The ‘highlight’ of my week outside of work was my pet cat, KitKat, managing to bring a decapitated mouse in to the house. Needless to say, there were a few screams and some running away 😱
On Friday, my daughter had inset day so I dropped her off to the cinema in between meetings and then joined her and her friends in a game of the Logo board game – its amazing how competitive a bunch of 16 year olds are!
One thing that upset me was the Tory Minister’s comments about some parts of Luton being a ‘no-go area for white people’. Luton often gets a lot of unfair comments, and having lived in London, its really no different from any other town.
If anything, I would say, Luton has a far greater sense of community.
The positive was how the town, people of all races and backgrounds, came together to showcase why this narrative simply isn’t true and take pride in our town’s reputation.
Looking back
Last week really focused on delivery:
- what we are delivering
- what we should be delivering
- what the new Executive’s priorities
- how those priorities affect what we need to deliver and how we manage our demand
It was a busy week, but one that has got the brain whirring in a good way.
It’s all good
I met with Dave Sifleet from the LGA, who had come to visit us last year as part of a Peer Review team. We spoke about progress that has happened since, and it was reassuring that the changes we’ve made and our direction is aligning to what:
- other councils are doing
- GDS Local is wanting
We also talking about our challenges, particularly around prioritisation and better articulation about what we are doing and why. Dave left thinking about how he can help us with that.
We had an SMT development day on Tuesday which was really productive. We looked at:
- our appetite for risk
- various tools to help with decision making
These sessions are as much about getting to really work together as a senior team in challenging environments, rather than the tools themselves. It’s been great to see us move as an SMT from the Forming stage to Storming and Norming.
It’s complicated
We also kicked off implementation of our restructure. Whilst the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, its always an unsettling time when some people are impacted and need to go through interviews.
But being confident that we are doing this for the right reasons, and that we have been fair, goes a long way in helping us get through this.
The biggest thing on my mind is the challenge of getting better at:
- prioritisation
- planning
- articulating delivery and benefits
We are doing so much that we are slipping back into old habits of taking on a lot but not always getting it done in time.
We need to break this cycle – caveated by the fact we have done lots that has been delivered in time, but we didn’t really tell anyone!
Looking forward
This week I am looking forward to the staff conference. It’s always buzzing, a great chance to hear about what is going on across the organisation and a good way meet new people. We also have our own DDaT stand which was very popular last year.
I’ve also got Strategic Eagle training next week. As part of my wider corporate leadership roles, I am on the emergency response rota and this training will help me manage any emergency better, should it be needed.
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