Celebrations, Winners & the Closing Ceremony

This blog post is not about the Olympics - sorry if you thought it was! However it is about recognising & appreciating positive practices to help you change… then doing something about it.

Celebrations & Winners

Prompted by a talk given by Sukh Pabial on Positive Psychology, I’ve been running a series of guest blogs on “Positive Practices in Coaching & Mentoring”.

It’s been an amazing series from quite different individuals all giving their distinct views on their positive practices. That the series has generated over 1250 blog views in just 5 weeks I think shows that many of you have enjoyed it just as much as I have!

So I’d like to thank & celebrate those guest bloggers for sharing so willingly their views on positive practices in coaching & mentoring... Thank you all!

Clare Manning, Ian Pettigrew, Julie Drybrough, Kev Wyke,

Perry Timms, Meg Peppin, Jon Bartlett & Phil Willcox

I had mentioned there was a prize so you might expect as it's the Olympics that there could be Gold, Silver  & Bronze awards... nope.  Each blog & blogger is a winner in my eyes - they stepped up to share their own practices with all of us and that I think is a hugely positive thing to do.

So to gauge the two most inspiring blog posts, I approached someone with many years senior management experience who was not a coach or mentor and had not already read any of this series of blogs...

There were two posts which they felt particularly inspired by and in their own words "talked to the power of coaching". These were Meg & Phil's blog posts and both of you now have a ticket for Sukh's "Positive Psychology in Application" event on August 17th in London!

Closing Ceremony

It's the closing ceremony of the Olympics today and a celebration of this series of blog posts seems like a good place to end this Blogger blog...

Blogging has grown thing from something I was a bit scared of pushing out there to something I've incorporated into my whole life.  I'm still learning but I couldn't have done this without the support of friends, colleagues, other bloggers and above all readers of the blog. Thank you! Also, I love the fact that my young kids now use "blogging" as part of their diction - brilliant!

Yet, it's time for me to create some change... 

...there are things I'd like to focus more on and I need the impetus to make this happen. Stopping this Blogger blog is one way of creating this.

...I've learnt a lot and my blogging has matured. I now need to take this to another level with greater focus and challenge.

...I'm here to stay as a blogger but need a better platform.  Sorry Blogger but I've outgrown what you provide and I need to move on.

So above all, thank you for all the support here over the last 18 months.  You've given me the support & confidence to learn, change and progress. I'm ready to end this Blogger blog...

However, you can continue to read more blogging on all aspects of People Performance & Potential from myself and special guests at :

www.peopleperformancepotential.com

I think recognising when you've outgrown what you have and being willing to take on a new challenge is a positive practice. I hope you agree!

Offering unconditional positive regard

Today's guest post on "Positive Practices in Coaching & Mentoring" comes from Meg Peppin. If you don't already know her, Meg is an experienced organisational development practitioner, coach, group facilitator and organisation change agent. She has a delightful blog and can be found tweeting as @OD_Optimist .

Meg's post starts with a quote that resonates beautifully throughout her post - enjoy!

Offering unconditional positive regard

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world”

Mahatma Gandhi

I am lucky that I have had some active mentors in my life; some have been formal arrangements, some informal - often by happenstance. Whoever (they know who they are) and however - they have had one thing in common, and that is their confidence to express an opinion, thought or observation and - their absolute acceptance of me. Exploring this in terms of successful practices, here's my attempt at deconstructing this:

What's the old adage? Behaviour breeds behaviour. Being with confident people makes me feel more confident. More confidence means more chance that I'll jump, stumble, fall out of my comfort zone - landing straight into the depths of my potential.

When I say confident, what am I really saying? How I see it - confident people are those whose locus of control is within them; whose drivers are not shaped by extrinsic factors, but whose drivers are intrinsically shaped by what matters to them. Confident people like this have a genuine curiousity about others, life and themselves. They aren't afraid of how others might see them and they don't worry about potential consequences. They try things and know that some will work better than others. They're proactive. They're OK with - me, you and themselves.

Offering unconditional positive regard

Translating this into coaching and mentoring; well, it's about offering encouragement, confidence, belief into the process. I don't believe that the coach or mentor is neutral party; I see myself as instrument who influences and is influenced by my experiences. I'm a participator not an observer. What I value and cherish has to be brought into my work. 

