Weeknotes #3: #LiveTheCompetencies (Aug 27–31)

Jill Sexton
Aug 31, 2018 · 3 min read

I took a long weekend, so my week started on Tuesday. I had a definite and manageable To-Do list (finish my input on our Engagement Plan, write a draft of our first Newsletter). I was feeling confident and motivated, and I was sure that I could get both of these things done in four days, with time to spare for helping on other team projects and a few lunch catch-ups in between. Most of the team worked from home or outside the office this week, so I had a very quiet workspace where I could focus. Conditions were ideal, intentions were good.

Guess what: It did not go to plan.

It sometimes feels like our office is juggling a thousand things at once — because we often are.

We are almost one year into the Policy Community Partnership Office startup, and we have more going on than ever. All of our deliverables are in full-swing or ramping up to be in full swing in the next few months, and there are important meetings, conversations, emails, and decisions happening every day. We are also a team that takes great care of each other’s personal needs: when someone needs extra support or time to get something done at home, or to take care of the kids, or has come down with a summer cold, we give each other that space.

Given the sheer number of things we are working on and the chaos that can sometimes be our personal lives, it means our priorities and tasks can sometimes shift on very short notice. Meetings have to be postponed because someone is at home caring for a loved one, we need to add extra slides to a deck in the next 18 hours, phone calls are taken standing outside in a thunderstorm.

The PCPO has been developing a competency framework for policy practitioners, and we strive to put them into practice daily in our own work. This week, I have been working on our Adaptable competency. My to-do list was way-laid early in the week, and I had to roll with the changes in plan as they came. I worked a bit later on Thursday evening to make sure we met our Friday noon deadline. We rearranged a farewell to our office manager, Mélo, as she goes off on maternity leave. I worked around a host of tech challenges with my telework (all of a sudden I can’t access Google Drive, where all of our work lives).

Of course there were challenges: I have a huge issue with time, in that I feel very bound to it. If a meeting is supposed to be an hour, I get stressed if it starts late or rolls over. I spend a lot of time thinking ahead about other people’s timing, and I try and police them. It’s all in a spirit of trying to be helpful, but sometimes it’s a huge hindrance to people, and it becomes a burden no one asked me to carry. I am working on it.

Our team has a slack channel dedicated to tshirt ideas — as in, whenever someone says something that makes us laugh or we don’t want to forget, we put it in the channel in the hope we will someday make them. This week, Amanda and I decided we needed a tshirt that says #LiveTheCompetencies, to be worn as a reminder and a motivator to keep striving to put our competencies into practice every day.

Can’t wait to see which competency will challenge me next week.

Jill Sexton

Written by

Newfoundland ex-pat, voracious bibliophile, ruthlessly hopeful. Finding magic in public service.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade