Houses cars and fairs, oh my

The UK really lights up nearing Christmas! The are "Christmas fairs" in every town, village, school, etc. They seem to be anything from a few tents and stalls selling foods and crafts up to an entire special event with store sales, games, etc.

I moved into our new house yesterday! We're working with the town council to get the schools all setup and I'm really excited about all of it, looking good! I even got a chance to hang out late in a pub last night with a new neighbour, great times.

There's a big difference between leading a car in the states and getting one in the UK. Test drives are called "demonstrations" and they're not 15 minutes along with a pressured over the top sales pitch. You schedule a demo, they drop the car off at your house for you, you can keep it for up to text weeks?! Then they come pick it up! In my situation it's going to take 10-14 weeks for the actual car to be delivered (maybe that's normal?) after I demo 2-3 cars, so they have a "mini lease" that's basically a car rental for those 10-14 weeks whilst i wait for the real car. So far, it's a really nice system, albeit a little slow I guess, we'll see how the relative pricing works out. 

Fill out a cheque, Joe Blogs

Today I learned how to fill out a cheque. It's not write a check, it's fill out a cheque. I realised I need to fill out a cheque for the house this coming Friday and I had a moment of "do I have checks? Are they different?". Sure enough, the bank had sent cheques, and of course they look a bit different. At first glance they looked so different that I wasn't even sure they were checks. So I hit YouTube and watched how to fill out a cheque. I felt like a young teenager and I'll prob feel that way again soon when I have to go for my UK drivers licence.

You basically fill it out the same way, you just put stuff in different places. You write "only" after the written words (plus the straight lines) so that people don't change the amount. I've always wondered if that ever really happens, do people really change the amount on people's checks, or can I start using that as an old tale that happened about once ever in history?

You know how we say "john doe" for examples of an average person? It's not John Doe here, it's "Joe Blogs". It might be "Joe Boggs" and I'm not picking up the accent correctly :) if it is Joe blogs, I'm quite impressed because I bet that name has been around for much longer than blogs as we know them today. And, I think John Doe is actually somewhat common as a name in the US, right? Sure, it should probably be John Johnson, but still, I wonder if Joe Blogs is common at all? :) for extended examples in the states we often use John Doe and Jane Doe, I wonder if it's Jane Blogs? And, in the defence industry, "Joe Engineer" is acceptable in many countries! (Which I appreciate because there are multiple engineers named Joe in my family lol)

Stationery

Office supplies like scissors and staplers are called "stationery". I had never heard that before and it literally came up 3 or 4 times today. Strange how I either hadn't noticed it before, or the timing all lined up on the same day? Makes me wonder what else I haven't quite noticed yet, but one day will become clear. 

Linkin Park Live!

I saw Linkin Park at the O2 tonight! I was part of general admission on the floor, as opposed to numbered seats in the stands. Normally I can estimate a crowd size but I couldn't see the whole floor, so I'd guess a wide range of somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people there. I was hoping to walk all the way to the front, but I ended up being about 20 people deep, still really good!

What those guys do on stage is beyond words for me. I've always loved the band, but of course they're even better live, way better. I remember when I first heard them I thought, that's different from any music I've ever heard, a blend of rock, heavy metal, rap, power ballads, absolutely love it. 

In a live audience they deliver such emotion and energy, it's unreal. I've never heard an audience sing so loud, and let's not forgot these guys are top notch musicians, their rhythms are tight, harmony is perfect and the lighting and showmanship take it to the next level. 

I guess I'm trying to say I thoroughly enjoyed it, such a great time! They definitely did a few special things at the end since it was their last show on this tour, that was fun to watch them have extra fun up there - letting all the fans on stage with them, carrying each other on their backs, hugging, etc, so good!!

Enchanted wood and smoke, but thankfully no fire

I started off the day by setting off the smoke detector. Thats not fun when you live in a building of about 10 flats, I'm sure I put everyone in a bit of a panic.  I was surprised that no one knocked on the door. I ran around the house opening windows, and it felt like an eternity that it kept screaming. All I was doing was heating up a pan for pancakes. The pancakes didn't even turn out very good, lol.