David Myers describes Carl Rogers concept of unconditional positive regard as "an attitude of grace, an attitude that values us - even knowing our failings. It is a profound relief to drop our pretenses, confess our worst feelings, and discover that we are still accepted."

That unconditional acceptance, that positive regard that I have received from past and present coaches/mentors/friends/loved ones carries me when I need carrying, and propels and accelerates me when I'm flying. It's what I offer.

Putting this into practice? I strive to create a space where people to feel confident enough to really see themselves, and to find a way to accept their flaws, vulnerabilities and fears, and to help them move towards self acceptance, insight and growth. I offer my acceptance, respect and regard, unconditionally. It's OK to be angry, resentful, uncertain, or bored. I don't know the answers and I'm honest about that; I may have some experiences to share, but I know enough to know I don't know much. I offer real curiosity in my challenges and questions, I offer warmth and encouragement when they feel they've achieved something, I laugh at myself and with them when they feel foolish - I acknowledge their discomfort when they drop their pretenses. I notice and acknowledge mine. I am me, I don't play a role or adopt a different persona. I am just another human offering my unconditional positive regard. It's part of the contracting, it's part of the process, and it's part of the ending/beginning. 

When someone gets that moment where they recognise connections between thinking and doing and behaviour, where they are able to be truly aware in the moment of what they are saying and how it relates to obstacles/problems, that's the time where they can take responsibility for themselves and where the internal locus sparks up. Their regard for themselves may raise up a level; it's exciting.

Something Special

If you look to the right of your screen you'll see what you've done for the past 500 or so days... found it?

That's it... you've read this blog over 10,000 times! You probably didn't realise but in doing so you've done something quite special for me. This 80th blog post explains... 

Your reading

I write my blogs "in the moment". Sure there's sometimes a bit of rework and sometimes I delete a draft. However, I write when I feel the energy for a subject. There's not a stack of drafts cooking slowly in the background or a schedule of pre-written blogs. What you read is me, now, right or wrong.

So when you read my post you are listening to me right here right now. I really appreciate you taking that time to listen to my thoughts, ramblings & opinions. It's something special to me. Thank you.

Your Comments

I write my blogs to stimulate discussion and debate around the subjects posted. What we do thereafter is up to us. So when you share your perspectives and comment, you make the blog successful. Particularly so when we have the good debate!

What I didn't expect a year or so ago is that our dialogue on these posts would move away from the "comments box" and onto Twitter and the real world. I think it's wonderful and something special! Thank you.

Your Feedback

I still feel I have a lot to learn about blogging. I don't mean about how to manage a blog although I think that's constantly evolving. I feel I have a lot to still learn about myself blogging - in particular my writing, my thinking, my areas of interest, even my motivation. I believe blogging is supposed to be that way. There's meant to be a slight and constant tension.

Publicly and behind the scenes, lots of you have shared with me your feedback on how I blog. The support it provides is amazing. That feedback is such a gift. It's something special to me. Thank you.

Your Contributions

Many of my blogs have started from a conversation elsewhere. Whether you know it or not, you have quite probably contributed in some way to a blog post here!

However, the blog was always meant to be a vehicle for others to contribute so I'm delighted when someone posts a guest blog here. It provides such different perspectives and even better writing!

I've had some very special contributions from Guest Bloggers so here's your own very special Blog Roll. Thank you!

"Working With People" by an anonymous HR professional

"Ironic or is it?" by Jon Bartlett (@Projectlibero)

"The Coaching Journey" by Karen Locking (@karenlocking)

"How Coaching Has Helped Me: A Coach’s Perspective" by Vera Woodhead (@verawoodhead)

"Mapping the Mind" by Bev Holden (@stickythinker)

The Future

The blog and it's readership has grown & developed beautifully. So to a large extent I'd be very happy if the future brought more of the same. However, there are a few areas of development that you can expect...

Personally, I think my earlier posts didn't hold enough challenge. So over time I've been more deliberate about creating greater tension & challenge - expect more of this! A big thanks goes to Natasha Stallard (@StirTheSource) for helping me express this (#mindtheedge).

I've not been particularly deliberate about blog subjects, always writing where I found the energy. So the tags to the right of your screen quite pleasingly reflect much of what I do and want to write about. Ironically, the most frequent topics include Coaching, Leadership, Learning and even Social Media but not Change... We all have blind spots sometimes but expect a few more blogs on Change in the future!

