Resilience Tested

Rachel Burnham writes: Back in early February we had a fire in our kitchen and had to call out the fire brigade.  Whilst neither my son or myself were hurt, we have been unable to live in our home since then.  I want to write about this experience and its impact.  I am not writing this looking for help or advice – I have wonderful close friends and family who have been a tremendous support during this time.  Instead, I want to focus on what I am noticing and my reflections on the experience so far.

 

What happened

The fire started with our toaster, one lunchtime. We were eating in another room when the power cut out and when my adult son got up to check the fuse box, he smelt smoke coming from the kitchen.  Although the toaster was not in use at the time, it had still been plugged in and by then the fire was well away – before too long the kettle was in flame and the fire had spread to the top of the fridge/freezer.  Our priority was to get out of the house, call the fire brigade and alert our neighbours from the houses adjourning.  Two fire engines arrived very quickly and they soon had it put out.  It was in many ways a small fire - but it left us with no electricity downstairs, a wrecked kitchen and smoke damage throughout the whole house.    Four months on we are still dealing with insurance, the entire contents of the house is in the process of being destroyed or cleaned and put into storage.  We have just got a date for the work to start and it is likely to be another 10 weeks before we can begin to move back in.

 

Gratitude

We have a great deal to be grateful for!  Neither of us was hurt, the fire was relatively easily contained, the fire brigade were super, we are fully insured and my parents live nearby and were willing and able to take us both in.   My son was able to get extensions for his course work and got caught up and I have been able to work from my parents’ house.  We both get on very well with my parents and as they are both in their late 80s it is great to have the opportunity to spend more time with them.   They have even got me interested in cycling by watching the Giro D’Italia together and I am now keenly looking forward to the Tour de France.

Impact

But of course, this whole experience has had an impact on us.   I would like to share some of what I notice in myself – it does vary a lot from day to day, so some weeks I am fine and some hours or days I am really struggling with it.   

·       Initial shock – In the first few weeks there was the effect of the initial shock and the adrenaline of trying to tackle insurance claims and get settled into our temporary living quarters.  I found sleeping very difficult at this stage and kept waking up either with worry about insurance or smelling smoke.

·       Uncertainty – I am used to working as an independent consultant with a very fluid diary and changing patterns of work, but the aftermath of our fire has generated so much uncertainty and made any planning beyond the immediate exceptionally difficult.  There is uncertainty over big stuff: timescales, what happens next, who is doing what, what the insurance covers, what will need to be destroyed because of smoke damage and uncertainty over small matters – ‘which paper pile did I put the last water bill in?’  One of my notebooks is now entirely given over to lists of fire related business and I have several digital spreadsheets too.

·       Loss of agency/control – I am definitely finding the loss of control a challenge – having other people pack up the contents of my house and having little opportunity to get organised before - for example I keep wondering whether the TV and DVD controls have gone in the same box as the wires for this equipment and a thousand and other similarly small anxieties.  It is also hard not being in my own home – it is 40 years since I last shared a house with my parents – I am used to making the rules.  (There will be a parallel loss for my parents too.)

·       Cluttered mind – I find that my mind is less sharp than usual and also seems much more narrowly focused – at times there is a lot to get your head around and not much energy for anything beyond what has to be done whether work or house-related.  Sometimes weeks go by with no contact at all from insurers/builders etc and then there will be a flurry of communication with multiple decisions needed.

·       Mourning for my home and garden - I am feeling a real sense of loss for ‘our home that was’, particularly since the company started packing up and clearing our house. Not only are there specific things that the fire destroyed, but also furniture that has had to be destroyed due to smoke damage, including some furniture that had come from previous generations.  As many of you will know I love gardening and I have also felt the loss of time in my garden this spring and summer – some of the plants in pots are really suffering from lack of watering during this hot dry early summer – I am not sure that they will survive.   I do know that we will get to unpack in time and will make a new home and this will have its joy, but right now, we are without a home.  I have found myself painting little hopeful boats in rough seas, which expresses some of these feelings.

'Unmoored'

·       Resilience – I have had more colds, viruses and other physical ailments in the last 4 months than since I was two!  I guess I must have less resilience and ability to bounce back.  It certainly feels that way emotionally – I managed to wash a pair of new trousers with pale coloured clothes and dye them all primrose yellow last week – normally I would have taken that in my stride, but this time it felt like a disaster.

 

Self-care

During this time all the usual suspects have been extra important and valuable.  I have been exercising each day, eating lots of healthy food, cooking favourite and new dishes, walking in the park – it has been particularly good to do this with my father, and working on the allotment.  The first time after the fire, that my son and I got to the allotment we felt this huge sense of peace and relaxation – even though we were digging and chopping, so we have made it an essential part of our week.