The day ended much better, although my football team lost. I went to http://www.enchantedwoodland.com/. Such a great place! Its a little more than a mile hike around a lake and a mansion, in the pitch black. They light up their trees and create quite a show. The lights are simple and stunning. Its amazing how many different kinds of trees they have, it helps you appreciate their beauty by seeing them individually lit up. 

There were about 1,000 people there when I got there, which was a lot more than I expected. The queue moves pretty quickly if you already have your ticket. They have a few games for the kids to play as they walk, you can count little tiny sparkling fairies that hide in the trees, or there are times when you can press buttons to control the timing and colour of the lights. There's even one point where you press buttons to shoot a light out of a cannon across a long lawn and it 'lands' on a statue, very cool. The reflections in the still lake are breathtaking and they do a great job of setting up a few scenes. The scenes have moving lights set to music. There's a bit of fog blowing in as well, and even a few animal sounds. Really great place, and well worth £7, I'm guessing its priced that way per person so that a family rate isnt too bad.

Top 10 Surprises of Living in the UK

I've hesitated to post this opinion for several months now. My fear is that I'm insulting entire countries, or sparking unintended anger or resentment. I'm also not even a big fan of 'top 10' lists, but I've been asked the question about 'surprises' and 'learnings' so many times that there does seem to be an interest in it, and I certainly hope this can be read and shared from a positive perspective. Its hard to speak in broad brush generalities, there are always exceptions. The intent here is to start healthy conversations, not cause problems. If nothing else, try to laugh at these, so, here we go...

10. The weather is good.

Yes, its a bit wet and dreary (I didn't say the weather is 'great'), but that helps you learn to appreciate the sun when it inevitably comes out. The weather is good in my humble opinion because the temperature doesn't vary. The highs are lower than I'm used to, and the lows are higher than I'm used to. You can easily predict the temperature for the next 7 days and there's something nice about not being surprisingly frozen or sweaty the instant you step outside. Good luck mentally getting used to Celsius vs Fahrenheit though.

9. The food is good.

Ok, 'good' might be a stretch, I tend to say the food is 'bland as opposed to bad'. The salt and sugar are half what I'm used to, which adds to the blandness, but it sure adds to the healthiness factor. These are major cities, so of course you can find a wide range of food. The curry really is as good as its reputation. Oh, can't forget the major switch from 'pop into a fast food joint anywhere' to 'grab a fresh sandwich made that morning anywhere' - huge difference. Tea and scones really are good when they're done well, and there's no debate about chocolate. If you think we have a lot of cooking shows in the states, you wouldn't believe how many cooking shows there are in the UK, so maybe its a sign of things to come?

8. Castles are alive, but the country shuts down no later than 6 pm (1800).

Did you know that real life people actually live in castles and still maintain them? News to me, I seriously thought they were ruins or tourist traps. You better arrive at castles in the morning though because everything from castles to grocery stores to anything with a front door locks no later than 6pm. People go home and then they're somehow shockingly quiet too. Ok, I exaggerate, a few pubs and restaurants are open later, but you'll feel like you're the only one outside until you're inside the pub - oh, unless its summer, then everyone stands outside by the front door of the pub. I tossed in the 1800 time reference here too, better get used to 24 hour clocks. I'm now a wizard at subtracting 12 from any number.

7. Its not as expensive as you've heard, until you need to dry clean something.

In general, salaries are 25% lower and stuff costs 25% more, so you're dealing with a 50% change. Get over it. But if you've gotten used to $.99 shirt or $9 suit dry cleaning, be mentally prepared for literally at least a 600% price increase. I'm convinced dry cleaning must be a secret expert profession where each thread is cleaned by hand with special dry water and mystical powers. Its honestly almost worth buying new suits versus cleaning them. Petrol (gas), houses, clothes, yeah they're more than you'd like them to be, but dry cleaning is apparently an art. Don't forget cash if you want a shopping cart. You'll need to understand council tax, pay for a licence to watch tv, and your credit card better have a PIN number tied to it if you want to easily spend money.

