Work & life

Ioana Finichiu

As the weeks roll into months since our routine was put on hold and we started adapting to social/physical distancing and remote work, I see signs of increasing restlessness and search for connections we were able to (more easily) make in a pre-COVID world.

These days, despite the many tools available to help us stay connected 24/7, conversations seem to be transactional and mostly limited to our daily work bubbles. Gone are the days where you could run into an acquaintance at a coffee shop between meetings, catch up on your respective work and learn about new projects and potential connections. Gone also the opportunities to linger after a particularly invigorating conference talk to exchange with the speaker, or the hallway chit-chat between sessions, often equally as impactful as anything heard in a formal setting.

I hear people say they are eager to return to the office and how they crave the daily exchanges with peers. Some folks would benefit from going to a physical office environment, where the temperature is comfortable, where dedicated ergonomic work spaces are available, and distractions from combining home and work life are less intrusive. More often, though, people cite spontaneous human interaction as a reason for wanting to return to office spaces.

But in a world where a simple run to the convenience store requires planning and a checklist of items to bring, is there really still such a thing as spontaneous interaction? Or do we have to get creative and intentional about creating new spaces for this to happen?

Return-to-occupancy plans attempt to spell out a new normal with anywhere between 15 to 60% occupancy rates. In reality, what that looks like will be wildly different in every city and even for every organization. What is to become of the ‘elevator pitch’ if only one person may ride in an elevator at a time? Randomly running into a colleague from another work area? Highly unlikely – what is likely to happen is you both book the same office time slot and agree to meet up. We are far from spontaneous team huddles and team meetings where 12 people squeeze into a small boardroom, and even farther from hundreds (or thousands) of people milling around an industry conference, exchanging ideas, contact info, and sketching plans for collaboration. Shaking hands to seal the deal is practically vintage now.

Where does that leave the (largely unsatisfied) need for networking, netweaving, and connecting with others for yet-to-be-discovered common schemes? How about the folks who rely on these connections to find a job or expand their knowledge? Will we enter a creative vacuum as our growth and perspective become limited by the bubbles we already belong to?

In a world designed to minimize physical interaction, how do we satisfy our craving for spontaneous, on-the-fly exchanges and seemingly random path-crossing? In other words, how do we add serendipity and spontaneity into meticulously orchestrated physical interactions designed to keep us safe? It is, indeed, a brave new (planners’) world.

Ioana Finichiu

If our work world was a video game, the three measures of the health of a character should be unconditional kindness, caring, and respect. I say and really mean unconditional, because these three should not come with strings attached; they should not be dependent on moods, on how we perceive someone, influenced by our last interaction with someone else, personality clashes, or based on their performance.

Start each relationship with full tanks of kindness, respect, and caring, and give them away generously. Don't make people feel they have to earn or work for them. Every person deserves these unconditionally as a basic foundation of human interaction.

If you've been working for a while, you might have come across a less-than ideal coworker who doesn't pull their weight on a project, a colleague who takes credit for your work, a person whose negativity sucks the energy out of the entire workplace, a boss who makes you feel like you won't ever be good enough. You might have seen situations escalate and relationships break down because respect, caring, or kindness (sometimes all three) were withheld. If you start with empty tanks and experience a relationship breakdown, how do you even go in the positive?

If we make people feel they have to earn our respect, caring, or kindness, how do we expect them to be secure, confident, and high-performing? Create the conditions you want to thrive in, the conditions you want your coworkers, bosses, and employees to thrive in. Be intentional about building good relationships and start by offering everyone unconditional kindness, caring, and respect. Our collective wellbeing might just depend on it.

Ioana Finichiu

Depuis quelques mois je travaille avec un groupe d'amis pour organiser un événement d'assez grande envergure à Ottawa. Nous planifions, développons, et allons offrir un événement du type 'non-conférence' à tous ceux et celles qui veulent participer a la réforme du secteur public.