The other crucial element has been time and contact with close friends with opportunities to share how we are feeling and also do completely different things.  And it was great to get back to painting and drawing regularly after the immediate press of insurance claims. 

 

Reflections

·       One of the things I am reflecting on is what happens to our resilience when we face an extended period of stress and challenging circumstances – when we are in it for the long-haul.  For example, I have a number of friends who are or have been caring for parents who are seriously ill.  I am not sure that we focus sufficiently on the kind of support that people need when resilience is tested over an extended period.

 

·       It is good to talk and share how we feel.  This has been an important message around mental health for many years.  My experience over these last few months has been mixed.  I have great close friends who have listened and I have felt heard by.  I have also sometimes shared something of how I have been feeling at the time and not felt listened to.  It is interesting how quickly many people are to offer advice or remind you to feel gratitude – I have noticed how this has made me feel. I wonder if hearing someone talk about how they are struggling is too hard sometimes for us and so we close it down and make it more comfortable by turning to a positive ‘Be grateful that neither of you were hurt’ or ‘Lucky you, new kitchen!’.   It has made me more conscious of my own behaviour when people are sharing with me. I have been reflecting on the extent to which I really listen and how powerful and healing it can be when someone does.

 

·       We are all different.   One of things that has been said to me and intended as a comfort, is that ‘things can be replaced, but people can’t’.  And at one level this is true.  I have been reflecting on why I have felt so distressed at the thought of various belongings or pieces of furniture being destroyed.  It is because whilst they are just things – together they make ‘home’.  Now that ‘home’ has gone – for us this will be a temporary thing, but for refugees and for homeless people how big and how painful that loss must be?  But it is also about the way that some things become interwoven with your own life story.  For some people photographs are important – I am not a photo person.  Instead, for example, I found myself really upset when I realized that my steamer had been destroyed – it was given to me by my parents when my son was born, so that I could make baby food for him.  Each time I cooked with it, those memories were there and I suppose I had thought I would pass it onto him, perhaps for him to make baby food for a child of his own?   We are all different and what has meaning for us is different too.  We are so quick to see things through our eyes, values and experiences and it is so hard to see them through someone else’s.

 

Rachel Burnham

13 June 2023

I help individuals and organisations to use visuals to think, learn and work more effectively, particularly though using Sketchnoting and drawing.

My 5 Key Themes from CIPD L&D Show 2016

Rachel Burnham writes: Whenever I participate in an event as lively and as broad as the CIPD L&D Show, with conference, exhibition, free events on the exhibition floor, fringe events and many serendipitous meetings with interesting people, I am very aware that every participant will have their own impressions, their own stories to tell of the event and their own list of significant points.  

So here are my key themes from this year’s show.  They are based on the sessions I took part in as a member of the Blogsquad – you will find a link to my Sketchnotes from these sessions here. 

1.  Performance rather than learning

The overwhelming theme for me from the sessions I took part in on the first day, was the need in L&D to focus on performance rather than learning.   This was not a new insight for me, I have written before on why this is so important a change in approach for us in L&D, but I haven’t heard so many speakers address this so consistently as part of the essential thinking within their practice.  

Charles Jennings in A1 ‘Beyond the Blend’ spoke of a need for a change in mindset ‘from learning to performance’ and spoke about new roles for us in L&D, including the ‘performance detective’.  Jane Hart in C1‘Supporting Social & Collaborative Learning in the Workplace’ talked about focusing on performance when designing guided learning opportunities and in ‘Equipping your L&D with Essentials for the Future’ Derek Bruce shared that the biggest change in ABN AMRO had been introducing ‘performance consulting’.

It was great to hear so many speakers having this as the backdrop to their practice, but there is a long way to go for this to be the case for most organisations in my experience.

2.  Focus on the learner

The second theme of focusing on the learner, also ran through many of the sessions, but this time in many different forms.

In a superb session B1 ‘The Secret to Learning Design’, Nick Shackleton-Jones urged us to ‘take time to understand what bugs your people’, in other words what makes it difficult for them to perform to their very best and then address these issues.   He shared a model: Concern –Task – Resource which he and his team had used to help identify these ‘bugs’ or concerns and address them.  

He used an analogy which really caught my attention, urging us to ‘draw what you see’ when focusing on these concerns, rather than what you expect to see.   One summer I spent a happy afternoon drawing some lilies that were in full flower.  I think of lilies as elegant, with flowing lines and great colours.   But when I started drawing this particular flower, I realised that it was also bumpy and hairy!   Not what I had expected at all, but part of the reality of a real lily!  

In contrast, Lisette Toetenel from The Open University, Laura Overton from Towards Maturity and Tom Pape from BT, each in different sessions, all spoke about the importance of understanding how learners actually learn.   Lisette Toetenel focused on making effective use of learning analytics to understand how learners made use of online learning and using this information to generate even more effective learning experiences.  Laura Overton referred to the work on ‘Learner Voice’ which Towards Maturity has done and Tom Pape talked about building tools for the user – designing systems so that they were easy and straight forward to use for the learner.

