Tim Abbott

The seven deadly sins CEOs won't admit

For the last year and a half The Financial Times has been asking business leaders a few questions, including, "What are your three worst features?" On the BBC web site in "The seven deadly sins CEOs won't admit" Lucy Kellaway looks at the findings.

There seems to be a general trait of spinning failings as strengths. Control-freakery can be presented as attention to detail or passion for the core vision; impatience might be justified as sustaining a cutting edge or ensuring you ship on time. You think you're focused - your team see you as a bully. You know the kind of thing... you've probably struggled at some point with this kind of leadership. Perhaps, deep down, you know you're that leader.

Lucy writes;

"In the past 15 years of studying them, I've drawn up a list of the seven most common deadly sins. They are control freaks. They are vain. They are ditherers. They don't listen. They are bullies. They are afraid of conflict. And they can't do small talk. I suspect the real problem is they don't know what their faults are. A decade of psychobabble, coaching and 360-degree feedback has made no difference."

Ouch. I recognise some of myself in a few of those. But here's what I think is at the heart of the matter;

"It has not changed the most basic truth - people never speak truth to power."

Within CYO we've had a system for many years where team members have a pastoral mentor from local churches that they meet with once a month. These people are in first or second tier church leadership and have complete permission to speak to any other team member, including me, about any concerns they have. And any team member can speak to any of our trustees if they wish. Of course, as a first recourse we still encourage people to be open with each other, incuding about any behaviours that are challenging. But giving people an alternative safety valve helps them feel safe, and means I can't hide behind a positive spin on a negative behaviour.

How do you manage your 'blind side'?

Christian Chaplaincy in Education (PgCert)

Liverpool Hope University run a PGCert course in Christian Chaplaincy in Education. This one year part time course covers two modules, Contexts for Educational Chaplaincy, and Skills, Knowledge, Understanding & Values for Educational Chaplaincy. Increasing numbers of people are now working in state schools in a role that combines pastoral supprt and spiritual development from a Christian perspective. Alongside this remarkable movement has been the growing expectation that those working with young people will have some level of relevant qualification, something that has been lacking for regular school visitors but which this course clearly addresses.

With three team members currently involved as chaplains in two secondary schools and the sixth form college we're looking into adopting this course as part of our CPD. We've begun discussions with Hope Uni about the possibility of hosting the teaching days so if you live closer to Colchester than Liverpool and you're interested in this PGCert please get in touch as they need a minimum number of students to make the course viable.

On being CRB'ed for schools

In the last week we have had all of our team members CRB'ed for work in one of our favourite local schools. I posted a tweet about this, "Having the whole team CRB'ed for a school. It's not bureaucracy, it's belonging" which raised a number of positive comments and also some questions, so I thought I'd explain further. If you work in schools all this will be (should be) obvious, but you never know...

We have a very strong relationship with all the schools that we work with. So far they have been more than happy to have us in on the strength of the CRB checks we have done for our organisation. No activity is undertaken without being under the supervision of a member of staff, though for things like lunchtime groups or Sanctum this doesn't mean that member of staff is always present. We realise that this is an arrangement based on a strong relationship, positive history and trust on the part of the school, but it is up to them to make this decision. I know of other school workers who have had schools insist that they are CRB checked by the school before they come in to do anything, accompanied or not. I would add that there are schools, and the Sixth Form College, where, rightly, specific members of our team have been CRB'ed for their mentoring and chaplaincy roles.

However, my view of such matters was changed not by a school that wouldn't otherwise open its doors to us, but by one of the schools where we have always received a warm welcome and been able to do just about everything that counts as responsible schools work for nearly 20 years. There is a huge degree of trust and in many ways we are part of the team there. We are in the process of setting up a new lunch time group (about the fourth one we've run over many years) and during preparation for this we recognised that for much of the time we would be working without the direct involvement of a member of staff. As a result we asked that our team be CRB'ed by the school; something to which they gladly agreed. For us this marks a new level of 'belonging' within the school as this will create a semi-formal arrangement that gives us greater freedom to work with young people.

I now believe this should be our standard procedure with schools and was in the process of setting up similar arrangements when we learned that Essex County Council have in place a system whereby people CRB'ed for one school can work in other schools under the same CRB. All that is required is that you complete a form and present your Essex CC CRB and photo ID and within about 48 hours the school receives confirmation of your CRB check.