The Guest Blogs have been rewarding in different ways but always bring in perspective or experiences that I don't have. I love it and want to encourage more people to guest blog here - regardless of experience. If this interests you, no matter how unsure you are, then just reach out to me publicly or privately.

Thanks for reading & helping make this blog successful.  I hope you continue to enjoy it!

Beecroft – Who is Under Performing?

OK there’s a lot being written about the Beecroft Report at the moment and I’ve hesitated to write anything at all. However, there’s an important aspect to this story which just doesn’t seem to be coming out loudly. Who is underperforming? 

Current perspective 

The Telegraph’s story yesterday included a headline saying : 

“The majority of employers back controversial proposals to allow “no-fault dismissals” for under-performing workers, a survey has revealed.” 

The story then reveals it’s not the majority of employers – it’s the 1,100 respondents to an IoD survey where 76% backed the proposals. The director-general of the Institute of Directors, Simon Walker, is quoted as saying : 

“Our members prefer Beecroft’s ideas on unfair dismissal to the watered-down model being promoted as an alternative, so the Government should not waver”. “Beecroft’s changes to dismissal procedures would reduce regulatory burdens and encourage businesses to recruit more people — anything less would have a considerably weaker effect.” 

I’m not going to assume what the UK business community do or don’t feel about the Beecroft report. Plenty of others are already doing this. However, the positioning of the promoted benefit to business overlooks a fundamental part of good business. 

This is not really about business growth is it?

If you are planning to grow your company through recruiting more people then your focus is on growth not the regulatory burdens of removing staff at some theoretical point in the future when they have failed to perform. So “the story” here to a large extent doesn’t really deal with the dynamics of successful businesses enjoying growth. 

The issue is then more one of how you can replace under-performing staff in businesses regardless of their economic success. The process of staff replacement may on occasion be business enhancing… it could involve recruitment… but the net effect is not necessarily greater employment or business growth, in the short term or possibly ever. 

Are the headline grabbing stories persuading us to think of the Beecroft report as a way to business growth? Possibly… regardless, this not about business growth in successful businesses is it? 

This is about underperformance. By whom? 

There are a multitude of reasons why staff may under perform. However, if you can’t deal effectively with someone who is underperforming with current legislation etc. then what does it actually say about you as a business or as a manager? 

In my experience, it’s those who can thrive through adversity who are successful. 

If you can’t effectively deal with under-performance in your business today, then can you actually nurture great performance through people at all? 

Could revised legislative changes help perpetuate underperformance of managers who are not able address performance through developmental conversations? 

The Irony of Beecroft

Have you seen the reported explanation from Adrian Beecroft of what/who influenced his thinking… 

“It is actually a human resources director whom Mr Beecroft was once forced to dismiss, an experience that made the venture capitalist determined to reform the system. “We had an HR man who was very good at the technical stuff, but hopeless with people so we dismissed him, having thought we’d gone through the process,” Mr Beecroft explains. The company then placed an advert for a replacement who was “good with people”. “And he sued us for discrimination on the grounds that everybody knows that people who are good with people means we want a woman. We went to the lawyers and said this is ridiculous and they said we’d have to pay and so we paid him.” The £150,000 payoff that Mr Beecroft’s firm had to make to the under-performing employee was, he says, a typical experience for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Many people simply do not bother to hire because of the problems it can cause, he claims.” 

What is not said by Mr Beecroft is how his firm managed:

• the hiring decision/process. 
• the performance management process. 

Then what is said but won’t be addressed by his recommendations… 

• the bone of contention being an issue of discrimination.

In Adrian Beecroft's own words… “Some employee protections, such as those preventing discrimination or dangerous working conditions, must be maintained.”

It’s easy to read this and think red-tape & legislation led to an extortionate payout of £150k… the reality is that perceived or actual discrimination led them to settle out of court as the lawyers must have perceived there was a risk of being found wanting in a tribunal. 

Ironic isn't it? What does this say about his firms ability to lead and manage people let alone manage their performance?

Recommended Further Blog Reading 

Flip Chart Fairy Tales

XpertHR

Ironic or is it?

To celebrate International Coaching Week (ICW) I'm running a series of daily blogs on both coaching & mentoring.

Today I am delighted to host a guest post from Jon Bartlett (@ProjectLibero) a professional coach, mentor and health worker. If you haven't already, you can read more of his excellent blogging here. Here, Jon gives us a perspective on coaching in the workplace which I hope will resonate with you.

