Category: Leadership Insights

Day 31

Day 31

I walked to the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Cenotaph at the front which felt right on Anzac Day. There were three or four wreaths laid, one by the Museum and another the Mayor of Auckland. For Anzac Day it was extraordinarily quiet, but a few people were milling around, reflecting.  A father and son were flying a kite which looked like the flag of Thailand, although on closer inspection, the father was doing it all.

The Domain – Pukekawa – is Auckland’s oldest park and consists of 75 hectares and includes the Museum and Cenotaph, Wintergarden, Cricket Pavilion, Duck Ponds replete with Auckland Acclimatisation Society plaque. These are the societies we can thank for ferrets, weasels and rabbits being formally introduced into New Zealand. Pukekawa is one of the oldest Volcanoes in the Volcanic field, at 100,000 years old. It was fresh – almost Spring-like today – and it made for a very good walking loop with a slightly sore leg still.

anzac
Auckland War Memorial Museum and Cenotaph on ANZAC Day 2020

On the second part of my walk, up Mt Hobson, I had a chat to Dad who said he’d stood at the letterbox at 6am, heard the Last Post loud and clear and was now preparing a photo montage for Mum’s birthday. Mum has jokingly said that they’re going to their favourite restaurant, but it’ll just be the two of them and Dad reckons the special crockery is coming out!

This is our last weekend in Lockdown Level 4 and the traffic has already started building, somehow in anticipation of Level 3 on Tuesday. That will be a big step back to the new norm, as many more workers can restart and construction can recommence. It’s got to be an ideal time to advance all the projects in Auckland CBD, with minimal traffic and pedestrians to deal with.

It’s occurred to me today that the reality of working from home for me is probably several more months. The logistics of social distancing in a high rise with elevators is going to make it really challenging. So I’m gearing up for the long haul. Part of that will be finding new television series to keep this routine going!

Jerry Seinfeld has a new series starting in May, although I’m not sure if that is NZ – 23 Hours to Kill and it seems to derive inspiration from James Bond. All my best things all in one show!  In a 2017 HBR interview Seinfeld was asked if humour was effective as a leadership tool: “Being funny is one of the ultimate weapons a person can have in human society. It might even compete with being really good-looking.“

Humour has a really important role in leadership. Some people mistake humour as hiding or a cover for something. It can be, but it’s actually really serious business. You can’t be anxious and laugh at the same time, and it’s a great way to break conflict. And a lot of what goes on in business is funny. Even the Elevator rules (well the old ones) – face the door, stare at your phone, don’t talk. But I better stop there – that’s for another day as to write some truths about the things I think are funny in business this late at night, is something I might regret!

Happy Birthday Mum, the ‘rona kept me away.

Stephen

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Day 30

Day 30

It’s almost as good as a trip to Europe – Paris and London – replete with car chases, the main scenic attractions, historical buildings. Your film, should you decide to accept it on a Friday Night – Mission Impossible-Fallout. It’s a big film, non-stop action, appropriately big plot – Nuclear bombs to be detonated at three religious sites – and bonus, scenes filmed gloriously in the Southern Alps of the South Island. A helicopter chase through the mountains and valleys – borrowed partly from Bond’s Spectre opening scene – but much more too, and like the best promo for New Zealand tourism.

Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, South Island, New Zealand
Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, South Island, New Zealand

There’s talk we might have a “bubble” with Australia. That would be a great start to get trading and tourism kick started. It would also be a great lifting up of the ANZAC spirit. Relations at a political level with Australia have been under strain recently.  It would be the ideal ANZAC announcement. Two great friends as one.

They’ll be no ANZAC parades but we’ve been told to stand by our letter boxes as a mark of respect in the morning. It’s one of the few times we can feel united in the horrors of wars fought in the past by mostly young men – just boys really – who sacrificed their lives, mostly unknowingly until the end, to create a better world. It’s easy to think the world isn’t a better place – there’s plenty wrong, but there’s also plenty that’s right.

I’m not sure if standing by the letterbox does it for me in an apartment with a panel of letterboxes by the main entrance. On the way into the lift I’ll hit “G” say “At the” and the lift will give it’s sober “going down” and I’ll say “of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them.”  I think this almost every time I get in the lift, it’s the way the lift voice says it, so now’s my chance to bring the whole building into thoughts I’ve had for ages.

