so long, northern facilitators... (the end has come, but the moment has been prepared for)

4 years ago, I accidentally found myself starting to host an monthly gathering of people who shared professional interest and roles in facilitation, and as facilitators.

It was only supposed to be for fellow facilitators in the Manchester area, and it was only supposed to be for a year or two.

But somehow, 4 years on, I only find myself only now 'signing out' of this role for the last time, having brokered links between facilitators around the world...

(maybe some background at this point would be helpful): 

I've been aware of, and involved with, the International Association of Facilitators for many years - and am part of the leadership team for the England and Wales 'chapter' of this body.

4 years ago, I asked the question "how can I find out if there are any fellow facilitators in my area, to swap stories with, and for a bit of mutual peer support and encouragement?" and learnt of the informal practice of #iafmeetup: you simply pick a venue, a day and a time, and then put an announcement out to see who turns up: not just IAF members, but anyone who feels that they may be a part of/interested in becoming more involved in, a community of facilitators.

At that point (2019) they'd been popping up all over the country, and always with the same format - an informal drop in for anyone in the neighbourhood who was free for about an hour, to chew over current things we were thinking about.

Now, most people will know that I like to try out new things, and challenge accepted norms where I can: so I introduced some changes to the format when we ran it in Manchester: 

• we starting running the drop-ins for 90 mins - in recognition that travel time for people to get to a venue in Manchester wasn't always quick or easy, so the time they would get from being part of the conversation needed to be meaningful enough to help them justify the travel time.
• we moved out of cafes, and into a library (the Portico), to reduce distractions to our conversations, and also increase the chances of having comfy seats.
• we introduced the idea of alternate meetups having a specific focus: to offer a space for more structured learning and development of our skills.

And it started to go well - word got out, more people starting coming along, and the library were keen to keep hosting us (they have a kitchen on site with a great range of cakes!)   

And then someone on the other side of the world sneezed and our lives contracted to the size of our laptop screens.

I recognised how important these meetups would be for facilitators in my area, in allowing us ways to maintain contact and encouragement in the face of turbulence and uncertainty. All my fellow #iafmeetup hosts around the country were coming to the same conclusion, so we all moved out of our libraries and cafes, and into zoom rooms.

For various reasons, I found myself being quickly approached by other #iafmeetup hosts across the North of England, asking if they could 'merge' with us - possibly largely in recognition that I'd been using zoom a bit in previous years, so seemed to have some idea of how to make this format best work for people. And then equally as quickly, I found myself the 'last host standing' out of all of us in the North - but, in recognising how valuable people who were clicking in were finding the calls, persevered in continuing to offer my time to set up the calls and facilitate them in way of showing solidarity.

And looking back over this early pandemic period, I realise just how forward thinking we were being as a body of practitioners - in our first on-line gathering, we were already considering what the long term impacts of the pandemic might be in transforming the norms of facilitation practice:

Over this period, you may have seen various social media posts where I've shared some of the more unusual and entertaining topics we've discussed and shared stories around. We've also continued the habit of having specific themes to explore together - most of which I've written up notes from, and shared on my blog and elsewhere:

• how to facilitate people who don't want to be in the room (2019)
• how different physical spaces affects facilitation (2020)
• facilitation vs training (2020)
• northern facilitators vs UK facilitators - what the research shows (2020)
• getting ready for hybrid facilitation (2021)
• winning clients (2022)
• the impact of faith in/on facilitation (2022)
  
  

And over this period, as we've been meeting on-line, we've also been joined by facilitators from the North of other countries around the world too, as word about the Northern facilitators of England has spread...  

This period has also been an age of the group 'selfie with props' - a tradition that people have seemed to increasingly look forward to as one of the highlights of the experience:

 

But now it's over. Today is the last 'Northern #iafmeetup' that I'll host.

I've not stopped hosting this group because I've had enough of my fellow facilitators, but rather because as IAF England and Wales, we've been re-thinking what we do, how, and why - and as part of this we feel it would be prudent to rationalise the on-line meetups to a monthly event (as it was before 2020). This will also see a wider group of people facilitating these calls to widen experiences and opportunities. Which means that I may be making guest hosting appearances in the future...!

If you were ever part of a Manchester/Northern #iafmeetup call over the last 4 years - thank you for turning up and sharing your time (and props!). I hope you took things from the conversations that were by turn encouraging, constructive, and challenging; in helping to enhance your skills and confidence both as a facilitator, and a fellow human being.

Hopefully I'll see you all again at some point in the future #iafmeetup calls (you can check out the dates and booking links over on eventbrite) - so while this is an end of sorts, the moment has been prepared for, so that there'll be a continuation of them in a new form...

"I couldn't tell who was in the room, and who was on zoom.."

Last weekend, I was part of supporting a hybrid conference - which was about how we 'do' hybrid (hope that's not too meta of a concept to open a blog post with?)