La gang / Photo courtoisie de Joël Bourgeoys

Nous faisons partie d'un mouvement mondial : OneTeamGov, GouvEnsemble en français au Canada. Ce mouvement a commencé au Royaume-Uni il y a presque trois ans, avec la simple idée que les gens travaillant à créer des politiques et les gens qui appliquent ces mêmes politiques ne devraient pas seulement travailler ensemble, ils devraient faire partie de la meme équipe – et ce afin de pouvoir servir notre public de la manière la plus efficace possible.

La mission du mouvement est bien claire: nous voulons réformer le secteur public par des actions pratiques, et toutes nos actions sont encrées par sept principes.

L'intérêt ne cesse de grandir – la plateforme GouvEnsemble offre des occasions inouïes de créer des changements dans notre boulot journalier, dans nos propres organismes, dans nos villes, pays, et même au niveau mondial. Que l'impact soit ressenti dans notre cercle immédiat ou au niveau du système au complet, l'important, c'est de passer à l'action !

Pour moi et mon groupe d'amis, nos actions tournent autour de l'organisation d'événements, disons-le, un peu inusités – enfin, pour la grande majorité des gens qui y participent.

Pourquoi favorisons-nous ce genre d'événement? Eh bien, en premier lieu, parce qu'on aime vivre et offrir des expériences enrichissantes et qu'on a découvert au fil des ans que l'expérience la plus enrichissante est celle qui met chaque participant au premier plan, maitre de son apprentissage, au coeur de sa propre aventure. Et de deux, on a des habiletés dans les domaines nécessaires pour faire tout ça (on est pratico-pratiques, nous!).

Le prochain événement est prévu pour le 17 décembre 2019; l'équipe de planification est composée de bénévoles qui ont investi des centaines d'heures pour créer une expérience inoubliable. Nous allons passer les trois prochaines semaines à planifier soigneusement chaque petit détail pour nous assurer que toutes les conditions soient impeccables pour chaque participant. Nous avons des champions qui nous appuient mais nous avons aussi besoin d'aide de la grande collectivité de réformateurs.

Nous partageons tout ce que nous créons librement et ouvertement; c'est le cas des deux guides à l'intention des bénévoles et des facilitateurs – les gens qui seront les engrenages de l'expérience. C'est ici que nous avons besoin de vous, cher lecteur : nous avons besoin d'aide pour traduire et réviser ce travail (les deux guides) afin de le rendre accessible à tous ceux et celles qui désirent l'utiliser en français. Nous avons investi beaucoup de temps pour créer ces guides – il serait dommage qu'ils ne soient utiles qu'à une partie des gens qui peuvent en bénéficier.

Alors, nous faisons appel à nos amis (et amis des amis) traducteurs/réviseurs : si vous avez un peu de temps à consacrer au mouvement, au changement par les actions pratiques, à aider vos collègues du secteur public – voici une occasion de le faire. Nous vous faisons confiance, comme à chaque bénévole qui appuie le mouvement, et vous encourageons à modifier et améliorer les pages directement; nul besoin de passer par des niveaux approbations:

* Guide pour les bénévoles et le document-source en anglais: Volunteer Guide

* Guide pour les séances en petits groupes et le document-source en anglais: Breakout session guide

Toutes les contributions comptent, que vous passez cinq minutes ou cinquante minutes – nous (et tous les utilisateurs de ces guides) en sommes très reconnaissants!

NB : vous devez vous connecter au moyen de vos identifiants de compte GCcollab afin de modifier les pages

Ioana Finichiu

I’m just a big ball of mush, at the end of a week filled with all kinds of emotions. They have to come out so they may as well come out on ‘paper’. Raw, unedited, unfiltered... read at your own risk.

I am part of a fiercely tight team of people planning and delivering a big event in the coming weeks. I believe we learn from each other as much as we learn as a group- from the adversity we face, the disappointments, small and big wins, the setbacks, the outpouring of enthusiasm & encouragement we get from supporters.