6. There are doors everywhere, and lots of ancient skeleton keys.

I realise there was a big fire here 350 years ago. The door industry must have won some kind of negotiation because every single room and hallway has a door. I'm not sure how germophobes would handle it. I still often smile when I pull a skeleton out of my pocket, I can't help but think of switching it out for a paperclip and making it a fun puzzle to open the door.

5. Seriously, there's a spider problem. 

Listen, I'm not one to jump on a chair when a spider appears, but wow, you literally can't go a day without seeing a spider, let alone walking through a spider web. Such spider diversity too, little flat ones that don't move then scarily completely disappear the next time you look back. Huge 'wolf' spiders that probably eat the mice. Daddy long leg ones that seem to have a mouth and visible teeth. Gotta give it to the spiders though, I've barely seen any ants anywhere at all, even on ice cream laying in the street. And I hear they've scared off the ticks too? Its a big spider dynasty.

4. Every person has their own accent.

Not just in Britain, but I'm beginning to think that every person in the world has their own dialect and accent. I learned that here. In the states you have to travel thousands of miles to hear a noticeably different accent, in the UK you can walk across the hall (and open the door). For the first time, I'm able to 'hear' my own accent, and 'hear' the words I choose. Its enlightening.

3. Roundabouts are way better, until they're way worse. 

In a strange twist of the counterintuitive, long straight roads with simple stops are bad. It turns out to be better if you remove all the forced stopping (e.g. lights, signs, intersections, etc.) and just let people get where they're going with a few easy things in the way to keep them awake. Make the roads a little more twisty, put small colourful plants in the middle of the road where multiple roads come together. If everyone goes a bit slower, we seem to find a way to keep moving and get to our destination pretty quickly.

There's a belief here that one lane roads are plenty of room for two way traffic (and parked cars), just make new friends in other silent moving boxes by waving your hands a lot. Thats all good until someone messes it up, I was lucky for about 7 months before I must have been behind some terrible accident. I was so far behind it that I didn't see any remnants of it, but I can tell you that it took me just short of 3 hours to go 10 miles. Ouch, this system is amazing until it breaks, then its horrific. Win a few, lose a few, I guess.

2. Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

In other parts of the world, every little area has its most beautiful part. If you're lucky, you're in a little area that happens to have some outstanding beautiful place. Here, you can drive short distances and visit multiple areas that have some of the most beautiful sights in the world. They call them AONB and I had never heard of that before. I'm still overwhelmed by the options and the beauty. I remember the first time I saw purple mountain majesty and the awestruck inspirational motivation that comes with it. There seem to be dozens of places here with pretty similar feelings when you visit. For example, Kynance Cove or Lizard in the south, let alone Wales, Lake District, Ireland, Scotland, man made places, etc., just ridiculously 'how is this possible' type beauty. Even the locals seem to barely know them? Outstanding.

1. Thriving, vibrant culture that already knows you.

Its all about the people, right? I'll be somewhat controversial and say that the British reputation is slow, subtle and passive aggressive. I choose a different perspective and I truly believe it is mature, sophisticated and thoughtful. The statistic is that over 96% of Brits have a passport, more than any other country in the world. They travel a lot, they communicate a lot, I guess as recent as one hundred years ago they 'ruled' most of the land. Even though I find it a bit painful to have to work hard to ask for a bill at a restaurant, there seems to be a genuine kindness pervasive in the culture. I think its an accepted mentality of 'we', as opposed to an 'us' and 'them', which I happen to think is a really nice thing - and exactly what made it somewhat hard to create this list.


Honourable Mentions

There were a few things I couldn't work into the list, such as flipping power outlets on, push buttons on toilets, and the fact that the first floor is the second floor (there's a 'ground floor' which is like floor zero here). 'Post codes' are cool, they get you within about 3 houses of where you want to be, as opposed to zip codes, which I think we use for anything from 5 to 10,000 square mile radiuses? And how can I not mention public transportation, tube, train, bus, taxi, its virtually a flawless system until there's a 'trespasser', which is frighteningly a little too common. I've probably forgotten so many things (e.g sports, visitors, slang, etc.), guess I'll try to keep the daily[ish] blog going :)

Testing New Education Models

What a honour to be invited back to facilitate a leadership development session at a middle school outside Washington DC. This particular middle school is testing a new education model by re-designing their average school day. Normally, students walk to 90 minute sessions that are based on a single subject, and taught by an individual teacher. In this new model, students select from a range of sessions and experience facilitated sessions by multiple experts, all with hands-on, interactive story based problem solving 'classes'. Its a baby step towards new ways of education. 

