I have had two more sessions with Harry since I last wrote – apologies for the delay since my last blog, life seems to have gotten in the way over the last couple of months! Reviewing the progress we have made so far (another benefit of the blogs is being able to actually reread what we have done instead of having to rely on a capricious memory – I am starting to understand why diaries are so popular!), it was great to review the goals we set back in our very first session to see what we have already achieved so far.
Looking at what we achieved with Goal #1 (“CV Writing
& Presentation”), Harry now has (in my humble opinion) a very solid CV as
he looks for jobs going forward, whilst I would also like to think that the
work we did there really helped instil the idea of “selling oneself”. We will
go back to review Goal #2 (“Improve Interview Skills”) in a future sessions (so
watch this space!), however I would like to think that Harry already learned a
lot in the practice interview we did in our last session – that as well as the required
skills that any specific job may need, the interview is also an important
opportunity to show your potential future boss that you are the sort of
character they wouldn’t mind spending 40+ hours a week locked in a room with.
So with Harry’s first two Goals
“done”; moving down the list I started to plan for how we could start to work
on his next goals. Goal #3 was “Improve Team-Working”, which I thought sounded
like a fantastic opportunity to link up with some of the other mentees! I
reached out to Jo Barry from Compliance, who is also Swindon-based and like
myself has also been mentoring a young man on the scheme – John – since the
summer. We agreed that this could be a fantastic opportunity for Harry and John
to work on their team-working skills; so we arranged a joint session. The focus
here wasn’t on the task, but on how our respective mentees could work together
to complete an unusual activity under time pressure; so we decided to task them with constructing the tallest spaghetti tower they could in 20 minutes. (This blog
feels like as good an opportunity as any to thank Jo for very kindly provided
some strawberry laces, (dry) spaghetti, and Haribo instead of marshmallows due
to a shortage – which it turns out isn’t as effective for constructing
spaghetti towers, an important learning point to take forward in my career). 
“Nervous” is too strong a word,
however I was a little apprehensive beforehand as to see how Harry would react
to a stressful situation where he had to work together with a complete stranger
to complete a time-constrained task, however like Jack Bauer deactivating a
nuclear warhead before the next ad break both guys remained calm and composed
throughout. Aided by a mutual distaste for the giant spiders in the most recent
episode of Doctor Who, they seemed to develop a good rapport quickly, where one
of the main pieces of feedback that myself and Jo gave them afterwards was to
make sure that they kept focusing on the task at hand and didn’t get too
distracted by other things. Unfortunately their actual spaghetti tower could
not be built too high (see pictures), and did fall short (pun intended) of
their aim beforehand of “reaching the ceiling”; however it would be unfair to
pin this on them as when I lent a hand I also found it very difficult to stick the
spaghetti into the Haribo! When we evaluated the task with them afterwards, one
of the main things we agreed on was that they could have benefited from
developing more of a plan of action (and maybe even schematics) before they
jumped right in on trying to attach pieces together – something I’m sure any
good architect would agree with. Afterwards when it was just the two of us, Harry
and I spoke about how if he had a good idea he shouldn’t be afraid to chime in
with his own ideas, even if it went contrary to what the rest of the team was
suggesting. I found out from Jo that John really enjoyed the activity as well,
so we have agreed to do another team session in the New Year to apply some of
the learning points here – watch this space!
My next session with Harry was
slightly different format from the norm, as the fine people from ZCT had
recently got in touch with me that as part of an initiative to encourage
volunteering, they wanted to include myself and Harry as part of their 2019
video. I made sure to shower that morning (though I forgot to shave), and prior
to Harry’s arrival some professional video guys interviewed me about my
experience on the scheme so far; and then when Harry arrived they interviewed
him – who I have to note was far more natural than myself on camera and even
got to exhibit some of his trademark confidence to the film crew when
his answer to the question “Was there anything you were struggling with prior to taking part on this scheme?” was “No”.
his answer to the question “Was there anything you were struggling with prior to taking part on this scheme?” was “No”.
After the interviews the film crew then
captured some footage of the two of us starting work on Goal #4 – “Dealing with
setbacks” – where Harry and myself talked through a list of hypothetical
workplace scenarios and what Harry’s response would be. I was very impressed by
his sensible responses to most of these, and the main theme to the scenarios we
had to discuss further were that your boss isn’t always going to be around, so
escalating an issue isn’t always an option. I would like to think that the film
crew caught some great footage of Harry here to help all of you see in action
what I have been describing in all of my musings, so will let you know when
this video is live in 2019 – hopefully the film crew were also kind enough to
edit out all of the times I inadvertently broke the fourth wall!
I always enjoy reading your blog Pete. Thanks for sharing!
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