We’re well versed in each other’s personality, motivations, ways of expressing ourselves, preferences. They’re pretty used to the fact that I cry openly when things touch me (it’s quite the running gag at this point) and they’ve been quite accepting of the whole thing- talk about having a space to bring your whole self.

I can only hope, reader, that you have that somewhere in your life. Being able to show you’re carrying an emotional burden, whatever those emotions are (happy, sad, worried, panicked, humble, grateful, overwhelmed, restless, content, peaceful, anxious, nervous, mad, elated) is an incredible relief. Being able to share that emotional burden with others, not putting on a brave façade only to crumble alone. And being able to help someone else with their burden when they show it to you.

Knowing – not assuming, not guessing, not hoping – knowing other human beings stand in line with you as you’re about to get on the emotional roller coaster is a gift I wish I could give everyone I know. I know I’m first in line for the ride, for all my friends, like they are with me.

Seek those people, build deep relationships that will give meaning to what you do. The rewards are priceless.

Ioana Finichiu

I'm seeing 'trust' discussed a lot these days – I mentioned it myself in a recent post where I talk about the triangle of... well... everything. There's chatter about how trust should be automatically given when someone is hired (perhaps just like handing out an access pass to a building?) I'm also hearing things like “I'm a professional, you should trust me” and variations on this theme.

Something has been bugging me about this discourse. Now that I think about it, we probably do a lot more background checks on a person before we allow them access to a physical space than we do before we allow them access to our emotional and head space. While this may be good fodder for a future post, today I want to talk about how we like throwing the 'trust' notion around when grappling with hard truths – and I genuinely think some issues may be other than 'trust issues'.

Let's take flexible work arrangements as an example – I don't want to overly define the term, I just want us to think about it like this: 1. Can the work only be done in the physical location designated by your employer (typically your office)? and 2. Does it matter at which time of day the work is done?
If the answer is no to either of these questions, how this work is done can be called flexible, right?

It's 2019 and a bunch of us have access to the internet and devices that can remotely connect to our employer's network just as if – gasp – we were to be physically present at the office. Why, then, when the benefits of flexible work arrangements are highly touted, do we struggle to make it a reality for more people? Whenever this topic is brought up I invariably hear about 'trust issues'.

But what if this isn't (just) about trust? I realized currently a lot of people seem to talk about flexible work arrangements in terms of right and privilege. When looking at it in those terms, it's easy to see how quickly things can become confrontational, especially when something is dangled in front of employees as reward or punishment. It's easy to see how (terribly) this plays out for morale, credibility, fairness, transparency. It's easy to get upset, to lash out at “the system”, to feel the injustice and the difference in power and privilege.

To borrow the words of a great friend of mine, this is not helpful. We need to re-frame. Instead of talking about flexible work arrangements as a privilege that can be given or taken away, what if we were to refer to it as a simple choice in how you do our work, a choice you get to make from the moment you get a building access card, a mobile device, and a way to connect remotely, a choice you get to make every day?

And then I stopped dead in my tracks (literally heard a screeching brake in my head). Framing this as a choice in how we do our work means the people responsible for supervising work have to do extra work themselves. It means we ask folks who are already stretched and dealing with a whole other level of organizational slush to add an extra layer of administrative burden. It means we are asking them to create the conditions and to support every person they're responsible for in however they choose to do their work. Yes, they signed up to do this type of job – but are they trained, supported, and prepared to keep the lights on while transforming their environment into an efficiency gold standard while being incredible people leaders? That's asking for... a lot.

As it turns out, some things may not be about trust – they may be about asking others to take on extra work, or a million other things.

I'd like us to start changing our discourse, so we can eventually change our course. It is not helpful to label a new way of working as a privilege, just like it is not helpful to invoke trust issues every time. We are fundamentally shifting our new typical and framing it well means we may need to adjust our focus. We all have a role to play if we want change and sometimes that role starts with changing our self.

