Posted on No Comments on Job Crafting

Job Crafting

Job crafting is something I came across at a LUBS Alumni session and I really liked it as a concept.

The idea is that everyone chooses to engage more with parts of their job that give them more satisfaction. Even two people with the same role will have executed it slightly differently. Giving people the scope to customise (within reason) their role to their strengths can increase job satisfaction.

An example might be two people working as receptionists, one is very sociable and finds value talking to people, bonding with colleagues over the front desk, and welcoming visitors. The other likes problem solving and is great at finding solutions for others. They are both valuable staff, and not only will they have job satisfaction from doing the things they excel at, the institution benefits as well.

My dad says about a job “if all of it was enjoyable, they wouldn’t pay you!” and of course there are always parts of a role that you might like less, or find more challenging. However allowing people to craft their role into something that is an even better fit for them, benefits them (improving retention) and benefits the institution by capitalising on each person’s strengths.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on Job Crafting but I may return to add more to this page in future. In the meantime, here’s a few links that might help your understanding:

If you have any experience or knowledge of job crafting that you’d like to share, please comment below.

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Aurora Day 4 – Action Learning Sets

Most of our fourth Aurora day was spent in breakout rooms, but to help us prepare, at the start of the day we were given some guidance and tips about techniques to make the most of the sessions. Action Learning is a problem solving methodology that involves using a structured series of roles, steps and questions to help address the issue that the participant brings to the group. I’m not going to go into full detail about the process as I won’t do it justice, but it was very methodical and process driven.

Perhaps as a result of that, parts of the methodology felt somewhat at odds with more naturalistic group work. Asking questions from a set list felt a little clunky at times and I admit we sometimes tweaked the questions in our group. It was also hard to simply listen whilst the participant answered, and not because we wanted to talk over or digress from the topic, but more that we wanted to reassure and encourage the person. I found I replaced it with a lot of emphatic nodding, and what I hoped were sympathetic facial expressions!

Having the support at the start to say “you might find this bit tricky” was useful as it meant we all knew that it may feel counter-intuitive, but sticking to the format is the way to make the most of the activity.

After the questions came the reflections and action-setting which was rather lovely, as all of our group had supportive and/or complimentary observations for each other when we were feeding back to our participant. It did feel rushed though, with <25 mins per person in total and only 5 minutes for 4 people to sum up and offer advice.

The question list we were given seemed designed to widen your perspective and challenge your mindset. Some were expected – “Who can help?”, “what will you do next?” but others were more surprising. They allowed you to explore things by looking at them in a different way – “What happens if you do nothing?”, “what would you like do be saying about this in 6 months?”, “what would someone you respect do in the circumstances?”.

As we all had the opportunity to ask the questions and to answer them, with minimal interruption, it felt very equitable, with no room for egos. I would have loved more time to reflect, talk about solutions with people (both when on my topic, and on other peoples) and make copious notes on my take-aways.

Whilst it wasn’t really covered in the plenary part of the day, it would have been useful to note how these techniques have been used in a work environment. Reflecting on it now here’s what I can see:

  • Supporting colleagues and mentees – Allowing them to develop solutions themselves and empowering them – after all “you came up with these ideas yourself”
  • Teams needing a solution – asking teams to find a way forward on a stuck issue
  • Self support – Asking yourself these questions when you’re struggling to see a way forward.

Please do respond in the comments if you have any other ideas as to how Action Learning Sets could be used in the workplace.

Posted on No Comments on Aurora Day 3 – Core Leadership

Aurora Day 3 – Core Leadership

The third Aurora session was called Core Leadership which wasn’t very self-explanatory as a title and was a bit of a mystery to me beforehand. However there was some resources in the workbook on values and identity which made me hopeful that it may address some of the gaps on identity that I felt from Day 2. Here are some of the things I noted from the day.

Preparation – I’m really glad that I took time to do the pre-work and look ahead to some of the exercises for this session. The Aurora programme really emphasises that knowing yourself and your values is important in shaping your leadership identity, but I’ve always found this incredibly hard. When I saw the values list and values map in the workbook I decided to give myself a head start, and I made a few attempts at highlighting what’s important to me in different ways. In the session we were given 10 minutes to do the exercise and given that I probably took about two hours in total – I’m glad I did!