As a facilitator who's part of the IAF England & Wales team, earlier this year we were considering how to re-assert ourselves as a body of practitioners, and also re-spark our community of facilitators, after being without our customary annual conference for the last 2 years (Covid, and all that). 

Someone (possibly me) suggested that we do it as a hybrid event - giving us the chance to share, try out, and learn from others how we do events where people are both 'roomies' and 'zoomies'. 

And while there's lots of other posts people are making about their experiences of it across social media, expressing how having it as hybrid was far more enjoyable and engaging than many were fearful it would be otherwise, I wanted to pause to reflect on my experience of leading a session about how we do networking in hybrid ways.

Given that we all know (in theory) how to do networking in person, and we've started to feel our way with it on-line in breakout rooms, etc over the last 2 years of pandemic, I wanted to try out the notion of doing it 'hybrid' - where the people networking together are both on-line and in a room at the same time.

I also wanted to explore some of what each side felt like they were missing out on, in not being in the others' physical/virtual space. 

So, as part of the session, I posed a flipped question to both groups - what did zoomies feel they were missing out on, by not being in the room; and what did the roomies feel they were missing out on by not being a zoomie.

Interesting, there were lots of frustrations and FOMOs expressed on both sides, but in 'headline':

- if you're on-line in a hybrid event, you miss the spontaneity and potential for physical contact with other human beings;

- if you're in the room at a hybrid event, you can feel more vulnerable and at risk from not having access to your usual home comforts, and having less recourse to being able to 'get out' if you feel they need to.

  

So - some good learning that highlights that not everyone is keen to rush back to doing everything in person (or if we are, we need some careful considerations). 

And there was also lots of other great learning throughout the conference about the realities and practicalities of both managing, and being part of, hybrid events.

(SPOILER: despite our not spending any money on tech, and the venue not being set up for hybrid, we managed to lash-up makeshift roving cameras and mics in ways that impressed everyone both on and off line, showing that it doesn't have to be that technically difficult).

But for me, the key message from my session wasn't about how to run hybrid networking in a tech way, but in how I approached it as a facilitator in recognising that there were 2 groups of people with different different starting/engagement points.

Encouragingly, how I planned the session and facilitated the networking seemed to work really well for people, with comments being made afterwards such as:

- "this experience has made me more confident about doing things in a hybrid way"

- "when we were doing the networking, I hadn't realised who was in the room/on zoom until afterwards!"

So for anyone who's either planning, or thinking about being part of, a hybrid event - my takeaway would be this: as important as it is to get the tech doing the things you need/want it to, it's just as important to also think and plan how you're going to structure the sessions and activities within it to help everyone feel part of it, regardless of how they're joining it.

the great resignation, being pushed, and becoming superheroes

There seems to a growing awareness of a movement that's come to be known as "the great resignation" - Covid and the pandemic have forced people to re-examine of what they were doing almost automatically in their lives, and many are finding that they're unhappy with what's become their lot, and are spurring themselves to change that. Mainly by quitting the jobs that currently leave them unfulfilled to pursue hopes and dreams that will better feed their souls.

And it got me thinking about our origin stories as freelancers and entrepreneurs.

Usually, when people share them, they seem to echo the current 'great resignation' - people "felt the fear, but did it anyway" and heroically quit their jobs to pursue their dream. (and research studies like this one from theRSA re-enforce this)

But, as usual, my origin story isn't in keeping with this typical narrative. (TL:DR = relocated my family to the other end of the country in a pre iphone age to find said job didn't exist, and the first work I could find to allow my family to remain housed and fed meant I was forced to go freelance).

And it's made me wonder about if we should all try and be a little more honest about where we've come from (especially if it's not from what seems to be the usual position of having savings, a partner still salaried, and clients already confirmed, before jumping off an otherwise dependable monthly payroll). The point of which would be to better challenge stereotypes and misconception, and encourage others who might otherwise think that they haven't 'got what it takes', and subsequently live a live of regret and missed opportunity for themselves and those around them.

And the actual research out there also seems to encourage this: theRSA's "salvation in a startup" found that there's actually a far wider range of motivations in play for those of  us who find ourselves self-employed than might be otherwise first imagined:

Might it also also make us more like the superheroes we always wanted to be when we were kids (although some might say that if you're part of the Freelance Heroes community, you're half-way there already!) - because we remember and know who the likes of Spiderman and Batman are in large part because we know what their origin stories are...?

the dilemma of reverting to my pre-pandemic business model of digital by default

In 2018 I made a deliberate choice to try and move to a 'digital by default' model for how I delivered all my work - which meant that when the lockdowns that defined 2020 came, I had something of a head start (which may be why so many bodies sought my support in helping them move all their delivery models to a similar on-line format).

And there were several reasons for this choice I made several years ago:

1. 
   it helped my desire to try to better manage / reduce my environmental impact, by reducing the amount of travel I needed to do (and although I've always prioritised public transport where possible for business travel, even trains and buses create pollution of sorts).
2. it meant I could increase my productivity by not having to factor in travel time to/from clients (and not needing to find ways to cover that time - after all, I'm not salaried), meaning that I'd be able to offer better 'value for money' to clients.
3. reducing the need for travel means I can be at home more, which means I can do more to support my family around their circumstances and needs.