Ioana Finichiu

A couple of weeks ago my friend Frank was telling me about a triangle he kept going back to in his most recent work project: Communication – Relationship Building – Trust. I kept mulling it over until it started spilling out onto my team (we now have triangles on post-its everywhere).

The more I think about it, the more I think everything is linked to these three lines and the breakdowns that occur along them. I really, really want to talk about relationships (I also want to talk about trust and communication because they're important, but, well, I'm pretty engrossed in relationships right now).

Where do I even start? So much ink has flown to write about relationships, we've studied them, documented, chiselled, taped, recorded, expressed them in 1s and 0s... And yet, it feels like we're getting only marginally better at making relationships work well.

In our personal life we choose who we have relationships with and the degree of depth for each of those relationships. We invest the time to learn about people, their preferences, their values, their needs, their vulnerabilities. We set boundaries and create bonds. We work (sometimes) hard at maintaining them, we outgrow some, and yet others end unexpectedly. Relationships are fundamental and help us grow, teaching us as much about our self as they do about others.

Why, then, in professional settings, do we insist on relegating relationship building to the back burner, hoping it manages itself and only paying attention when it boils over?

I don't know about you, but joining a new work team is just about the strangest process I can think of. Most of the time there is little prior interaction with the person in charge and likely none with future teammates. We're expected to enter and stay in professional relationships (and somehow make them work well! ) with frighteningly little information to make this kind of commitment. We offer (and get in return) tidbits about what we 'do', what projects we work on, and what we can produce – but very little about who we are.

Taking a new job in a new work unit is, effectively, like entering into a blind marriage.

We make the best of it and try to build a relationship while learning a new job and pushing for good performance, and sometimes fail to recognize our relationship is breaking down. Even when we do recognize it, we are woefully unprepared for how to fix it or how to move on.

So yes, I am engrossed in investing the time to learn about people, their preferences, their values, their needs, their vulnerabilities. I want to build and help others in my professional life build relationships like we typically would, like we know we should.

I want to build Human Relationships. Because this is the new HR.

Ioana Finichiu

Inspired by this recent post on (over)writing by Seth Godin, I'm going to try something new (to me). I'm going to simply write.

I often want (and have every great intention) to publish elaborate posts that are perfectly structured to get my (many) ideas across. I just never prioritize it. “I don't have time” is a perfect excuse – it is not up for debate; it's not as if anyone (other than myself or my boss) can tell me to make time for something, and it's practically reflex at this point. It's an easy excuse.

So in waiting to find time to write the perfect posts that strike the right balance of thoughtful insights and dry humour I end up not posting anything at all. And that's... an artificial barrier, a miscellaneous bag of excuses rooted in self-expectation and self-imposed pressure.

I'm not sure how often I will simply write, or what structure I'll adopt. I wish I had the discipline of weeknoters but I'd rather be realistic. I'm going to try to find a balance between the instant gratification of a 280-character tweet and the long inspirational posts I somehow convinced myself are the 'right' way to blog.

I have thoughts; they may be good, they may be unremarkable; they will be written.

Ioana Finichiu

I’m a stubborn optimist. For me, that means I refuse to give in to the idea that systems are too big and cumbersome to change, that one person’s contribution won’t make a difference in a sea of pollution, that the status quo is rigged to win every time.

In my 12 years as a public servant I have at times felt a lack of connection with our ultimate objective (to serve the public) and I have seen what a lack of perspective can do to a team, to a project. Sometimes, my confidence that I have the tools and information I need to do my work (and do it well) has wavered. This is not uncommon, I’m sure. I am also really, really lucky: at every turn, I had people around me who reminded me of the impact we have and that the work we do matters.

About six months ago, a conversation with a friend struck me so strongly I am still thinking of that particular moment months later. As he was going over some difficulties with a project, I wondered out loud how colleagues could act so callously towards each other. His answer “because we lack empathy towards one another” was so dismaying, so shocking I physically reeled from it. Once I heard it I couldn’t un-hear it; I couldn’t stop seeing evidence of it whenever it happened. The implication is almost too much: if we act this way towards our colleagues, what does that mean for the way we act towards the public? We can do better. We have to do better.