Elevator Pitch – The pre-work was to come up with a 30 second “elevator pitch” and I felt that I’d produced an effective pitch for my scenario. My breakout roommates hadn’t prepared a pitch in advance and it seemed that it was much harder to pull something effective together off the cuff.

[Update – In a later conversation with an Auroran, they pointed out that in real life situations, we’re unlikely to have a script ready for every circumstance so in this exercise they chose to note the key points and build their pitch around that. It’s a really good point, and I do sometimes struggle to be succinct and get my point across in spontaneous conversation so perhaps I need to be better practiced in “winging it!”]

In writing my pitch I came up with a simple framework that consisted of Overview / Reasons / Call to Action and it worked well so I might use it in future. Someone in my breakout room said “my passion is x” in their opening sentence which I could see this as a good way to grab people’s attention and get invested in the topic.

Storytelling – Sometimes a real-life example can be more effective than a whole host of facts and figures in getting the core message across. Especially with emotive subjects, it can clarify that these are people’s experiences, not just a collection of data.

Reflection and beyond – Reflection is only one stage in the Kolb Cycle and it’s important to be sure you’re reflecting and not ruminating. Think about what you did, then work out what you’ve learned from that. Plan your next steps and what you might do differently next time. I think I’m getting better at reflecting, but I need to build up the other steps so I can make real changes. I should try and consider how I can do this in a way that makes sense to me.

Finally, identity – You may note that there’s not much here about the identity work that we did in the session, although I did find it useful. Partly I’ve not included that because it’s personal to me and what my values are, but partly it’s because I’m still mulling it over. I do however like the idea of recognising other people’s value drivers to understand their motivations, and I can see how you can use values to help guide your actions. I have some reading that was recommended in the session so will continue to investigate this over the coming weeks.

Posted on No Comments on Aurora Reflections – Leaning into Imposter Syndrome

Aurora Reflections – Leaning into Imposter Syndrome

Our guest speaker on day 2 of Aurora was Melanie Eusebe MBE – a great speaker who had a really engaging style. She had three points for us (which I won’t spoil for future Aurorans), which included a suggestion that if we’re feeling imposter syndrome then we may need to see this as a challenge that will develop us further.

I have heard the “fake it ’til you make it” approach to imposter syndrome before, and also how important it is to speak up to help others understand that we all have these concerns. Melanie’s suggestion that we use it as a development tool was a new one to me, and as I thought more about it, I realised that leaning into imposter syndrome does several things:

Helps us identify our strengths

Imposter syndrome is about feeling that we can’t do things that we can actually do. Some of those things are well within our grasp (it’s just a pesky internal voice telling us we’re not good enough) but there are also things that are more difficult but still achievable. If we never stretch ourselves, we will struggle to tell the difference between a self-sabotaging “you can’t do this” voice when we are capable, and a natural caution we feel in trying something new.

If we regularly move outside of our comfort zone into things that are more of a challenge for us, we should begin to identify the difference between the sabotaging voice and the cautious voice. When we can reliably recognise the voice that tells us we’re not good enough, we can start to understand that these things aren’t our weaknesses, and might actually be some of our strengths.

Helps us find and target our challenges

Imposter syndrome flags when we think we’re not so good at something and we can use this to examine our fears more closely. Being able to identify the difference between the sabotaging voice (when we’re doing an activity that’s within our abilities – see above), and the cautious voice (when we’re stretching ourselves) can help us set aside the unhelpful noise and concentrate our efforts on where we can actually improve. When we recognise that we are being sensibly cautious about something, we can then target it with preparation, training or other tools.

Helps us feel more used to that discomfort

Using imposter syndrome to help us develop, isn’t about going completely out of our depth immediately. We should think about it more as building up our resilience to the feelings that we have around challenging work. As we push ourselves towards bigger challenges we’re going to feel uncomfortable, but being familiar with the sensation, and recognising that in ourselves will make it less troublesome.

After just two jobs in 18 years at the University, I felt very much out of my depth in my first few weeks in my new team. I began to panic that I’d made the wrong move and that I wasn’t suited to the role. It was only when speaking to friends and family (who had all moved jobs more frequently than I) did I learn that these feelings were normal and that I should expect to feel that way for at least 6 months. If I’d had more experience of pushing myself into new roles, then I would have understood that these feelings were normal, and worried a lot less!