This was the theme that challenged me the most.  I know that within the organisations I work with, this is where we have a lot of scope to do better.

3.  70:20:10

Just about all the sessions, I took part in, referenced the 70:20:10 approach at some stage.  It was particularly great to hear this coming through so strongly and practically in a number of case studies in various sessions.   Derek Bruce in ‘Equipping your L&D Team with the Essentials for the Future’ talked about the key values which his organisation worked with around learning – this included ‘365 – learning is everyday’.  And it was mentioned both by Tom Pape of BT and by Steve Mapp and Gary Bellamy of Lloyds Banking Group in their case studies on collaborative learning.

Charles Jennings of course explored it and talked about extending learning into the workplace through two approaches: either adding learning to work; or taking learning from work.

Whilst, this approach has been around for ages, it is still uncommon thinking in most of the organisations with which I have contact with and in my experience not fully bedded into the practice of most L&D professionals.   I think we still have a long way to go to get the full benefits out of this approach as a profession.

4.  Technology is a secondary issue

This was a refreshing note that was sounded on a number of occasions over the event. 

I had deliberately chosen many sessions which explored using technology or digital tools (to use the new preferred terminology), yet even in these sessions, presenters were making it clear that technology should not be a driver.   Jane Hart emphasised people first and foremost.  Lisette Toetenel emphasised that platform and other technology questions were secondary to the issue to what learning do you want learners to experience. 

It is certainly important that we are aware of how technology can be used in L&D and The Open University launched a useful short guide to this during the Show – here’s a link to my review of the report.   And without doubt we need to be addressing the gap in the digital skills of L&D practitioners which was discussed by Laura Overton in ‘Equipping your L&D Team with the Essentials for the Future’.  But it is good to be reminded that technology is just one factor to consider.

5.  Collaboration & cream

My final point from the Show tackles a concern that has often been raised in relation to social and collaborative learning which is the fear ‘what if the wrong information is shared?’.

What was lovely in the sessions involving case studies was to hear this issue raised and robustly answered from practical experience.    We were urged not to over-control what gets shared socially, as ‘cream rises to the top’ and reminded that our colleagues in our organisations are savvy enough to share and recommend what adds value.   A number of speakers were directly asked about the issue of incorrect material being shared and responded in a similar way by saying that if incorrect or misleading information is posted, colleagues are very quick to correct this.  

So, these are my 5 significant points from two days of conference going, Sketchnoting, discussing and reflecting.  If you were there, or participating at a distance via social media, they may not be yours, so why not compare notes and share your impressions.

You may also be interested in a broader curation of material from the Show by the brilliant Ian Pettigrew, which brings together a range of material shared via social media.

Rachel Burnham

15/5/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

So Many Stories

Rachel Burnham writes: Bruising, humiliating, exhausting, baffling and soul-destroying are just some of the phrases I’ve heard used to describe people’s recent experiences of applying for jobs.   I’ve heard so many stories, so many personal experiences of recruitment and selection over the last few months particularly.  And few of them good.  Many of them poor, some of them painful.  And I am sure you’ve heard similar.

There are the sheer numbers of applications that people make and the amount of work that goes into each one – so often to get no response at all, even after being invited in for an interview. Or the slow response – in some cases the     so     very     slow     response.  The organisations that only seem to want to employ someone who has done that exact same job previously.  The questions at interview that are so precise and require you to ‘Tell me about a time when you had to address a member of staff’s repeated lateness on Tuesdays.’  (And they really only seem to be interested in examples that relate to Tuesdays!)  The organisations that start recruiting, then change their mind and then change it back again.  The intrusive questions about personal relationships.   The discriminatory questions about plans for children.  The selection tasks unrelated to the job and with the capacity to discriminate.  And on.  And on.

I’ve been hearing tales of young people being overlooked.  Of older people being overlooked.  And the not so very old too – ie the person speaking is the same age as me! (Whatever happened to ‘you’re as old as you feel’).  People whose experience is a little different – self-employed or gained in a different country or just a little out of the ordinary.   People with a period of sickness; people with a disability who’ve worked & studied all their lives.   Could be anyone of us.

And most of these tales come from people working in HR or L&D.  So they know how the system works.  They kinda understand where the recruiter is coming from.  They may have been faced with similar situations of lots of applications themselves & the challenges this brings.  And still it confuses and still it hurts and still it frustrates. 

It is always right to treat people with courtesy.  It surely is possible to recruit and select and even turn people down, yet leave them feeling valued & appreciated.

So why aren’t we listening?

Why aren’t we doing differently?

Rachel Burnham

11/2/15

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals become even more effective.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.

Follow me on Twitter @BurnhamLandD