And I really do think about those sacrifices and hope that once again we can make some good by rebuilding the ANZAC nation back. My paternal grandmother born in Tasmania in 1902, also on a 13th, would be proud of the thought. She’d also smile at the lift sequence. She’d know I meant no disrespect, which I don’t.

So maybe COVID-19 can be an ANZAC force for good.

Stephen

Victor and Ellen Drain 1928

Day 29

Day 29

Victor Harris was one of my best friends at Linwood Avenue School. I remember coming back from an “after school” visit to Victor’s house and telling Mum that Mrs Harris had told me she was only 29. I remember Mum laughing out loud. It wasn’t until years later that I understood what she thought was so funny. But it stuck with me, the 29.

Linwood Avenue School was the former school of Norman Kirk – “Big Norm”, prime minister for just under two years until he had a heart attack and died in office, aged 51. We were so enamoured with Mr Kirk at school during his premiership, that the class wrote to him, suggesting that we should have a holiday on his birthday. He wrote a lovely letter back to “Room 4”, or whatever it was, saying he was very touched by the idea, and that given his birthday was on 6 January during the school holidays, we didn’t need an additional holiday!

Twenty-nine and fifty one.  Both sound pretty young to me now. When Victor was thirteen, out on a boys’ weekend with his father, cousin and other friends walking along a river in North Canterbury, a rock came down from the cliff above and killed him.

I’ve never forgotten Victor and certain things make me think of him. School children rugby, his birthday, the Hurunui River and sometimes, 29.

It’s very easy to become self-absorbed in your own everyday problems. Right now there are plenty and I’ve spoken of many of these, and some of my frustrations too, about the current situation we find ourselves in.

But I think it’s important to remember what we have too. There are plenty of people with big challenges flowing from the economic shutdown, but I’m determined to count my blessings from a pretty full life, and not really being in need of anything, in relative terms.

Feeling grateful.

Stephen

Day 28

Day 28

It should have been the final chapter. Really. But not quite. It’s a few more days only including our second long weekend of the Lockdown. So not only have we been in Lockdown we’ve had two precious long weekends in the year taken from us although Easter was actually ok for me. First world problems really!

It was a very busy day at work and I’ve done something to my Iliotibial band which has slowed up my walking. People tell me that I need to get a golf ball into it and roll over it!

It’s felt like routine hard day of work today, without any real break. One thing I like about the work at home is when I have a break I can just lie on the couch – or bed, don’t tell anyone – catch up on the news, relax, then back at it. It’s one of the things you don’t have at work. Well I don’t although in days gone by I’ve been to offices where people have couches. Mostly before a financial crisis!

So as we get ready to come out of Lockdown, what happens? For knowledge workers, not much as far as work goes, although you can visit clients in certain circumstances. Speaking of first world problems you can have a cleaner again – but get out of the house while they do their business – you can buy takeaways and takeaway coffee, and take a car for a test drive, contactless (with the salesperson I assume).

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After two or three weeks we’ll be out of Level 3 and most people can get back to normal working. I’ve been thinking about what it is that I will capture and hold going back to normal life.  Not working in the evenings or weekends combined with more structure during the days – I’ve discovered these two things are strongly related. Staying in touch with more people – geography has had less meaning and we talk on video all the time now. Has the age of the video phone finally arrived after 20 years of false starts?

We had another COVID-19 related death today from the Christchurch Resthome making for a total of 14. There’s now 2 people only in ICU and 401 active cases. Globally these are very low numbers and really, we can say that the pandemic has not arrived, didn’t arrive, and we desperately need to start focussing on economic and social recovery.

One of my three readers told me today that he was impressed that every day I get up with a new blog. I’m worried about the remaining days. I wonder if I’ve run out of steam. Can I come up with something for five more days!

Four weeks, we did it, it felt like a long way off on 25 March, but we got there. For some people the economics have been enormously challenging: jobs lost, prospects derailed, plans upset, businesses shuttered and the entire international tourism sector gone.

We can recover. I’ve lived through quite a few big crises – the average person didn’t know the crisis was upon us until it was well underway. For many people, especially pre-Kiwisaver, the stock market was a remote and distant construct. But this time the pace of movement into crisis has been virtually overnight. We even know the night – 25 March 2020. Which is a great start to get moving and rebuild.

I’m quite optimistic that we’re move quickly into recovery and rebuild. I admit to even being a little excited about it all. I’ll do my bit where I can. The next chapter.

Stephen