All of which seemed eminently sensible when I committed to trying to work this way, but then the pandemic was upon us, and things have shifted, which now leaves me in a dilemma.

As part of their recovering their lives (and sanity) from the disruption and upheaval that Covid has wrought, most people seem to be desperate to meet in person again (almost to the point of fetishing the need to meet and undertake activities IRL).

But my business model that developed to deliver virtually seems to be working very well in a digital format:

• most people have found that they prefer to engage with learning and workshops I deliver on line, to the point that they don't want to go back to an in person physical classroom model when given the option;
• every Board and senior management team I've supported with facilitated planning of various types over 2020 and early 2021 are now committed to using an on-line format in the future, having experienced how well it can work for them with me;
• and in the year before the lockdowns, 3/4 of all my client activity was delivered virtually (a figure that was up over 20% on the previous year). 

But the lockdowns have also exposed that more people than we might have hoped are still struggling with on-line access through no fault of their own... (see here)

Some my dilemma - do I remain true to my values and the commitments I made in my business model 3 years ago and continue avoiding doing things IRL wherever I can, or do throw my lot in with others and be part of helping them recover what they feel they've lost by agreeing to start to spend more time away from home and family, and need to increase my charges to cover travel costs and time?

Answers on a postcard / or over a pint in the pub (but only if we've going to be near one together at the same time).

Is the growth in CICs actually damaging the wider social enterprise movement?

Some people may be aware that I've always questioned and challenged the Community Interest Company (CIC) legal form (see previous blog posts here) - largely because I've found that most social enterprises who've incorporated with this form have subsequently learnt that it wasn't actually the 'best fit' for them and their business model, and because what they're usually presented/'sold' as it being, doesn't actually stand up to scrutiny when looked at by evidence and research...

However, there are several social enterprises out there that I've supported to gain this status - I've always seen my role as an adviser to help people make better informed choices, not to tell they what decisions they should be making.

And it's in that vein, that I come to be typing this latest blog - prompted in part by a recent article by Pioneers Post on the 'explosion' of CICs during the pandemic: https://www.pioneerspost.com/news-views/20210825/record-number-of-community-interest-companies-amid-rise-of-grant-funds and CIC regulator wind up extent and causes

My concern about this sudden 'blossoming' of CICs is that rather than being a good thing in showing the growth of social enterprise in general, it may actually be more damaging to the sector in the long run...

Let me walk through through my thinking here, so as to try and help clarify and explain this rather bold assertion - and as always in my blog posts, you can leave comments to refute or challenge any of these:

1) Social Enterprises should be trading businesses, but most CICs aren't

In the absence of an overarching legal definition of what absolutely defines a social enterprise, the sector bodies have reached a consensus on what their defining characteristics should be (interestingly, none of which specify particular legal forms). Front and centre in these is that a social enterprise should be (or be clearly moving towards) generating most of its income from trading activities - but there is no requirement for CICs to need to trade, in order to generate their income or achieve their social mission! 

• when you apply to be a CIC, the application asks "if" you make a profit, not "when" - so the CIC Regulators' assumption is that most CICs' default business model will be that they expect to them lose money each year and/or will be reliant on grant funding to achieve their social purpose (you can't make a profit/surplus from grants);
• according to the CIC Regulator in their own published annual reports, most of the CICs they register will be wound up within 18 months - usually because they were unable to access the grant funding that they thought this legal form would enable then to be awarded.

2) Why are social entrepreneurs being encouraged to set up social enterprises in ways that mean they don't need to trade? 

As this legal form seems to be oft promoted to start-up social enterprises and social entrepreneurs as being the 'best form' for them, but it doesn't actually require them to act in ways that facilitate them to better meet the qualifying criteria of being what they say they want to be - how do we reconcile this apparent contradiction?

3) Are the public now seeing CICs as another form of charity, creating confusion about what social enterprise really 'is'?

If the most feted legal form for social enterprises to adopt therefore doesn't encourage the 'social enterprises' using it to act as social enterprises (with some evidences finding that CICs are actually more reliant on grants than charities are!) - it's going to cause confusion amongst others (who are already confused about what social enterprise is from the lack of a legal definition). If CICs are seen as not trading to achieve their social purpose - how will this not confuse people as to the need for social enterprises to trade: are social enterprises therefore just another type of charity, rather than a revolutionary/innovative/transformative way of doing business?. And this confusion will surely mean its harder to create more consistent messages about what social enterprise is and can do, in order for the sector to realise its full transformative potential.

However, as will all things, there are exceptions to the above - there are social enterprises out there who've never taken a penny in grant funding; who have found clever ways to harness what many feel to be 'too risky' elements of the CIC form with regards to the powers of the CIC Regulator over them; and who are trailblazing for the wider sector as a result.

