It’s my third week as a hybrid organisation of one, and I am enjoying the new working routine! It’s very busy and also tiring to have so many new things to deal with each day, but it’s very much what I was expecting. What I am missing at times is of course the colleagues I have worked with for many years, and in a more abstract sense, a bit of fun and interaction that comes…
Maren Deepwell Posts
… and come walk with me. How about a day along the windswept West Wales Coastal Path? The title image for this post is taken at the tip of the St David’s peninsula around this time of year. Let’s have a day buffeted by autumn winds surrounded by colourful heather, looking out to the endless horizon. I would love to have a day like that today. In reality, although that part of the Coastal Path…
This past week all my networks about hybrid and virtual working have been dominated by attention grabbing headlines from this year’s KPMG CEO Outlook survey: Most bosses think you’ll be back in the office 5 days a week within 3 years (Fortune) Two-thirds of CEOs think staff will return to office five days a week (The Guardian) Most executives expect a full return to the office by 2026 (The Times) These headlines are usually accompanied by…
Today is an exciting day. It’s the first Monday of the first week in which I am full-time in my new business. Maren Deepwell Coaching & Consultancy is now fully underway. Woohooo! It’s been a long time coming, and I didn’t really know what to expect from today. It feels a little strange not to return to the familiar busy inbox and long-time colleagues after returning from a two week holiday. Instead I sit at…
It’s my first day back at my desk today after a two week break, and I am happy to report that both rest and fun where had! It’s been a while since I had two weeks off, and my top tip for my future self is to do that more often. One week is never quite enough to really relax, and I loved the extra days before and after travelling to Crete that the extra…
In this week’s podcast I share some of my personal history and how I came to be so interested in all things hybrid and virtual working. From Germany to London in my art school years, and from Athens to Oxford as my work moved from Art to Anthropology and then Education, this episode sets out what I think is interesting about hybrid and virtual working, why it’s important and why now is the time to…
This morning’s Memex 1.1, John Naughton’s Substack newsletter, including this quote by Dave Winer: “There’s nothing more permanent than a temporary hack.” and it feels like a great theme for my day today, which I am spending sorting through my own temporary hacks from the past 15 years. It’s my day to clean out my archive of files and emails at ALT, the last steps in a long handover process. Documents I filed away in…
Yep, this is another post about houseplants… or rather things we can learn from plants. I’ve previously published leadership lessons from office plants and in the same spirit this post is all about houseplant inspired tips for managing a period of change or transition. It’s inspired by my own experience of moving between jobs this month and my adventures in caring for a growing collecting of plants in my home and home office. It’s the…
Well… it’s been quite a week, quite a conference and quite an end to my time as CEO of ALT. I’d previously blogged my love letter to ALT’s Annual Conference, and also my goodbye and thanks as CEO of ALT. I felt well prepared going into the conference week, but as it turned out, it was a lot more emotional and a lot more intense. So in this post I want to bring together at…
I’m really excited to have Season 3 of the Leading Virtual Teams Podcast finally underway. It’s a new season in every sense… and that is why I am kicking off with ‘new pencil case’ moments in episode 1: This episode celebrates the start of September, and the new season or start of term for many of us. I have recently tried out a new gratitude journal share ideas for how to find bright spots in…