So it is possible to harness the discomfort around imposter syndrome in ways that can help us build skills and improve our practice. Start by examining it, discarding the noise, listen to what it’s telling you about the real challenges you’re currently facing, and get used to the sensation. That we can see pushing ourselves as a positive challenge to embrace, rather than an uncomfortable one to be avoided.

Posted on No Comments on Aurora Day 2 – Identity, Impact and Voice

Aurora Day 2 – Identity, Impact and Voice

This was the first full-day Aurora session, officially running from 10-3 but with additional questions running until 3.30.

The session is entitled Identity, Impact and Voice. The pre-work was very much focused on identity (which is something that I’d like to develop) and examples of good practice that we’d seen in our institutions and I was excited to discuss these. Unfortunately there wasn’t much on these topics. It felt like a lot of the pre-work wasn’t relevant to the session, and we weren’t asked to reflect on what we’d prepared.

However there was plenty of helpful advice on presenting yourself well through video and through use of your voice and we were given some brief breakout room opportunities to try good and bad practice. The lead presenter was obviously well experienced in delivering on this sort of training.

Some of the takeaways that I found useful:

  • Sometimes you may be leading on something that you hadn’t realised. The presenter gave an example whereby a person who organised a charity run event, didn’t see that she was acting as a leader on it. She brought lots of people onboard to the idea, lead with a vision of it being a family friendly and alcohol free event which she was able to engage others in this idea. She felt that she didn’t do much of the organising of the peripheral parts, but she had actually aligned others with her vision and they had also got behind the event which was leadership.
  • Leadership and Management can be seen as different. Generally management is more practical, whilst leadership is more strategic. However vision on strategy needs to be backed up with practical actions or it doesn’t go anywhere.
  • Eye contact is important when presenting – but do it carefully. Neurodiverse people can find eye contact distracting or uncomfortable. Online it can be faked through camera positioning, but in person it’s best to find one or two people who return your eye contact and build rapport with them.
  • Projection of self worth can be delivered through Stillness / Stance / Speed / Space
    • Calm measured voice – taking time to pause for people to absorb what you’re saying
    • Purposeful delivery – Not apologetic or too self deprecating – you have a right to speak
    • Still and confident in body language – with eye contact
  • Managing interruptions – Act as an ally for the interrupted, look away from the interrupter, put own hand up to indicate that you’ve not finished. We should also be conscious of own actions, especially with regard to contributors from minority groups – amplify their voices.

I also enjoyed the guest speaker and I’ve written about some of my reflections on Melanie Eusebe’s talk in a separate post.

Although this session wasn’t quite what I’d expected, there were still some useful ideas to take away. I’m hoping the next session on Core Leadership will develop on some of the less explored ideas a bit more…

Posted on No Comments on Aurora Reflections – Leadership and visibility

Aurora Reflections – Leadership and visibility

The guest speaker for my first Aurora session – Sally Jackson, said that the best piece of advice she had been given was “Be less available and more visible”. In our brief breakout session afterwards we talked about how this was a very powerful statement and what it might mean on different levels. A piece of Sally’s own advice was how you should try to align your values and beliefs with your actions and your institution’s actions to ensure that you feel authentic. After the session I found myself reflecting on both of these more and how they relate to one another.

Safeguarding your time – Not just ensuring you have the time you need to do your work but also to ensure you’re working on the right things. The things that align with your values and that you want to be visible for, are the ones you should be aiming to achieve.

Less available ≠ unavailable – Our speaker pointed out that she really values helping others but she realised that her open-door policy for her team didn’t allow her to do the work she needed. I will try to consider how I ensure that I’m present for those that need it, without it being detrimental to my own focus and workload.

Leadership = visibility – Discussing the difference between leadership and management one Auroran said “you can follow a leader, but you can’t follow a manager”. It highlighted that leadership often means a more visionary status, although our facilitator rejected that these were inherently different. However what it did raise in my mind was that you can’t be followed if people don’t see you.

The nature of roles in a university means that the higher you are, the more visible you become. You are asked to talk to or work with more colleagues, other teams, or even other institutions, and your profile is raised. As a result, working towards goals that match your values and beliefs becomes even more important. That authenticity allows you to confidently own your actions and making you more comfortable with your visibility.