Six months before the special day, we asked all the students for the 'hardest question they can think of'. I pulled the keywords from the approximate 1000 questions they asked into a word cloud (image 1). We used the word cloud to design the activities. The activity I facilitated tried to help with the topics of 'people', 'human', 'life', 'brain' and 'teamwork'. We shared a few motivational quotes and stories, then helped the students through a personality assessment. Each student learned more about their own personality and how to work with different kinds of personalities. The students, experts, teachers and school leaders seemed quite happy with the results. 

This was the second year we ran the activity, but the twist this year was that I wasn't physically in the auditorium of the school. I was thousands of miles away in London, whilst the students were all in a room together outside Washington DC. We tested Google Hangouts and Skype as our live video software, and we ended up going with Skype. I was able to see and hear the entire classroom, interact with the participants and share my screen as well. 

Its truly fascinating to read about, and participate in, these changes that are being tried in education. I think it may be the pure fact that school leaders are willing to take risks and try new things that helps the students the most. It might not even matter if the model 'works' or not, it might be all about leading by example to show that creativity, innovation, experimentation, adaptation, communications and resilience are key attributes these days.

Image 1: Word Cloud of Keywords from Questions

5er

You can call a 5 pound note a 5er, which is kinda fun. 

I'll be facilitating a leadership development course for secondary students on Friday night. I'll be in London, but the students will be in Washington DC. I'm excited because I'll have at least one Londoner facilitating with me, so we'll do our best to make it fun and enlightening. 

I met with some partners from an Organisational Development (OD) firm in London today. Thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, we shared stories about implementing OD and talked about our families as well. We met at a place called the Hospital which is a club designed for sharing ideas. It was beautiful inside with a touch of music industry to it. The room reminded me of the room in BAFTA where Stephen Heppell and I met to discuss STEMmerday. BAFTA has more of an acting and movie industry feel to it though. 

London really lights up around the holidays. I'll be checking out some Christmas lights this weekend I think. 

Phraseology and Agility

I saw someone wearing a Virginia Tech sweatshirt walk right by my house outside London, which was very exciting to me. I almost wanted to run out and say hello, but I decided not to. 

Here are some common phrases that I'm even finding myself using now. "Did you have a chat to", means "did you talk to". "Can't be bothered" means someone is too busy or just not paying attention to you. "Telly" is TV. Smart vs clever, this is a bit tricky. Smart is more about 'looking professional' such as dressed in a suit. Clever means intelligent, or what most people in the US might call 'smart'.

I went into London last night for my first time since being back. It was an event called Agile Future Forum at Lloyd's Bank global headquarters. The building is on gresham st, which appears to be wall street, I saw what looked like stock trading floors, and a ton of bank headquarters. The lighting on the street felt like a movie set, it was pretty amazing.

It was a very nice event, the delivery was unbelievably good. The topic was 'agile working', which turns out to mean 'flexible working'. If I'm overly honest, I was a bit disappointed by this limited definition of agility. I think agility has elements of innovation, collaboration and adaptation in it. This forum mostly talks about how to setup part time working, job sharing, hot-desking, and other ways of flexible work schedules.

Again though, the delivery of the event was fantastic. It felt like being in a live tv audience. There were about 90 people seated in a circle, almost like a tiny tiny stadium. The stage was in the middle and it looked like the size of 4 feet by 6 feet. There were professional video cameras, microphones, tvs in each corner of the room. The facilitator was a journalist from the BBC. As opposed to 'death by powerpoint', she treated it like a live news cast, where she interviewed people for about 2-3 minutes each. She asked tough questions, summarized their key points for them, then made beautiful transitions to the next 'guest'. At one point, she had 4 people, each managing directors of large businesses, seated in nice white soft chairs, one in each corner of the room. She conducted 4 simultaneous interviews, keeping our attention and getting a lot of information flowing. Very impressive!