IRONIC OR IS IT?

When David first asked me if I wanted to do a blog for International Coaching Week I had just agreed to carry out some mediation training. It seemed slightly ironic that during the one week that is dedicated to coaching I would be doing mediation. However, as I thought about it made a lot of sense, let me explain.

For those of you who are unaware how a basic mediation works, let me do a (reasonably) quick explanation – basically you get the two protagonists in a room without all the attendant hangers on, be it HR staff, union reps or their best pal. You sit down individually with each of them, work out what is important and send them away to have a think about what they want to say to the other person. Then when they’ve decided you work with them to craft a form of words which honour their intent whilst also not starting a small office war. That takes up the morning, then after lunch you bring the two parties together. They both get an uninterrupted speaking time and it goes from there with the mediator(s) helping the flow of discussion, reframing some of the content, enabling them to see the others position. With any luck an agreement can be reached which enables them to continue to work together and saves on tribunals, oceans of paperwork and their pent up emotions ruining work for everyone else.

Now as a coach I often work with clients who are in conflict with someone else, and they want to examine how they perceive this person and how in turn they are viewed. So, transferable skill to mediation right there. I also work with clients who can only see one way forward in a situation and need to reframe their position, another transferable skill. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this but lets add another, deeper layer.

What about the clients who are in conflict with themselves, the ones who sabotage their own best efforts, or think the world is against them and that they have no control over anything? Well a surprising amount of people who are hugely aggressive during a mediation are in fact acting out of very positive intentions. They may have become the office “problem” because it was the only way they knew how to express themselves and they often feel powerless against the system / their manager / their team. Given a voice and the chance to build a rapport with the other person they become like pussycats. Well it’s the same with coaching clients. They don’t know how to talk to themselves, how to break free of years of poor programming, how to take charge of their own lives. They have basically fallen out of rapport with themselves and the skill of the coach is sometimes in highlighting that fact and starting the conversation anew.

So it’s appropriate that I’m mediating this week because actually, I’m just coaching in a different way. One of the many methods available to a coach and I’m sure you will hear more about other coaching perspectives during David’s great series.

Bloganalysis

This blog has been going for nearly a year now. What started as a tentative dip of the toe has now become part of what I do and integral to my business. 

Ultimately though, if I want my blog to achieve something for my business then I need to be able to measure its impact. The question is what to measure? 

The numbers game 

Blogging tools are great at cranking out basic statistics but a lot of what I see is based solely on number of visits or views. The implied ambition seems to be having an increasingly large number of readers… 

For this blog, December was an amazing month reaching an all time high of 1245 views :-

But what was being read? Was December a better or worse month than say September when I had 485 views? Or August when I only blogged once? How do I compare month on month? How do I gauge engagement? 

On their own, absolute views are in my opinion limiting and tend to lead us to view quantity as the objective rather than quality. So what else should we measure? 

Some Alternative Blog Measures 

I’m at an early stage with this but I‘ve been using a set of monthly measures to keep an eye on what seems to be most important. Here are some alternative blog measures & personal observations that I hope you  find interesting.

New Blog Reading vs. Exploration

What I’ve found is that increasingly my blogs readers are taking time to read posts from previous months. This is wonderful and I want to take account of this in my blog stats.

Looking at December, it’s important that I had 1245 views but perhaps more interesting is that nearly half were views of older blogs :-

For me, this starts to indicate something interesting and different is happening with my blog readers.  I would have missed this if I'd not taken time to track these statistics!

Average Views per Post

The number of views an individual post receives is relevant, but we all know that some posts are more of a hit than others. 

Measuring the average views per post each month helps take in an overall picture and smooth out the impact of for instance when you blog more or less often than usual :-

My blog is still developing but it’s great to see a steady and continuous trend upwards. It also helps combat those fears and insecurities of a single post that didn’t attract the usual interest! 

Comments per 100 views

I write my blog both for reflection and for engagement. So to receive feedback in either the form of a twitter reaction or a comment is wonderful. Sometimes, a blog post sparks a fire and the comments rush in. Sometimes there’s a deathly silence or silent appreciation – you choose!

I now measure the number of comments and the number of reactions per 100 views each month. This helps give me a sense of proportion and gives me a different benchmark for engagement other than blog views :-

There's something here about the expected response rate for blogs which I'm still pondering...