My interest here isn't to decry this specific legal form wholesale, but rather to try and contribute to a wider ongoing discussion that means as a sector we can be more coherent, and ultimately make it easier to achieve the things we aspire to.

What every business and charity can learn from my pelvis

As background and context: several years ago, after a surprise ride in an ambulance following my falling over and finding I couldn't stand back up, I was diagnosed with a 'wonky pelvis' - usually, not a problem, but every once in a while, it doesn't 'sit' in my overall skeleton as it should. In turn, that causes everything else to be pulled out of alignment too, which causes issues for the muscles in my back and legs, and in turn also sees my sciatic nerve 'gripe'.

A few weeks ago, I woke up to find that in my sleep I'd managed to rotate my pelvis. Which in turn, meant that my spine had decided to twist itself into more of a snake shape rather than the traditional straight line owing to a kink in it, and my whole upper torso was then twisted as if I'd become a zombie that had fallen down several flights of stairs, but was still compelled to try and chase people in pursuit of their brains...

But despite this being absolutely painful and involving regular trips to the medicine box several times a day, it didn't actually stop me being able to any of the things I'd normally do - it just meant that I had to approach them in (literally) different ways, and that they took longer than usual.

I also know that it's not a forever thing when it happens - thanks to a combination of what appears to be me wresting with myself as I enact physio-prescribed stretches and Pilates/yoga style moves, everything is usually back where it's supposed to be within a few days. But while I'm doing these, I'm also regularly checking to see if I'm able to put my socks on while standing up - my usual dressing routine, which, when my pelvis is 'out', means I have to revert to sitting on the edge of the bed to do.

The reason why I try and put my socks on whilst standing up during times like these isn't because I'm a masochist. It's because I'm trying to figure out which of my usual ways of living and being I might be able to re-adopt (as they were how my body was originally intended to work), and which of my 'work around' practices I should maintain for the foreseeable future (because circumstances have interrupted my usual way of life).

Given how we're all now exiting the pandemic, this 'pelvic episode' of mine seems quite timely: at the start of last year, without apparent warning, we were thrown into turmoil because we suddenly couldn't work or deliver our services and activities in the way that our organisations had always been designed to be.

We found ourselves having to figure out work-arounds and new ways of doing things - all the while whilst also living with pain and discomfort.

But we largely managed this - we kept things mostly going and found ways to live and cope with the upset.

Now: my idea about why my pelvis is so important for businesses, charities, and everyone else right now - just as I found new ways of getting on with a skeleton that was out of kilter, I knew that not all of those new ways of doing things I'd adopted would be good for me in the long run. I needed to regularly check if the things I could before, I was able to do again - because that's how my body was intended to work. 

Since the start of this year, I've found myself supporting lots of charities, social enterprises, businesses, and others reflect on how they've been impacted not by the pandemic but how they've been affected by the new working practices they've introduced to be able to continue through it. While many seem to be intending to retain these new practices, I can't help but wonder if it would be useful to occasionally trial some of our pre-pandemic workplace routines and systems - just to check if now is the time that they might be able to be re-introduced, or its still appropriate to continue working in the ways we've come to.

For some, the new practices they've adopted will be vital to their being able to continue, because the pandemic has seen them fundamentally redesign how their organisations work - but for those who were trying to keep going 'on the fly', it may be helpful to take inspiration from my pelvis and see if you're able to get back to 'business as was usual' now, or if you may still need to use the new practices you've figured all to mean things can keep going for a little while longer?

You won't know until you try - and although we've all tired of having been trying different things over the last couple of years, if we don't keep trying new/old things, we'll never know what we might have found or we could yet become/or regained...  

(for the sake of decency, and to protect people's eyes, I decided not to include any images of my pelvis, spine, or torso in this blog post)

aping Spock - why you see me go 'Star Trek' when I leave zoom calls

It struck me recently that I've developed an unusual habit on zoom calls (you may have noticed it if you've shared a screen of postage-stamp sized faces with me) - which involves me usually 'doing a Spock' from Star Trek when we say goodbye.

But before I explain what it's all about (other than a love of Trek), it may be useful to rewind a little bit to before the start of the zoom calls - all the way back to the end of 2019, when few of us had used zoom for meetings at all, before they became our new norm.

When this great transition began, I wondered about how such a dramatic shift in how we (professionally) interact with each other, and the loss of usual physical cues and customs we practice together, might impact on our shared working relationships - so as far as possible, I've tried to introduce models and habits when I'm on zoom that mimic the prompts and sensations people may have otherwise experienced, had we all be sitting in the same room together.

Now all those practices will probably form the basis for other blog posts in the future (assuming people might be interested to learn a bit more about them) - but for now I wanted to focus on Spock.

Most people who know Star Trek will know about the character of Spock - and how his species are famous for not only revering logic above all else, but also trying to avoid having direct physical contact with others unless absolutely necessary (which offers them a clear advantage in pandemics!).