I researched and learned that I'll need to get a drivers licence after being here for 12 months. I'm not sure if 12 months starts from my first visa or my second visa. Guess I better aim for my first visa, which means I need a licence in the next few months! I'll have to get a permit first, then take written and live tests, then pickup a licence, it'll be as if I'm a teenager all over again!

Traffic?

It took 2.5 hours to get home this afternoon, normally it takes about 30 minutes. I saw a few ambulances go by, but I didn't see any accidents or other trouble, so I don't know the cause, but wow it took forever. I went all the way through a playlist on my phone, only skipping a few songs.

I learned a new word yesterday- skint. Skint means "broke" or "don't have any cash on me", kinda fun. "Knock on" came up a couple times today, remember that means domino effect. 

After I finally got home, I had a video call via Skype back to the states. I talked to the school running a STEM day next week, it was a practice run for us because I'll be presenting/facilitating about 50-60 students. We're doing a leadership development activity using the DISC personality assessment, awesome. 

In less than one week we've been able to sell our house in the states and rent a house near London. Craziness. 

I caught up on Downton Abbey, I realize it's not back on in the states yet, so I won't say much, but I will say it's a great season! (Or series, as they say here)

Houses and phones

It appears we're making tremendous progress with regard to selling our house in the states, and renting one in the UK. I enjoy the negotiations and there really are quite helpful people out there to help things go smoothly.

After picking up a SIM card for my phone this morning, I was able to receive texts, but the internet didn't work otherwise. I rushed back to the store, after trying to call them, and minutes before they closed. Under cellular settings there's a server that it connects to, and for some odd reason it autopopulates an incorrect address. It's an easy fix and I'm up and running on pay as you go, great!

I'm presenting to an all English audience tomorrow. I believe it's a group of approximately 90 aspiring leaders. Let's see if I can successfully adjust my approach to what I think might be more successful. Later in the day, I'm part of an online panel to a global audience, not sure how many folks, but quite substantial I think. Should be interesting to prepare and present to these different groups. 

The tie to knowledge management today is that anyone can do anything they put their heart into. We have to remember that each person practices something different, and therefore gains expertise. Our challenge is to know when to follow expertise and when to push back, or negotiate, using what you believe to be your own experience and expertise. Not an easy balance to find between trusting others and trusting yourself. Open transparent communication is critical. 

Back in London!

Today marks the start of a 3 year work contract. The trip from DC to London was smooth overall, although the flight was a bit bumpy. I think it was the first time I didn't have to take my shoes off, or my coat or even take out the laptop at a major airport when going through security. I guess technology has improved?

I thought I had lost my work badge, but we found it at the last minute, which was quite a relief. After I landed, the very first song I heard was Katy Perrys "this is how we do, it's no big deal". Made me smile to put it in context of moving to London. 

I turned on my cell phone and I thought I wouldn't have a connection, but I got some kind of automatic wifi magic and it worked! Then I received an email from the carrier about an hour later saying "warning, over $100 in international charges". Great, so much for magic. 

I had my first great preferred hire car experience. I arrived at the site and my car was not only there and ready, it was parked in the very closest parking spot and it was an automatic, nice!

Once I got to the flat, I decided it was cold enough to turn on the heat. We have central heating but of course it's in Celsius, so I had to lookup a reasonable number. I went with 18, hope that's normal. There's also a programmable thermostat in the closest, I'm pretty sure I don't have to touch that though. 

I checked our mailbox and of course it was stuffed. A few bills, lots of junk. The council tax bill was pretty mean, they gave 7 days to pay it, then 7 days before a full year charge, then 7 days for a court summons! I paid it right away and called them, I think I only have a £20 fee now, but wow. 

I checked email and unpacked a bit. The dvr recorded Downton Abbey and X factor and Great British Bakeoff, so I was happy to see that. 

The welcome back to work was really nice. Lots of smiling faces and it's great to be back in the office to help plan and get things done.

Hard to say where this journey will take us, but here's to good times ahead! The phrase of the day (that I've heard at least 3 times in passing) has been "well done" in a nice English accent, so I'll hope it's exactly that.