Other Perspectives

Analysis of the blog statistics is useful but it is just a monthly gauge I use to check in on progress.  Perhaps more fundamental are the other perspectives I'm becoming aware of.

On a qualitative level, I’m noticing that the posts that generate the most interest are typically edgy/challenging or community focussed. They also generate more thought and dialogue. Expect more of this from me! 

In terms of audience, perhaps unsurprisingly 2/3rds of readers are in the UK and Ireland and seem to be the most actively engaged (i.e. ready to comment or react).  Unexpectedly, a quarter of readers are US based and there is a growing following across Europe, Russia & Asia.  This is making think about how UK centric my writing focus is and whether it needs to change.

I’ve also realised that there is an unnecessary separation between this blog and my company website.  This is manifest in the web statistics. I’m still exploring options but I might end up embedding the blog in the website.  There's something to be said for having everything in one place!

Perhaps I’m learning the hard way but thought I share these experiences with you.  I hope you've found these interesting or even useful.  Would love to hear your thoughts!

What are you planning for your blog in 2012? 

What measures are you using to gauge impact & engagement?

Guide me to Success - a lesson from Essex

There’s a show on TV called “Educating Essex”.  Through 65 rigged cameras placed around a secondary school we follow the daily trials & tribulations of both children and staff.  Sounds like another trashy reality show but in fact it shows brilliantly the dynamics present in school.  As TV always does, it probably focuses on the extremes but even 20 years after leaving school I can recognise it’s familiarity instantly.

This post isn’t about the TV show but about a fundamental belief expressed by the schools Deputy Head.  It was in the context of poor behaviour and how we view punishment of children.  My interpretation of his comments are :

Children are meant to make mistakes and it should be expected.  However, we must never punish them as though they were adults otherwise we may as well make them adults at the age of 11.

Most of us can look at children or young teenagers and see their immaturities and lack of experience.  It’s not a deficiency, it’s to be expected.  Many adults & elders see it as their responsibility to help guide and support the development of children and young people.

So what happens in the workplace?

Employment contracts & company policy don’t generally accommodate any lack of maturity or experience.  The focus is often on competency or consequence, not the learning journey there or even beyond.  Any failure has a tendency to be viewed as a deficiency.

Can you imagine your children attending a school that operated in this vein?

For new managers or supervisors there is possibly a first line management course on offer.  It’s a start but we all know the figures on traditional classroom training...  Even then the focus can be on “tick-box” competency.

Where I see development really take off is where a more experienced manager provides the support and guiding hand akin to a great teacher.

They guide the “student” on their journey.   They even see it as their responsibility to help support their development.  Where mistakes are made, it’s recognised in the context of their maturity and experience.  Learning from the experience is the focus rather than punishment for failure.

Call it a mentor, a teacher, a guide or even a critical friend.  The name doesn’t matter.  What matters is that we create awareness in a way that supports development and encourages change.

Perhaps this requires a rethink of both the employment contract and the psychological contracts in place at work...

What do you think?  Would love to hear your views & experiences.

Related Posts

I can highly recommend reading these related posts from @DougShaw1 on success, failure and the environment we can create:

You Won’t Succeed Unless You Try

You Will Fail

Change

Tonight I attended another great talk by Marie de Guzman & Damon Newman from The Mangrove Neuroscience Consultancy.  A packed out CMI audience in central London was representative of the high interest there is in the market for understanding change at the individual level.

Marie in her talk raised three observations about change which I think are critical for business leaders and those involved in managing change:

Change Failure

The Economist Intelligence Unit reported earlier this year that “on average only 56% of change initiatives are successful”.  This report was based on responses from 288 senior executives, over 75% of which came from organisations with revenue of greater that US$1bn.  These are big players and they are saying that nearly half of their change initiatives fail. You can read the report in detail here.

Historically, I’ve heard figures of 70% being the working number for failed change programs.

What it tells us is that for all the process and investment organisations make, they are not very good at executing change and realising the intended success.

Change Blindness

Before you go any further, take 5-6 minutes or so to watch this video from the BBC “Brain Story” programme.

Isn’t it amazing that 75% of people in the experiment with the switched guy(s) didn’t notice anything!  Marie describes this blindness as extremely relevant in the Change context.  When you’ve got your head down managing change, you are not looking around.  Awareness of your environment is low.  However, awareness is key to managing and leading successful change.

