Friday Thoughts with Lucy

Work, people, change and whatever else has caught my attention this week.

Eight Ideas in Eight Minutes. What Could Possibly Go Wrong

We've got a storm heading towards Devon as I write this, so I'm hoping everything stays where it's supposed to be!

It's been another busy week, although I did something rather unusual. I cancelled some networking events to concentrate on client work. When you're running a business, there's always another opportunity to explore, another person to meet or something else you could be doing. Sometimes the difficult decision is choosing what not to do.

I've also been investing in myself through a leadership course, where this week we've been exploring innovation. My favourite activity was something called Crazy Eights (hence the title of this newsletter).

Eight minutes to come up with eight different ideas to solve a problem. No worrying about whether they're brilliant, practical or completely ridiculous. Just get them out of your head and onto paper.

As someone with a rather busy brain, this is my kind of exercise! Although I suspect my biggest challenge might be stopping at eight - not going to lie I wanted to go on to 16.

What I loved was the freedom to explore possibilities before deciding what might actually work. So often we jump straight to the first reasonable solution without considering what else might be possible.

And it's something I'm already bringing into our work at Inclusive Change.

From talking about decisions to practising them

We've been developing DECID:R, our immersive decision-making experience, and I'm now bringing it into our manager workshops.

We can now offer interactive reasonable adjustment decision-making workshops giving managers the opportunity to work through realistic situations, explore different options and consider the consequences of their decisions.

Because knowing what a reasonable adjustment is and actually deciding what to do when faced with a complicated workplace situation are two very different things.

It's one thing to sit through training about inclusion. It's another to be presented with a situation where there isn't an obvious answer, colleagues have different opinions and you need to make a decision.

That's where I think learning becomes much more interesting.

And sometimes success is simply being able to keep going

This week one of our mentors shared some feedback from a young adult we've been supporting with weekly mentoring.

Before working with Inclusive Change, they said:

"I didn't really feel like I could achieve anything. Work seemed too scary and unobtainable at the time."

Now they say:

"I feel like I can sustain what I am currently doing. Keep up the consistency with my current workload and could potentially take on more. I am more aware of my limitations and don't feel afraid to speak up for myself in professional environments."

I cried when I read that - it summarises so much of why I set out to build Inclusive Change 7 years ago and I am so proud of our team and the person who shared that.

We talk a lot about innovation, development and progression. But sometimes the most meaningful outcome isn't about someone achieving more and more.

It's about helping them feel confident enough to sustain what they're already doing, understand what they need and speak up when something isn't working. For someone who once felt employment was completely out of reach, that's a significant change.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway is that innovation doesn't always have to mean inventing something completely new. Sometimes it's about changing how we learn, how we make decisions or how we support someone to succeed.

And sometimes, of course, it's about having eight ideas in eight minutes and then working out which one is actually worth pursuing!

Have a lovely weekend, and stay safe if the storm is heading your way.

Lucy

P.S. If you would like to find out about our mentoring options at Inclusive Change take a look at what we do here? https://inclusivechange.co.uk/mentoring