Leadership on the small things – Whilst we’d all love to be a beacon of authenticity with noble and strategically important goals, reality is often more mundane. For those of us who aren’t in positions of leadership currently – How do we embrace small goals in a way that aligns with our values and beliefs? Especially when we perhaps don’t get to pick and choose our activities.

If I think of a task that my colleagues and I might be given – producing a instructional guide – I know that the way we approach it will be dependant on different factors: skills, circumstances, but also our internal priorities. One person might prioritise the aesthetic – adding visually appealing graphics. Someone else might who value linguistic qualities would want to ensure the piece is written in very clear English with precise grammar. Another person might value efficiency, and push for the work to be delivered as quickly as they can. All will (hopefully!) produce a guide to an acceptable standard and in most cases, no single way is “right”. Instead the output reflects the skills and priorities of that person.

I can see that even in these smaller tasks, understanding your values will allow you to produce work that you are proud of. If I know I am good at collaborating – I might be pleased that a guide is the work of several people. Working to your strengths and values could mean that you are more confident* in relaying what you’ve done, you talk more openly about your work and are remembered for it. As a result, you might attract people who value the same elements as you, and offer more opportunities. All these would also make you more visible in your area of expertise, increasing your leadership potential.

Having written all this down, it feels sensible and obvious. Unfortunately for me, it requires an understanding of self and values that doesn’t come easy to me. I hope that future Aurora sessions (and this blog) will help me grasp the ephemeral topic of my personal values and begin to work out which are the most important to me.


*as a slight aside, this shows how the fake-it-til-you-make-it approach might work, as you’re injecting the faux confidence at this point, and everything else comes from the confidence, rather than necessarily the task itself.

Posted on No Comments on Aurora Day 1 – The Introduction

Aurora Day 1 – The Introduction

Today was my first official Aurora session. A half day introduction to the program with a guest speaker and a couple of short breakout sessions. It was well managed, with a slight issue that no-one had been sent an invite to the Connect network (Advance HE’s networking site) so some people were perhaps a bit over-eager in setting up WhatsApp groups for discussion.

Here are some thoughts I had about the introductory session (in no particular order):

  • 10 minutes in our breakout rooms of 3-4 people didn’t feel like enough to chat through the topics in a natural way. Might need to be a bit more efficient in future, especially if sessions are just the same length of time.
  • The Personal Development plan was much discussed, but I hadn’t really seen a template or anything in the Workbook other than a few short sentences recommending that we set one up. I’m not sure if I missed anything here.
  • The people I met were all lovely and it was interesting to hear how different institutions are implementing Aurora.
  • I’m debating whether to join any of the WhatsApp groups as I think it’s better to have work/home separation. I also think that I might struggle with processing things in the chat, when not actually in Aurora mode. I’ve made a note of the links in case I change my mind.
  • The guest speaker (Sally Jackson) really resonated with people and I took away some interesting things to reflect back on, the core one which was the best advice she’d been given which was “Be less available and more visible” which I’ve since reflected on further.
  • The facilitator was very enthusiastic and managed the session well. I’d have liked to have seen a little more drawing out of things the guest speaker said, and asking for more tangible advice that people could implement.
  • I had to mute the chat as I wasn’t able to concentrate on the speakers when also reading through people’s posts. I found it difficult when distractions came up to pick up what was being talked about. As the session isn’t recorded and the chat isn’t retained it felt like I was missing out on some things – I’m going to have to learn to let that go. I’m glad it was an introduction and we can each work out what works for us as delegates ahead of the full day sessions.
  • The guest speaker acknowledged that not everyone’s goal is to rise ever higher and it was nice to have that recognised.
Posted on No Comments on Meeting my Aurora Mentor

Meeting my Aurora Mentor

A courtyard cafe overlooked by an ornate building of red brick and yellow sandstone. The tables are empty, the sky is overcast and a wall of ivy sits at the far end of the courtyard.

I recently attended an Aurora social and there was some discussion around the awkwardness of meeting your assigned mentor for the first time. Reaching out and hoping they respond, then hoping you get on, and that you can picture yourself working with them. Even if all is well, there can be an sheepish “shall we do this again?” moment where you both commit to the mentor/mentee relationship.