Successful Change Leaders

I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll be writing about Change Leaders in detail soon.  In the research Mangrove have been doing, there is a marked difference in the attitudes and behaviours of successful Change Leaders for example :

• They pick up more signals from their environment.
• They are more aware and actively seek to stay aware of what is happening around them.
• They have the energy for change.
• They learn through failure – in fact they expect it as part of the learning process.  @DougShaw1 wrote a brilliant piece on this recently here.

My view

For a long time I’ve seen Change initiatives run as you would a technical programme or project.  Yet, for all the project discipline and milestone tracking there is a real tendency to ignore the people for the sake of the process.  My view is that this is why many programmes fail.  It’s also why Change initiatives need both Change Managers as well as Change Leaders.

Most importantly, they need Change Managers and Change Leaders with the right behaviours and competencies to make change happen.  That's change at the people level not just the process level.

Where do you see change succeed or fail?  Would love to hear your experiences & observations.

My Year in HR so far

The lovely @MJCarty over at XpertHR is running a fascinating series on different peoples experiences, learnings and observations of the year so far in HR.  You can read the whole series here including my own post below..

Well here's the thing - I don't actually work in HR. Having spent many years in organisational leadership roles, I now run my own change consultancy practice. I'm a bit of a gamekeeper turned poacher, which I think is much more fun than the other way around!

So "my year in HR so far" comes from the perspective of talking to and working with leaders who want to develop their business through their people. Perhaps that is in fact the ideal definition of HR...

It's been a busy and rewarding year so far. As I've spoken to and worked with organisations, I've noticed that there is increasing interest in how people and organisations can change and develop. I think this trend is especially important for those involved in HR.

In the modern world, the ability to respond quickly to the environment, adapt and change is essential to any business. As a consequence there is increasing demand for those people who can make change happen in a commercial context. Not just in a people context. Not just in a learning context. Not just in a change management context. I'm talking about change and development as an intrinsic part of commercial delivery. I'm talking about Change Leaders.

Commercially astute, Change Leaders have the courage, motivation and initiative to create a better future for the organisation. They are committed to enabling the performance of the organisation at many levels. With high standards and equally high ethics, they recognise that major change requires new behaviours and skills. They know that people are the key to any successful change.

As I've thought about this, I've found myself contemplating three statements that I think are increasingly relevant to the HR agenda:

1. Organisations are perfectly designed for the results that they get.
2. Ethics are the fundament of good business and good leadership.
3. Labelling and codification does not create best practice. It creates orthodoxy.

I believe Change Leaders work with the above firmly in mind, embracing the human aspects of work, to release potential and deliver business performance.

The opportunity for organisations and especially HR is in finding, developing and recognising Change Leaders - they are very likely the key to your organisation's future.

I want to live in Wales

Actually, what I’m really saying is that I want to live in Gower, in South Wales.  I wasn’t born there or even near the sea for that matter.  Where I live we do sometimes make the 45 min drive to the beach with the boys but it’s not the same.

You see we’ve just spent a fantastic week on the Gower Peninsula with the family – the first time we’d all been there together.  I know it’s easy to think we can see our everyday lives through the rosy coloured lens of our short holidays.  To imagine that we could magically transport ourselves and move to a different place, a different life even.  The trouble is we could do it – easily.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love where I live.  It’s not our dream home but it is a great home and the boys are settled.  Actually they are so settled that any thought of a change of home is quite disturbing to them.  They love new things & experiences but the fundaments of their lives are something they naturally don’t want to change.

But there’s something in the Gower landscape that we all connected with.  Perhaps it’s just the exploration & adventure of the holiday.  If we lived there maybe we’d not appreciate it in the same way.  Daily life would get in the way.

So what will we do.  Nothing.  We’re happy and content even though we miss each other now that we’re not on holiday.  We love where we live.  It could be better but we are fortunate and sometimes when you see something better you need to admire it from a far.

We’re back into our routines now.  We’re not walking & exploring so much but we’ll correct that at the weekend when the boys aren’t at school.  I’ll have stopped pining by then and Daddy won’t be in London.

Todays post was from Basil (Andsal Chico) the German Shorthaired Pointer.  Naturally teaching his master David to be a better leader, teacher, trainer and person.