When distancing began in the spring of 2020, there were lots of ideas floating around as to how we might introduce a new custom to replace the handshakes we now could now no longer engage in with other people we met with. Ultimately, the 'elbow bump' became the norm, but many made concerted efforts for it to have been the Vulcan hand gesture.

Traditionally, when we end spending time with each other, we enact some ritual to mark the closure of the conversation or activity - with friends and family, that's been a hug; and with professional colleagues it's a handshake (but these can sometimes be reversed!),

Zoom robs us of the ability to maintain many of these physical practices we used to rely on to signify to each other than we'd satisfactorily concluded our conversations (a handshake), so I wanted to try and introduce something other than a cursory "see you, then!" before hitting the big red button to end the call.

And that's where Spock comes in.

At the end of each encounter or episode, when Spock was leaving a meeting or parting company with someone, he usually raised his hand and intoned "live long and prosper": a wish for the future of the person or people he'd gotten to know a little better as a mark of respect.

And that's the wish that most people know - but given our precarious economies and changing shifts in employment, it might seem almost insensitive to wish that someone would prosper in the apparent face of diminishing opportunities, and the ongoing shrinking of the welfare state to offer us security.

So instead, I prefer to use the response to "live long and prosper" - "peace, and long life": in this chaotic and turbulent world, being able to find peace is perhaps the most desired state for most of us; and the fear of pandemic and shortening of our lives because of it (which has already started to happen with average life expectancies now going backwards), is an equally potent hope that we might have as much time as possible to keep finding ways to achieve and enjoy that peace in our lives and with each other. 

So until next time, keep on Trekking, and...

 

the impact of a pandemic on the impact we create

Some of you reading this will be aware that for the last 15 years, I've annually published an 'impact report' on my activities as a sole trader/freelancer - and each time I do, I try and pause to reflect here on some aspect of it that's particularly struck me.

Most businesses, charities, and social enterprises who are currently talking about the impact they've created through the pandemic, successive lock-downs, and the disruption to communities and people's lives over the last year, seem to be largely focussing on what they've done over this last year. Which is fine and proper, but it doesn't help us fully understand the wider, longer-term impacts of the pandemic on how we try and achieve our respective missions - only what our immediate responses to it have been.

But I've been using a consistent framework and measures in how I monitor, report, and reflect on, my impact for over a decade. That means that this year's impact report has allowed me to better explore just how far the disruption to how we work, think, and feel, has truly had on my practices - and as such, I'm better able to consider what changes I might need to introduce as we emerge into our brave new vaccinated world (and which I can politely pass on).

Spoiler alert: it seems the pandemic has had little (or as expected) effect on the metrics I use to capture the impacts I create across different themes.

But what I do find of particular note is:

tax paid: it's been already shown by others that in being self-employed, I already pay proportionately more tax on my income than my counterparts both on payrolls, and those taking their earnings as company Directors. But this year, the amount of tax I've paid has significantly increased - and tracking this back into the data shows that it's because I was fortunate to be eligible for some of the government's coronavirus business support schemes: but that support I received to help me sustain my business (and family) was always going to be subject to being taxed - so although it may have initially seemed I could have breathed a sign of relief when HMRC said I was eligible to apply for SEISS, I always knew that there'd be at least one painful sting in the tail associated with it...

grace: in my last impact report, I'd started to capture and monetise my 'grace': the amount of lost earnings I'd suffered due to people either forgetting that we had arranged to speak/meet, or cancelling training sessions with only a days' notice (with no recourse for me to claim any late cancellation fee). Perhaps the most distressing part of this year's impact report is not that this figure hasn't changed, it's that if anything, its actually increased. Which means that the respect we're showing each other in making sure we turn up (or phone in/log on) when we've agreed to, or at the very least, sending apologies in good time if we know we can't, is on the wane...

But there's lots of other things in this years report. It now runs to 11 pages, with 12 indicators, 3 charts, 3 tables, and a slew of summary case studies and testimonials - in the first year I created it, covering the year 2006-7, it only had 3 numbers and was a footnote in my corporate CV!

And you can view it in all it's glorious technicolour and images, here.

Therefore, please do take a look through it - I'd be keen to hear what strikes you about it as being of particular interest in help me better understand it myself, and to therefore continue to create as much positive impact as I can into the future.

perversely, spending less (not more) time on social media seems to be bad for my well-being...

Some might say that with profiles on 15 different social media channels (at last count), I'm something of a social media 'whore'.

I never meant to be - I managed to resist joining Facebook for several years until Mel from my old school organised a class reunion using it; and I only signed up to start to Tweet because I discovered by accident that there were people talking about me on there.

(for clarification - I've never sought to censor anything that anyone wants to write about me on-line, but I just like to know who's saying what about me, so I'm not on the back foot when speaking with other people)

And while some people enthuse about how great social media has been in generating paying work for them - it's never meant I've landed contracts or new clients (yet...). Instead, I've always viewed social media as a means to start or continue conversations with people.

