Photo: Jane and Hormoz with Jane's lip speakers, Laura Bradbury and Tony Redshaw
Have you noticed that life is getting busier and also seems to be speeding up? It͛s interesting whether this is due to the impact of ever-more-efficient technology encouraging us to do, read and think more and somehow pack more in to each day. But whatever the reason, the pace of life means that time out to really think deeply is even more valuable. We were lucky to have this in August when, prompted by our wise Advisory Panel, we arranged an away day.
The estate agents are right: location is important! So we were delighted that our choice of youth charity, Anderton Centre, for our away day was every bit as peaceful and calm as we had hoped. It͛s beautiful lake is a 2-minute stroll from the main building – just what you need to clear your head!
We had decided on some loose questions we wanted to answer during the day and also drew on the Social Business Canvas at some points. But the freedom to ͚talk big͛ and share ideas, rather than needing to focus on one project anddetails, meant the discussion flowed easily.
Many of the ideas will take work and time to develop. Businesses and organisations often jealously guard their ideas (for good reasons) but we advocate openness at Result CIC and are in the business of encouraging others to be fully themselves. So in that spirit, here are some things which emerged:
- Our work creates what we decided to call an ͚upward spiral͛ of activity, starting with individuals discovering their self-belief and ending with cultural and organisational change (which in turn starts a further upward spiral via new diverse role models). Watch this space for more on this!
- We could (and will!) describe more clearly the type of benefits which organisations experience when they support their minority and more excluded staff using our support. This relates to things such as better use of skills, lower attrition (leaving work), increased confidence, getting more diverse voices heard which leads to higher quality feedback and more innovative ideas and solutions to problems.
- Longer term we want to develop in the right way – which enables us to practise what we ͚preach͛ (we try not to preach as coaches!) - stay well, be able to work calmly, listen well and enjoy what we do. We do plan, with these provisos, to try to benefit more excluded people from even further afield – including possibly outside the UK.
- A new area we are already starting to explore is so-called 'intersectionality'– which means people with multi-layered minority experience. It is really useful to offer groups such as disabled staff, BAME or LGBT staff specific training. And we think there will also be good value in bringing together groups which combine these characteristics and/or identifying people who share characteristics. An example of this is our Sickle Cell project.
We came home from our away day feeling positive, energised and enthusiastic about the future. We hope it lasts at least until the next away day!
Result CIC thrives on partnerships and working together so do send us any ideas which this blog inspires.
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