How We Are Building Our Team
John Medcof — Medium
Blog post #2
It’s 5:03 in Ottawa.
The few team members located on Sussex in the NCR are embracing the spring sun as they commute home to their families. We check in with each other one last time, but not for the last time. There will be messages tonight on Twitter, or email, or Medium, or Trello. We are a virtual team, after all. We can work virtually anywhere.
And that’s important, because we want to be a team that models the kinds of mindsets and aptitudes we teach. Our team was created because the School wants to find ways for the public service to harness, evolve and even thrive in disruption. We really want to walk the talk.
In these early days, our work is as much about trying to find the “new and different” as it is about cataloguing the best of what we’re offering already. We’re also looking at what’s already out there — existing learning and programs that do what we would want to do, but better.
Curating is a big part of our plan. It’s as important as the learning and programming we will co-create with partners, or coordinate ourselves. That’s really important to what we’re trying to offer in Transferable Skills. It’s always been our job to deliver great learning to public servants. Now, we’re just multiplying the sources.
Like the work, our team is also composed of resident experts, and newcomers. We draw deep institutional knowledge from the coaches, facilitators and adult learner experts, located coast-to-coast. We have more recently brought in people with unique backgrounds in audit, administration, engagement, communications, and policy. Together, they see the work through many lenses. This has already begun to broaden our horizons.
Recently, over email, our team had a thoughtful, vulnerable conversation about who we are becoming, and about some of the normal fears that come with big change. It was just one example of how this team is taking the time to do things with intention, empathy, and courage.
We, as a team, need to make sure we create the space to learn, share and think, and I hope to enable and provide direction as needed. And to protect from any scary stuff. And supply jokes and coffee. (Mostly coffee). A little uncertainty is ok, because some of what we’re trying to do hasn’t been done before. There’s no road map. But the team is demonstrating every day that — no matter the time zone or medium — we are growing our mindsets so that we can face this uncertainty. And thrive.
Our team has been developing a new course on building resilience. And as is so often the case, the course presented another reminder that we can’t just tell; we need to show. We want to be a model of what can happen when we support each other above all; commit to each other, connect, listen, and discover.
And that’s what I see happening here in Transferable Skills — a willingness to embrace learning so that we grow into the kind of team that can respond to any disruptive challenge that comes our way.
Even downpours in April (hooray for May!).
Are you a part of a team that values mindset? How do you to do it? How would you teach others?
Curious about Transferable Skills? This is what we’re all about. We’d love to know what you think.