This approach seems to be generally well received universally - LinkedIn says I have an 'All Star' profile, and a few years ago, I was named as one of the 500 most influential people on Twitter!

But its hard to not hear people increasingly talking about how toxic and damaging social media is becoming to our well-being, and every so often to hear that a friend or colleague has decided to 'leave' Facebook or Twitter.

Now, over the last however many years (Pinterest and Instagram weren't a thing when I became self-employed 16 years ago - but then, neither was the iPhone either!), I've tried to keep a cumulative 10 minute a day habit on social media: over the course of a day, checking in to different platforms while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil, or in the minutes until the webinar I've joined is started by it's organiser.

But as this pandemic has rolled on, with client contracts and projects become ever more fraught in trying to meet shifting deadlines, and trying to invest more time with family members at home, it's been a struggle to achieve even this with the stresses and distractions that go on around us all.

For some people, such distancing from social media may sound like welcome relief, but over this last month, I've realised that some part of my well-being is starting to suffer from this enforced withdrawal - not because I think I'm addicted to social media, but because it offers me contact with fellow human beings to share what they're feeling, thinking, experiencing, and ultimately, how they're trying to KBO in these turbulent times.

So maybe instead of demonising social media, or hailing it as our saviour, can we try and take a more nuanced approach to recognising what it can offer us to our benefit, and how we can best try to manage this (for example - only using twitter lists rather than the general open feed).

And for anyone who's wondered why I've appeared quieter than usual recently on-line, this is my apology - life's just gotten too fraught and distracting. It's not an excuse, and it isn't a promise I'll be back in full flow next week - but a reassurance that I'm missing you all too.  

why the lifeline of SEISS may bankrupt us next year...

At the start of the pandemic, roughly 5 million of us were self-employed.

At the start of the pandemic, government made financial support available to business owners (in the form of grants linked to business rates) and employees (in the form of the furlough scheme).

Only after what seemed an eternity of panic and doubt, did government make an equivalent scheme for us in the form of the SEISS (except about half of us aren't actually eligible to apply for it!).

At the time, may argued that this was further evidence that despite their rhetoric about entrepreneurship, the current administration don't actually understand or care about us unless we're employing lots of people (despite the fact that we pay more tax than our employed counterparts, and other types of business owners). And this led to lobbies, campaigns, and the formation of #ExcludedUK to try and challenge this discrimination.

For those of us who are eligible, the SEISS grant was a lifeline (because even if we can land paying work, we all know it can sometimes take months to get paid which means weeks of little, if any, income to keep the lights on with).

But for those of us who began breathing sighs of relief, having gone through the small print and talked with others who haven't, we may actually be worse off next year for having received it, than if we'd not been eligible for it in the first place...

Unlike the business rate grants and employee furlough schemes, the SEISS grant carries a clause that says we may have to pay it back if HMRC deem that we managed to end this current financial year in a better place than we feared we would (perhaps because in the last few weeks of it, we suddenly land a large contract or finally get paid those back-invoices we never thought would be honoured). But we don't know exactly what the threshold for that looks like, or might be, beyond terms and phrases that are as equally vague as "substantial meal" is for pub landlords.

We'll only know if this is the case after we've done our tax returns, and as the SEISS grants are taxable, we'll have already paid about 20% of them back as tax. 

So if HMRC deem that we shouldn't have received the grant after all, the SEISS amount will magically transform from a grant into a very short-term loan that carries at least 20% interest - 20% being the amount we've already paid in tax on it, and then there's additional interest on the full amount again unless we repay it straight away. It's cheaper to take a bounce-back loan, or arrange  (and you have more time to repay it).

But there's more...

Lets say that you also pay child maintenance through the Child Maintenance Agency. They calculate what you should pay annually, based on your last tax return. Which means that for next year, the SEISS grant(s) you received will be counted as part of your income/earnings (because it's taxable income), pushing you into paying a higher amount of child maintenance. But if you've had to pay the grant (plus at least 20% interest) back, then they've fixed your amount too high. You're already facing the threat of legal action from HMRC to repay money that you no longer have, and now are also being forced to pay levels of child maintenance that haven't been worked out properly that will stretch you even further than you are now.

The pandemic and lack of government support for the self-employed has already seen nearly half a million of us giving up our enterprises, with many more seriously considering doing the same by the end of this year.

My concern is that the SEISS grant that initially seemed like a lifeline to some, actually shows that the government who've designed them have a contempt for people who are self-employed based on larger business owners and salaried workers not facing any such fears, because of the grant support they've received has no such risks attached.

All we've ever asked for as the self-employed is parity with our employed counterparts (who already enjoy far greater privileges than us in terms of lower taxes, pension contributions, better pay, and such like). Initially this parity was about making sure we can all have access to some form of support, but maybe we should also be asking for this support to be equally non-discriminatory in the risks it forces us to take when/if accepting it?

