was part of the solution I was working on and 2) it was about 20% of the overall work I was doing. The work I got really clear on working on was about developing L&D strategy and development of L&D skills as well as leadership skills. I got to partner with some really great business leaders and it helped to hone my consulting skills. Through this period, I spent a lot of time getting better at using digital tools for learning solutions. Not just how to use the tools, but how to showcase that great virtual learning was just as possible as in-person learning.

And this brings us up to speed. I’m learning an incredible amount in this role. I need more time yet to really reflect on how I’m growing and what the different factors are for that growth. But the projects I’m working on are already a sea change in what I’ve worked on before. I’m also leading a bigger team than I’ve ever had, as well as further understanding the importance of highly skilled business partnering (not from me, but seeing some great examples in the leadership team I’m part of as well as other business leaders supporting projects I’m leading on).