By that time, I had already read James’ post, was following with great interest what was happening in the United Kingdom with OneTeamGov, and was connecting with a few folks this side of the Atlantic in hopes to start a Canadian chapter.

I fully identify with the seven principles that anchor the movement and it’s easy to see why so many folks from Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and Sweden (among others) feel the same. We all want to radically reform the public sector through practical action and we all believe that if we work together, across disciplines and teams and geographical boundaries – we are unstoppable.

One example of a (rather big) geographical boundary that came down happened in London in July 2018. The first OneTeamGov Global event took place: 700 people from 43 countries gathered at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre to connect and share about their struggles with public sector reform – and equally importantly, to explore how we could all work together to improve our respective civil services. Realizing our struggles are so similar is quite shocking; we are more alike than different, regardless of the corner of the planet we call home. This makes me hopeful – surely, if we have empathy for people in a land far away, we can find our way back into it here, for the colleague a few offices down, the team mate two provinces away, a peer working in another jurisdiction.

I invite you to read about the experiences from OneTeamGov Global here, in the OneTeamGov Global blog collection. The joy, wonder, and enthusiasm is palpable and infectious, and I for one can always use an extra dose of optimism.

In Canada, we have been busy since the beginning of summer: we host weekly breakfast meetings in Ottawa, folks in Winnipeg and Vancouver have started regular meet ups in their cities, we facilitated an [unconference stream at the GC Open First Day and we continue spreading the word about the movement with every opportunity.

We are pretty relentless in our push to connect with people and help people connect. The status quo is no longer an option. We live and work in a networked age, where information and services materialize upon our (voice) commands, where we need to talk to folks on different continents to help us solve challenges, and where our public is hyper-aware and demanding we deliver well on the things that matter to them. I am fully confident we can do that as long as we act, and act quickly.

In this networked era, leadership comes from all levels – and while it may be difficult for hierarchical structures to adapt to and embrace distributed power, the sooner we do it the better the outlook. We need to empower those who want to make changes, whether they’re within or outside the public sector. The challenges we have cannot be solved by hunkering down, closing the blinds, and hoping the storm will pass. Change is not something that will happen to people or systems; it will not happen overnight, nor will it happen in a vacuum.

I’m going back to OneTeamGov Global, to a specific moment that helped bring us where we are today – one of those moments I think of as a butterfly effect. While there was a palpable buzz in the air about our upcoming day, a friend in Comox, British Columbia expressed his regret at not being able to join us for the event. Rather than simply acknowledging his wish to be part of the next event, he was challenged to organize it. What followed is nothing short of unexpected: bolstered by promises of help and a huge outpouring of support, he accepted.

So here we are, a few short months later, announcing the next OneTeamGov Global event. It will take place in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, on May 21, 2019. Frank will tell you why we chose Victoria, and I for one could not be more thrilled to discover this city, its culture, and its people.

It will take tremendous effort to bring this together. We are very grateful that our friends in the United Kingdom are incredibly generous with their time and resources – they are willing to share everything they created so we don’t have to start from scratch. It is, after all, what OneTeamGov is about.

We will need volunteers and supporters and funding partners. But beyond that, we want you to come and be a part of this change, we want you to bring your hopes and aspirations and challenges to this event. I promise you will at the very least meet others who feel the same way you do, who struggle the same way you do, who will help you the same way you help others. Together, we’re unstoppable.

Ioana Finichiu

I never really fit into a “box”. You know which boxes I’m talking about – the categories we like to assign to people so they line up with our ideals of order and predictability. Sure, I fit into a few of the big ones: human, check; female, check; Caucasian, check. Beyond those, it gets more complicated.

