My first full month as Content Lead

I recently became Content Lead at Royal Greenwich and I’ve been navigating the change in responsibility since then.

I spent my first couple of weeks chatting to people to understand how they were feeling, what they wanted from me and answering any questions. This helped me work out what I need to focus on and what the team need most. I’m still juggling my projects and the new responsibilities so I’m grateful to be in a team that is so capable and who are being patient with me.

I’m writing this with a headache and a cat that is sitting on my back and biting the back of my ponytail so hopefully this is coherent.

What’s been good and what’s been hard

Here’s the good stuff:

• Getting invited to lots of important conversations and chances to open more doors to content design
• Opportunity to think big about content, not just on projects and across projects but across the organisation
• Agency to help others make decisions and ensure the voices of our content designers are heard
• People supporting me and others through changing roles and project responsibilities

Here’s the hard stuff:

• Lots of meetings and little time to do hands on content work
• Lots of context switching but a need for big scale strategic thinking
• Lots of big decisions that could impact more than just my own work
• Lots of juggling change both for me and for the rest of the content designers and teammates on my projects

Yes the good stuff and the hard stuff are the same.

Just like our biggest weaknesses are often the flip side of our biggest strengths.

What I’ve learnt so far

1. I need to step back from some of the detail so I have time and clarity to see the wider picture and make connections
2. I need to carve out more time to focus on our community of practice
3. I need to start saying no or at least ‘not yet’ to more things
4. I need to reign in some of my big ideas to focus on what we can and need to do right now
5. I need to give the team more time and agency to do the work and get less involved in the day to day content work
6. I need to give less advice and listen more, especially to new or lesser heard voices

What I need to prioritise

1. Building relationships with people who can open doors and help advocate for content design. Particularly senior leadership and Comms
2. Our content design community of practice sessions and how we can get the most value out of them
3. Thinking time
4. Defining roles and responsibilities. With lots of change in the team, we need to revisit our capabilities and ensure people know what to expect from new roles. We need to give people a chance to do more of what they want but in a way that is fair based on their role

What I’m excited about

We have two new starters. We’ve been the same 4 people for over 2 years so it’s nice to have fresh faces, perspectives and ideas.

There’s a new energy and it helps remind us all of what we’re doing and how great our jobs are.

We’re also going to be advertising 3 new content design roles soon. So keep your eyes peeled if you want to join our content team at the Royal Borough of Greenwich!

A bit about my leadership

Leadership style: Calm and adaptive.

Current priority: Supporting people to feel confident with things not being perfect and getting comfortable with uncertainty.

Strengths: Listening to people’s concerns and adapting my approach to meet their needs and priorities.

Blindspots: Knowing the right time to expand our connections. Our content designers need to have the agency to do good content design but we need to make sure the relationships are in place to communicate some of that change to them without it setting us back.

What I’ll be hands on with: Engaging with service teams to share the value of content design and build relationship that allow us to do that properly.

What I’ll trust others to do: Anything in areas they’re interested in or passionate about that play to their strengths.

What I’ll surround myself with: Context from the rest of the organisation so I can learn what matters to them and spot opportunities for us to add value through content.

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