Having heard from other Aurorans about this, naturally I was a little nervous when I met with my Aurora mentor yesterday for the first time. Our meeting was complicated by the fact that I had been around someone with a cold and (whilst feeling fine) I was worried I might pass something on. I masked up, and we met in a campus café near to her office.

I needn’t have worried. My mentor was lovely and whilst our conversation was a little silted at first, that felt like any getting-to-know-you phase. We talked about our career journeys, and I voiced some of the concerns that had been worrying me about my (lack of) career plan. Even in this initial meeting she offered reassurance and some useful tips on ways to develop, without having a bigger plan in place. By the end it felt like she understood my motivations and career concerns and was looking forward to helping me explore some possible solutions.

Ahead of the session I had looked at the Mentor resources provided by Aurora and was worried that if we’d needed to go through these, then it’d have been a very abrupt conversation and I’d not know how to succinctly answer many of the questions! I’d find it hard to discuss in a one hour meeting such big questions as “What is the role of challenge, honesty and amount of disclosure that is appropriate and relevant?”

The many questions were grouped by four themes and whilst we may not have discussed things explicitly like the nature of confidentiality, we did cover all of the themes to a certain extent.

  • Personal – Build rapport by introducing yourself and gain an understanding of the background of the mentee.
  • Professional – Discuss the roles and responsibilities for both mentor and mentee. Define the scope of the relationship.
  • Procedural – Define and agree expectations for meetings, paperwork and timings.
  • Psychological – Discuss how you can best work together. Agree rules of confidentiality, giving feedback and how sessions will run.

I’m somewhat sceptical of the advice to follow that structure. Whilst I understand that the drawing of clear boundaries is obviously something that is beneficial to both parties, it does feel somewhat forced. Perhaps it’s something that if we practice will become more normalised, but until then, I’m happy for these things to evolve in a more naturalistic way. I’m already looking forward to meeting with my mentor again, both to reflect on my career plan and on the Aurora sessions.

Posted on 2 Comments on Starting my Aurora Journey – Lost in the Woods

Starting my Aurora Journey – Lost in the Woods

Green aurora borealis streak across a dark sky. In the foreground snow is on the uneven ground and tall trees circle the viewer.
Green aurora borealis streak across a dark sky. In the foreground, snow is on the uneven ground and tall trees circle the viewer.

In searching for an image for this post I realised that the above picture represents something about how I have often felt about my career journey. I’m in my role, without much of an idea about how I proceed. There’s no path, lots of obstructions in my way and I can’t see the wood for the trees.

I was in my previous role for a long time and I was very settled in it. When I moved into my current team, the feeling of instability – not knowing what I was doing, new people and systems to navigate – really rattled me. I was doubting myself and my abilities. Talking about this with friends and family I discovered that the phase of not knowing what you’re doing was really normal for a new role. I’d been so settled for over a decade, that this uncertainty was deeply uncomfortable. It really made me appreciate feeling established in a role.

I learned other things about myself during that time. One of which was I realised that having “sight” of a team, what they do, who they are, and their values, was really important to me in terms of making the leap away from the “safety” of my existing team. I wanted to understand what I was getting myself in for, before committing.

This new job also brought a clear progression through the organisational structure. In my early days in the team, several people told me that they could see me in the more senior role of Systems Lead but I didn’t feel ready. As I reflect on it now, I can see two reasons for this: not having settled in my new role fully, and also not having the “sight” of what that Systems Lead role required. It was only when I had stability in where I was, AND a better understanding of where I was going, did I feel like I could take that step. I realise now that these two factors are important for me to progress.

Last year I interviewed for a Systems Lead role but that uncertainty was still there. I was incredibly nervous for various reasons and whilst I was appointable, I didn’t get the role. Coming out of the other side was tough as well. I felt like I’d let others down who believed in my abilities, that I wasn’t good enough to do the more strategic activity that the role required.

I applied for Aurora before I applied for the promotion, but I find myself in a similar place – Uncertain if this is what I want for myself, uncertain if I can do a more senior job justice and uncertain how to get there anyway. As I now know, I need stable ground to jump off from, and a clear sight of where I’m aiming for, before I feel able to move.

In that forest of tall trees and uneven ground I’m hoping that Aurora can light my way.