Even as a kid, I liked doing things differently and I liked doing different things. In high school, much to the chagrin of various cliques, I never picked a side – why should I have to when I could be friends with everyone, mosey from group to group and learn from everybody? This has never really been a problem (1) – I have always had a strong sense of self and was never bullied for my apparent refusal to conform.

I owe this to my parents, who never gave my siblings or me any indication that we couldn’t do whatever we set our minds to. This was my home. We had rules about right and wrong and a strong sense of ethics; beyond that, we were encouraged to explore and make up our own mind about the world and everything in it. I am incredibly thankful for my upbringing, for having a home where acceptance was the standard, where curiosity was nurtured, where debate was encouraged, and where learning was seen as a lifelong pursuit.

Inevitably, I leveled up to an adult in the workforce. More neat boxes, which you’re really supposed to fit into by now because you’ve outgrown your quirks, right? I tried reigning in my wildly curious and always questioning mind but it quickly got the better of me (spoiler alert, you can’t effectively stifle your true self. Nor should you try too hard). This is true as much in my work life as in my life outside of work (2). My goals, dreams, and aspirations are unlike most – I stopped trying to convince folks I’m not in competition with them; we simply don’t want the same thing and that is perfectly ok. This is difficult for a lot of people to accept. So I am used to getting the look (3); I oscillate between shrugging it off, being mildly amused, being mildly annoyed, and (sometimes) doubting myself. But the second I go home and feel the calming wave of unconditional acceptance, doubts and fears wash away like meaningless debris.

I have also been lucky in finding peers and leaders who accept and encourage being different, who let me explore and try things, and have my back when they don’t work out. People who see the benefit of having someone on the team who cannot conform, who always questions, not for the sake of challenging but to seek better understanding and better outcomes. In their own way, they embody some of the familiar, uplifting traits that remind me of home.

A few weeks ago I attended an amazing one-day event, OneTeamGov Global. This was an unconference that brought together public sector reformers from across the world. Each of the hundreds of participants experienced it in a different way and luckily many, many of them are sharing their experience (4).

Naturally, when I came back from the trip, the inevitable question came: so, how was it? I found myself unable to articulate an answer that would truly describe how I experienced it. I recounted bits and pieces, self-contained interactions, logistical details – because some sort of answer was needed. I apologized for offering such sparse details and explained I was still trying to unpack it, make sense of it all. I burst into tears multiple times while reading accounts of the day from Nour, Morgan, and Sharon – thinking YES!!! That’s exactly it, that’s exactly how I felt! I also felt guilty for not being able to get my thoughts and feelings sorted out quickly enough to share with the rest of the world. I still get overwhelmed when I really immerse myself in the memories and let the feelings wash over me. But I finally figured it out. I can finally put in words what July 16 was like for me.

Going to OneTeamGov Global was like going home.

Home, where acceptance is the standard, where curiosity is nurtured, where debate is encouraged, and where learning is seen as a lifelong pursuit.

Your experience of home may not be the same as mine – but I sure hope you have a space in your life that means the same thing to you. Where acceptance is the standard, where curiosity is nurtured, where debate is encouraged, and where learning is seen as a lifelong pursuit. Where judgements are suspended and we instinctively welcome our differences and our similarities. Where peers and leaders have our back, where it’s ok to want different things, where you don’t have to conform if you can’t, where you can bring your true self and are appreciated for it.

I felt we were all linked by one thing at #OneTeamGovGlobal: a desire, or at least a curiosity, to work better, do better, be better. That is powerful and shouldn’t be underestimated. Through #OneTeamGov or other means, find the place that evokes this desire and curiosity in you, pursue it relentlessly, and use it liberally. Find your home.

1. At least in my opinion
2. My two favourite forms of exercise are dancing and powerlifting. I’m a powerlifting dancer. Couldn’t have just stuck to running or something more mainstream.
3. As if I spontaneously sprouted an extra head
4. The remarkable, ever-growing collection of posts: https://medium.com/oneteamgov/oneteamgovglobal-blog-collection-5b38fb4eaa70