Our September board meeting will happen right here at this post on Monday, September 8th at 1pm ET. Watch the meeting live here, and share your ideas, questions, and observations by tweeting to the hashtag#CTFuture.
If the video does not appear precisely on the hour, please be patient – we are probably running a few minutes late.
The board has two agenda items this month:
- Establishing Policies on Workplace Conditions
- Designing Performance Indicators re: our Mission
In addition, a report of the organization’s primary activities over the past month is attached here.
We know this will be a lively meeting. Hope to have you take part!
Twitter stream from the September Board Meeting
(Please scroll to the bottom to begin)
LISTEN TO THE MEETING HERE
or Download the MP3
(To download to your hard drive, right-click {or click and hold on a Mac} on the link above and select “Save Target As”.. or “Save Link as”… depending on your browser)
RE: What kind of working conditions can bring out the best in all of us?
1st thought: I’ve *just* written a piece about organising structures and the kinds of relationships that emerge… spoiler: a lot of it is about the intent behind the structures… but that we need to be very conscious of creating equality, when we are coming into our groups from a range of deeply unequal social settings: https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/liam-barringtonbush/structuring-our-beloved-communities
2nd thought: I think it can be really important to not create policies that make it harder for individual subjectivity to be seen/felt/appreciated. Which, in my experience, is the norm of workplace policies – ie – we become numbers. One really good remuneration policy I’ve seen that captures both equality amongst members of a community, and the subjectivity of individual needs/circumstances, is Platform London’s Social Justice Waging System: http://platformlondon.org/about-us/staff-structure-policies/
This is obviously more specific than a wider policy, but does capture the equality/subjectivity balance which I think is so critical.
Thanks!
Liam
…and in a slightly more tongue in cheek way, this was my take on org social media policies… which might have some wider implications for a range of org policies… namely, what is a policy offering, that ongoing dialogue amongst those affected can’t? And what gets lost when you try to turn the ongoing dialogue process into a static text document? Do the benefits of codifying the conversation, outweight the costs, such as:
– lack of buy-in as the group changes?
– more difficulty with being adaptive as context changes?
More positively, how much more invested might people feel if they are part of an ongoing conversation, compared to being the subjects of a document?
http://www.morelikepeople.org/social-media-policy-flowchart/
I had a lot of ah-ha moments during this conversation, but I think I am lost in the paid time off conversation. I thought a lot about how I see my time off. I am an Executive Director, but I insisted on working an hourly wage – I work 30 hours a week, and I track my time.
I don’t see my time off as an escape from office, but I do see tracking my hours and staying disciplined around working a 30-hour week and taking all my vacation as a way to ensure the parts of my life that are not directly related to my work are healthy and happy. That’s my relationships, my hobbies, my fun, my sleep — all that needs to be healthy for me to bring my A-game to work.
So I think that’s the question: what supports do you need to bring your A-game to work? Is that time off? Is that health & wellness benefits? Is that a loan for a used car?
And then the culture around that might be “We want your A-game at work. We want you to take your time off and vacation, because the rest of your life is just as important as your work, and if you don’t attend to it, you won’t be able to bring your A-game to work. We want the benefits we provide to support your life as a whole, again so you are free and able to realize your highest potential at work. We hired you because we know you have the potential to do great things – and we want you to realize that potential both at the office and in your entire life.”
For me, I use my banked lieu (the time I worked over my 30 hours a week) as my lead indicator of my need to take breaks, and as my assurance that I am doing “enough” for my organization. If my lieu is at zero, I am proud of myself for maintaining good self-care.
To do this I need to know how many hours a week I am “supposed” to work, and have a defined amount of paid time off. I also have results I am responsible for, but knowing how much time I have helps me set reasonable expectations before I commit to those results.
Stacy,
Love the “We want your A-Game at work” framing and I agree that you need to know where your time is going. I personally believe everyone should track their time at work, because we don’t always honor ourselves when we estimate time.
In my opinion, the trick about linking time and outcomes is that every person is a bit different in how they work. I may be a hyper-focused person that best works in isolation and can accomplish a task in 1 hr. I then may need to go decompress for an hour to feel healthy and fulfilled. Or perhaps I work socially and thrive off dialog with others and take 2 hours to accomplish the same task. But when I’m done I feel healthy and fulfilled. In one scenario the person needs an hour off of leave. In the other, no time off is required. Same outcome for both organization and individual, but very different systems/approaches.
If we scale that up to a full job and the responsibilities and/or outcomes we desire, would it really matter the hours I put in and our take off if I am healthy and the organizational goals are met?
I read in your comment a very important focus on self-monitoring. We need to know what brings out our A-game in life and then advocate for the situations that create that. I think as an employer, we need to be able to clearly connect the organizational goals and a persons’s A-game and then think about the systems that support that.
This way both the organization and the individual have mutual-monitoring responsibilities. The individual needs to self-monitor, but also needs to know what it takes for them to achieve and support the goals of the organization. The organization needs to monitor whether it is achieving its goal and whether the individual is supported in reaching their highest potential.
It makes me wonder what we use “hours” as a surrogate for. What would it take for us to not think in hours, but as you say in terms of potential and achievement?