UPDATE AS AT 10 MAY 2021

and so the panic of having to repay these grants begins (but still with very unclear guidance...): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/penalties-for-not-telling-hmrc-about-self-employment-income-support-scheme-grant-overpayments-ccfs47

sources and references

https://www.statista.com/statistics/318234/united-kingdom-self-employed/ 

https://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2018/02/who-in-their-right-mind-would-be-self.html

https://www.accountancyage.com/2020/08/07/self-employment-income-support-is-it-payback-time/

https://www.excludeduk.org/excluded-uk-an-inclusive-alliance-for-the-excluded 

https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2020/K-November/Hours-and-incomes-of-self-employed-workers-stayed-low-over-summer 

https://www.altfi.com/article/5997_uk-smes-now-wait-an-average-of-23-days-for-late-payments

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55129828 

When video calls make you feel like a failure before you've even begun

2020 has brought in a new age where video calls have become the default norm for meetings.

But even before the pandemic and the first full national lock-down in the spring of this year, I had committed to seek to do more meetings remotely through this marvel of technology back in 2018, (and been annually reporting on how far I'd been able to achieve this within my impact reports on myself). So in some ways, I've had a head start, but the move to video over in-person seemed to be a trend that was already growing - Covid-19 has simply accelerated it to force us all to start doing it sooner than we might have done otherwise.

However, it strikes me that (as with many things), it's very easy to undermine ourselves in this new format - not just in front of our colleagues, but also damaging our own self-beliefs and sense of worth, in having not fully worked out and adopted what the 'unspoken rules' of this way of meeting are:

1) "you're still on mute" (the tag-line of 2020)

I don't know what the exact figure is, but most video calls would probably be about 10 minutes shorter if we weren't all muting and un-muting ourselves when we want to speak, and forgetting which setting we'd last toggled the mic to. 

I get that in some instances, there's good technical reason for having mics off (some people's laptop's have the mics next to the speakers, and so inspire ear-splitting feedback). But in the main, telling people to turn their microphones off if they're not speaking is akin to being back in school and told you have to raise your hand, and hope that the teacher decides you have something relevant to say. Hopefully we're all a little more adult now than we were in school, and can be trusted to act accordingly - after all, how many physical team meetings have you sat in, where the rule was you couldn't speak without raising your hand, and the chair granting you permission to open your mouth? It doesn't really instil a culture of openness, trust, and respect; and, if our hand waving doesn't get spotted by the person running the video call, we feel invisible and not important.

2) "where have you all gone?"

For people not used to there being options whereby the arrangement of how people's faces are laid out on your screen changes, it's easy to accidently minimise or change the whole view so that while the rest of us can still see and hear the person, they're desperately panicking that they've lost us all and can't find how to 'get us back'.

Once we've done a few calls, and had this mishap ourselves, its easy to avoid, but for the un-initiated, making what feels like a novice mistake can be a serious dent to our confidence in ourselves: after all, if we can't manage to keep a window open on our laptops, how can we be trusted with anything more involved?

 

3) "please ignore my laundry"

Working from home is a mixed bag - I video blogged about this recently, whilst laid under my duvet... not everyone has the luxury of a space in their homes where they can easily set up an office, or have a wall that isn't covered in their kids drawings, or has an airing rack in front of it.

As part of instilling confidence in others, we strive to create a professional image for ourselves (after all, we wouldn't have normally turned up to work in our dressing gowns, would we?). Having to apologise for what people are seeing of our lives, before we can even start to address the topic of conversation for the call puts us on a back foot in questioning our own value and importance (especially when we see how beautiful some other's people's kitchens appear to be...).

4) "I'm sorry about my kids"

Even physical meetings were never completely immune from occasional interruptions (people confusing room numbers, lunch or drinks being delivered, and such like). And most of us also had our phones on in case our kids' schools needed to contact us in an emergency. So why do we feel we have to apologise for our kids now, when they're not doing anything they wouldn't normally do, and neither are we? 

If I'm leading any call where someone's kids wander by, or try and get their parents attention, I'll either invite them into the call, or use it as a prompt for a short break for the rest of us. Treat kids like human beings, and they'll have a better chance of growing up like ones we can respect and be proud of.

Parents shouldn't be made to feel guilty for having their children in their lives.

 

5) "try turning your camera off"

Just because everyone is now doing video calls, doesn't mean that everyone lives in an area where there's sufficient internet bandwidth to handle it smoothly (only 12% of the UK has access to fibre broadband). Similarly, not all video conferencing software is the same - there can be notable differences between things like Zoom and MS Teams as to how much internet speed you need to be able to hold a call.

And there's also other factors, like what sort of magic computer chips live inside your computer, if your home Wi-Fi router shares its signal between how many people are on-line at once, and such like - all of which means that in any given group call, there's usually always at least one person who can't be visible because to turn their camera on would mean that everything freezes for them. And to be the only person in a meeting that's essentially 'hidden' in this way, when everyone else has managed to remain visible, means that they can be easily forgotten and overlooked. And they'll usually feel it's their fault for having chosen to live in a poorly digitally-connected community, or not having been able to buy a laptop that's able to handle streaming video calls.

