One evening in 1996, two colleagues took me to Pizza Hut at Meadowhall Business Park. I was physically shaking – not shivering but visibly shaking. My hands were moving involuntarily. I was not ill, this was acute stress. Soon after, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and I have been on medication ever since. The role I’d taken on was killing me.
I’d worked for over 5 years, building community businesses in the Attercliffe area. But I’d encountered furious opposition from someone I’d counted on as an ally. Today, was the Annual General Meeting. The proposal was to close the local Forum and transfer its assets to a new community trust. Hundreds of thousands of public money was riding on this decision.
The members of the Forum committee were set against it. It all depended on whether I’d persuaded enough members to turn out and vote for the Trust.
How did we get into this fix?
The real problem was grants. We were better at attracting European funding than we were at administering it. The new money paid for the staff we needed to administer everything. However, muddle and confusion did its damage and a few near financial disasters, eroded confidence. The transfer of assets meant the comfortable old Forum would be lost to a new organisation with new people in charge. It was in effect a power grab and I was doing the grabbing.
I don’t remember how it happened but somehow I became secretary of the Forum. I suspect the technicalities of running several businesses and administering grants was too much for the previous secretary.
Whatever the reason, it was a massive mistake. As a development worker, I’d taken on an activist role. I was afraid of losing all we’d gained and overcompensated by making what turned out to be a power grab. It blurred relationships. From their point of view, I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The Roles I Play and Rules I Follow
We returned to the meeting place and joined the Forum committee and stared daggers at each other across the table. Then the door opened and in walked 60 people! My hard work with community leaders had paid off. They saw the opportunity the money presented and turned out to vote for the transfer.
It was simultaneously a great success and a terrible defeat. We were able to go ahead and build the organisation we had all at one time dreamed about. It was at the cost of relationships that were never mended.
There are invisible lines we cross at our peril. After this experience, I took care to make it clear I was a development worker. This has nothing to do with power and authority. It is about being clear about the role I play and the rules I follow.
[This tells the Story in Power and Finance from a different perspective.]
LOCKDOWN POSTSCRIPT
This is probably the story I’m most ashamed of but it is a story that is important to share because it illustrates an important point. The roles we take on mean something important. The roles of activist and development worker are different and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen activists take on development roles and carry on as activists.
It’s a dream come true, being paid for what you were formerly doing as a volunteer. But the outcomes are usually negative. An activist in a development role means the development work is not done and the development worker, often because they have more time, pushes local residents out of their activist roles.
This example is very specific and many may feel it’s not relevant. I would not be too certain. The temptation to step in and do it for someone else is common. One key role of the development worker is to help others develop their skills. This is also true of managers and leaders in business, schools, hospitals … everywhere!
Coaching as Development Work
I’m a coach and coaching is essentially a developmental role. I coached someone recently and we discussed their real work as opposed to their paid work. Many business coaches help their customers develop business skills. Marketing and sales are essential to any business. And many business owners enjoy the game of business.
However, turning a profit is not the only reason people go into business. Some business people are creatives with ideas to share with the world. My client said they’d never had their real work affirmed by a coach. Why? Because it involves travelling, eating out and striking up conversations with people. That’s not work, is it? That’s going out and enjoying yourself! What my client produces as a result of these excursions cannot be produced in any other way.
The question whether this work can be monetised is premature. The excursions are part of an ongoing project. No-one can predict where it will lead. This is work worth doing even if it fails. Indeed it may fail from the perspective of generating income for the business. But the project will not and cannot fail as it adds to my client’s real work. Eventually it’ll lead to a new project, which in its turn will point to something new. Maybe something will monetise someday. The point is if there is a crock of gold at the end of the rainbow, this sequence of projects is the only way to find it.
Old or New Normal?
It’s crucial to understand this during the lockdown. It’s worse possible outcome is business as usual. We need new models, new ideas, new perspectives … These will be found only by those prepared to take the risks to find them. Fathoming the balance between real and paid work is the challenge business owners face.
This is why roles are important. Business provides essential goods and services and the role of some businesses is to do just that. But if we want a genuine new normal (as opposed to a reheated old normal) then we must respect the role of creative as business person, however weird it may seem.
Why I Am Doing This
Stories rarely remain unchanged, the context in which they’re told matters just as much as the context referred to by the story. I wrote this sequence of 21 stories about 15 months ago. You may have read some or all of them in their earlier form. Reading it now, we perhaps see something different, especially as we consider the roles we take on in Business and Community.
As I republish these stories, I revise and polish them. Some need little change, for others the changes are extensive. At the end of each story, I add reflections based on where my thinking has moved onto, especially in the context of the Lockdown.
This is story 10/21. Last Story: Business and Community: The Demon King? Next Story: Place: Spongy Balls