As schools workers we want to work to the highest standards, but there's always been the issue of CRB checks and the problem that, officially, they are not 'portable' (pending some revised Vetting & Barring scheme). The reality appears to be that most schools are prepared to recognise a CRB certificate as though it were portable. Whilst grateful for their flexibility and trust I've come to the conclusion that asking the school to CRB us isn't bowing to bureaucracy, but saying we want to belong, we're accountable, and we're here for the long haul.

Genuinely LEARNING to love yourself

Rachel, one of our interns, has posted an inspiring piece about Girls Aloud singer Nicola Roberts' journey of coming to terms with being pale skinned in an industry dominated by the perma-tan.

Genuinely LEARNING to love yourself

And in a PS to anyone who has been following my colleague Amy's blog, she has now renamed it to BelovedBlog to reflect the ministry to teenage girls that she and Rachel are developing here in Colchester. If you've been following on RSS you'll need to update the feed address.

Amy and Rachel are co-authoring the site which will continue to give updates about "Beloved" as well as other ideas and reflections on matters of body image and self esteem among young women.

Journey to Disbelief

My friend Tom has recently started a blog to record his journey to disbelief as a former Christian. Tom had a remarkable conversion experience several years ago and for a time worked with us in schools. He has a sharp mind and a compassionate heart and I found in him both a good friend and a stimulating thinker - we shared many a theological conversation, reflected hilariously and painfully on some of the tragic and embarrassing manifestations of Christianity, and created some quality materials for our work in schools. Tom was one of the people involved in creating the first Sanctum prayer room for pupils back in the spring of 2008.

More recently a whole series of cruelties, both evangelical and relational, caused a major crisis of faith and mental health for Tom leading, among other things, to a thoughtful re-evaluation of the basis of his Christian faith and its impact on his life. Today Tom describes himself honestly as an atheist.

Journey to Disbelief is Tom's blog documenting his thoughts as an atheist and former Christian. I can thoroughly recommend it. Tom is by nature humble, honest, gracious and thoughtful and his record of his (dis)belief journey is one which anyone involved in the church today should read. Tom is not alone, and to ignore or disregard stories like his would be to miss something of great value.

Beloved

Beloved, our five week course on body image and self esteem for girls, has just one week left to go. It's been wonderful hearing the stories from each week about how the girls have engaged and responded to these friendly, practical and confidence building sessions.

One of our favourite quotes was in response to a question about what the difference is between ‘beautiful’ and ‘hot’. One girl summed it up: ‘hot is about the outside, but beauty is about all of you’.

Amy has been blogging about it each week here.

Sanctum at the Sixth Form College - day 2

Today was a bit of a disappointing day in Sanctum. However, it was an encouraging day out and about in the college.

During the morning several of us took it in turns to go out and about in the college (two massive 4 floor buildings for 3000 students) chatting to the small groups that gather in corridors, social areas and the main concourse. Their response to the idea of Sanctum was generally very warm. Many were more than polite, they were interested and this led to some really good conversations. However, turning interest into involvement has proved harder and less than 20 people came through during the day.

Fridays are odd days anyway as most people are only too keen to finish college as soon as they can and start the weekend early. Lots of people said they'd like to come in on Monday or Tuesday. We shall see. Once again we've noticed there wherever Sanctum is based it is only on the route of about 10% of college students.

Ultimately, of course, this is about relationships; potentially the greatest relationship of all. A team of people spending time with students, chatting and listening and supporting the work of our chaplain, Kat, could have even more impact than a room full of spiritually inspiring creative activities. But then, God's plan has always been made visible through human relationships.

: )

Sanctum at the Sixth Form College - day 1

Last night we set up Sanctum in one of the smallest spaces yet - a classroom in the History faculty of the Sixth Form College. We were there last year in the huge drama studio, so this was a new challenge. The whole feel is understandably rather more intimate so many of the stations we've included are those that allow people to almost cocoon themselves in the activity.

Today was our first day. With a great team, including one, Kat, who is the chaplain there two days a week, we spent quite a bit of time roaming the college chatting to people and inviting them to visit Sanctum. Although for over a week we've had posters up and Kat has been handing out flyers, inevitably in a college of 3000 students our arrival has gone virtually un-noticed so some face-to-face PR is essential. One advantage of college life is that there are forever groups of students sitting in groups around the various corridors and social areas so finding people to talk to isn't difficult.

