On Comyn Ground

Before you think I'm being rude to my boss, I'm self-employed, so the idiot maybe me.  The title of this episode actually came from a conversation with a friend who, frustrated by their boss and their attitude wondered how they ever got to hold the position in the first place.

The clarity we sometimes have that if our boss were more approachable, kinder, less of an idiot, that our life might be a whole lot better and we might be even better at our job.  I'll accept that I might be being a little nieve.

One man I thought might give my sense of justice a good workout is my guest on this episode.

Martin Horan has been involved in the world of Training and Development for over 25 years. He has worked as a Director of Training, as Head of Management Training for a training institute and more recently as an independent training and development consultant.  

His professional career included time working directly for Aer Lingus and Gulf Air, the Bahrain Institute of Banking & Finance and Saudi American Bank.  At last count, he has carried out consulting assignments in over 35 countries.

He joined me from this home in Westmeath here in Ireland, and I started our chat by asking Martin to speculate why bad managers get rewarded and sometimes even get promoted. His website is www.martinhoran.com

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Going forward, with low hanging fruit, blue-sky thinking, taking things offline  - boiling the ocean and giving it one hundred and ten per cent.  You've heard them all, that meaningless guff that some people use to make themselves sound like they possess a fluency in corporate-speak that makes them feel like they belong.

Jargon is infectious, someone uses a phrase at a meeting, someone else likes the sound of it, and it spreads like a virus, and no amount of hand washing will stop it in its tracks.  

What harm does it do you might ask?  Most likely little other than making the user of these lame phrases sound unoriginal.  Words lose their value through repetition and misuse. The two I am most concerned about are Resilience and Empathy.

If you would like to find out more about the exercise I used on the coaching session then take a look at this site.

https://www.ridersandelephants.com/

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Ok, let's admit it - we've had enough Banana Bread - and the plans you had to paint landscapes have been shelved along with efforts to sort your wardrobe and arrange your bookshelves in alphabetical order. 

As we head now into November and for many of us the second wave of lockdown you might be wondering can you summon the same energy and enthusiasm you did back in later March and early April to keep busy.  My guess is maybe not.

Well-meaning people still suggest that we take daily walks, make our bed every day, meditate, and bake banana bread.  

We need more than palliative care now. We need the certainty that will give us leverage to adapt and transform, and while we can't access it, we will remain stuck.

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One of the more weird experiences of the last seven months has been the return of the fear.  Now if you grew up in Ireland, the fear is a phenomenon all of its own and refers to that feeling you get the morning after that you have said or done something under the influence of alcohol that you will later regret.

For others it was that wave of anxiety that appeared out of nowhere on a Sunday evening, triggered by the music of a TV Series called Glenroe - that you were ill-prepared for the week ahead at school or work.  But now it’s back - and can appear at any time or from any unknown trigger, and it’s happening to more and more of us.

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Working from Home?

Could this current pandemic see the end of another phenomenon? The Micro-Manager. My late father was never one to hide an opinion and shared a great deal of ire for a particular type of manager, the one who would call a breakfast meeting. But spare a thought for the manager who previously would have regularly maintained a sense of being in control, by calling endless meetings.  Having their people around them created a feeling of things getting done.  Presenteeism indicated commitment. 

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