All of which point to video calls being potentially very damaging to our belief in ourselves as being able to be taken seriously as a 'working professional', before we've even opened our mouths to say hello and introduce ourselves. And this only further damages our belief in our own competence, and undermines how we build (or maintain) working relationships with other people.  

So perhaps the next time you're on a call and someone's background looks a little cluttered, they're struggling to be able to share their video, or they need to find how to re-size the window on their screen, you can remember how it was for you when you started doing video calls. And you can offer them some encouragement and validation that they're not the failure they think they are, just because no-one thought to explain to them where all the buttons are?

 

an awkward question about how we're making sense of the pandemic...

As some people may know, I was quite active during the national lock-down earlier this year - supporting a range of colleges, businesses, social enterprise support bodies, and others to consider, plan, and then enact their respective responses to the first wave of the pandemic.

And as part of my own practice of 'professional reflection', rather than another 'pithy blog' or twitter snippets about what I'd done and thought about during this time, I thought I'd do something a little more in-depth, and draft a white paper. This paper is still available on-line (just share and confirm your email and it should automatically get sent to you). And I was surprised at not just how many people downloaded it within the first week of it going out but also the sheer variety of roles and sectors they represented.

Many who read it also kindly offered some thoughts as to how the paper had prompted them to think further on their own respective responses and current thinking about the coming 6 months. And in the spirit of trying to openly keep encouraging conversation and discussion, I elected to share the themes of these comments in a Facebook Live.

The Facebook live also served another purpose - to act as an addendum to the white paper: after all, a lot can happen in a few weeks during a pandemic, and more data is coming out all the time about how different communities and ways of working are being affected.

And just as the original white paper has attracted more interest than a dared to hope, the Facebook Live had more people watching the broadcast as it happened than I thought might have , and continues to be shared by others and the watch count keeps going up...! (If you missed it, here's the link to catch it again).

Now don't worry - there is a point to my regurgitating this precis of my new life as a one-man policy think-tank.

And it's this - based on how people engaged with the white paper, and the comments and ongoing interest to my Facebook Live, it seems to suggest that we're not satisfied in seeking answers from within our own usual circles. We're starting to realise the benefit of going 'outside' our own marketplaces, industries, and sectors in seeking perspectives and understandings. And when we do, what we find seems to generally help assure and better inform us about the ways in which we're now making decisions about the future.

So my closing challenge to you, dear reader, is this - who can you talk with, or what can you read, that is outside of your usual daily work or life in offering you a fresh perspective in helping you make your own sense of the ever-changing world we now find ourselves (trying to) live and work in?  

zoom-ing from our beds

At the start of lock-down, I started do video calls from the toilet, then in my dressing gown, and now from under the duvet - for many people forced to work from home, the space to create a home office anywhere other than their bedroom may be a luxury they don't enjoy; and whilst doing zoom calls from our beds can be helpful, there's also a hidden risk in doing it that no-one seems to be talking about... 

the Hobo consultant

After 15 years of doing what I do as a sole trader, part of which has included offering mentoring, advice, and coaching to a variety of people in a multitude of roles across different sectors, marketplaces, and types of organisations, I've finally taken the plunge... and got myself a business coach!

As a trained and qualified business coach myself, engaging with one feels a bit like a bus-man's holiday, but I've always maintained that part of my having kept my enterprise going this long (and through the various challenges the universe has thrown at me/it during that time), has been my interest and commitment to always seeking to try new things in how I work.

The reason for doing so now has been catalysed by the current pandemic, and it's forced/enabled me to (finally) actually start to think properly about a few ideas I've been having about my practice, but somehow never gotten around to properly working through and trialling. 

Principle of which is how I best present myself and what I do to the world - some readers will know that I seem to be something of an 'A-team': able to turn my hand to nearly any scenario or client need, and work comfortably with heads of government departments in the Cabinet Office, through to people who want to work out if their 'half an idea' is any good over a pint in the pub...

As such, depending on who you ask about me, you'll hear a different story (hopefully equally intriguing and adventurous) - but writing this through makes me realise that I've become a hobo: always drifting through adventures with no apparent core target destination nor intention to become 'professional' by other people's standards.

Having a business Coach is giving me a more robust structure and accountability to start to work through if that's OK for me to carry on as such, or if I should try and aim for specific train carriages if I'm able, rather than simply knock on each door that I come across...

(and as a heads-up - part of this process also weaves into my ongoing CPD, and specifically the 360 degree question I ask of a sample of clients, collaborators, and other types of people who know me in different ways - so watch your inboxes over the coming weeks for what I'll ask this time; in the past it's been about super-powers, and pictures, so expect something equally non-traditional when people ask you for professional feedback!)