The day started with team prayer in the room and then we welcomed a visit from a small I.B. Theory of Knowledge class. They had about 15 minutes to try a few of the activities followed by a short debrief. They enjoyed their time and several said they'd be back. Once again the experience of Sanctum is touching people deeply and helping them to deal with the past. One wrote:

"It helped me ... I will be able to move on. Thank you."

During the day nearly 40 students came through, many saying they'd be back. Not a bad start, but we're trusting that a viral buzz will go around the college and that many more will turn up over the next three days.

What did I do? Keeping track of what fills your time

There are all sorts of ways of keeping tabs on the different ways you fill the working day. When I worked in industry we had to keep an accurate log of how much time was spent on which project according to the appropriate job number. Here at CYO, like many youth work organisations, we keep timesheets based on sessions worked (morning, afternoon, evening), but some days are a right old mixture of tasks, especially the ones that have meetings and admin going on intermingled with whatever else crops up. Perhaps you don’t have days like that...

For over a year now I’ve been keeping a small text file going on the desktop of my laptop in which I note each of the things I’ve done each day. There is no record of how long each task took, just that it happened. Some days might have only two or three entries, others seven or eight. Each month I save the file and start a new one.

In analysing these lists I’m not looking for a numerical analysis. What I want is a visual impression of what’s grabbing most of my attention and what’s hardly registering. Enter wordle

By copying a log file into Wordle I get an instant visual impression of what I’ve been doing. I can do this for each month, or combine several (a term, a whole year) into one. It takes seconds, but the results literally speak for themselves.

The example below is from the spring term. I use some codes, for example, schools have 2 or 3 letter abbreviations (GI, TLA) and RE obviously means an RE lesson. Although the word ‘Meeting’ is huge, this doesn’t imply that I spend lots of my time in meetings, only that I had quite a lot of meetings with people.  Sanctum got quite a few mentions - we ran a week in the local Sixth Form College, there were quite a few days of preparation and I attended some meetings in London with people from 24-7. Other things to note are that the words “Open” and “Evening” really belong together as this refers to the planning and running of our annual Open Evening.

Having tried this system out it occurs to me that it might be a more accurate reflection if I weighted my daily entries a little. So, for example, a whole day on a task might merit two entries (one for morning, one for afternoon), as it would have done had I spent half a day on it one day and half a day on it the next. In this way it starts to get a little closer to a time sheet, without getting into too much bean counting.
Also, some tasks could be prefixed with categories so that these show up in the wordle analysis: admin, yp (for face to face time with a young person), school, management.

It really is that simple. I’m certainly not one for too much number crunching evaluation - it bores me completely. But keeping a simple log of activities is bearable and bunging it into wordle is right up my street as I’m inspired by good visual presentation.
Give it a go.

A really big conversation

 On Monday night we held our annual CYO Open Evening for supporters and others. The main focus of the evening was a "really big conversation" following the World Cafe Model.

Our aim was to enable people from around Colchester to engage in a conversation about four key issues:

• Connecting the whole gospel with the whole school
• Connecting churches, young people and youth leaders
• Colchester - becoming a disciple making town
• Connecting people with the life and work of CYO

The main area of the church building we were using had been set up with small tables covered with paper, each surrounded by six chairs. As people arrived they were greeted and served tea / coffee and nice cakey things and encouraged to sit at a table. After a brief introduction and explanation of the evening from Amy and me, people went to whichever table corresponded to the issue they were interested in and started chatting. People were encouraged to write ideas or draw diagrams and sketches on the paper. After about ten minutes we did a short interview with someone who had been impacted by our work and then got people to move around and get into a second conversation.

After another interview and another round of conversations we gave everyone ten minutes to mill around and take in what had been discussed over another coffee before inviting people to feedback any key thoughts. Everyone was then encouraged to write a few summary ideas in response to four questions.

Between 70 and 80 people came and joined in and it was wonderful to experience the passion and enthusiasm of so many - the breadth and creativity of their contributions was inspiring. The evening was not intended to provide a list of the top three things CYO should be doing, but was about mission to young people being at the heart of the church in Colchester. All of the ideas, questions and suggestions will therefore be published and made available to the whole town.

The evening concluded with prayer for the young people and the schools of Colchester and with a time of worship, committing ourselves to God's plans for our town.

The evening exceeded our hopes for the level of engagement of the people who came and for the obvious committment to mission from such a wide representation of churches. This is the first time we've done the World Cafe thing, but I highly recommend it as a way of really involving supporters in the quetions that shape our ministries.