April 2024
MonthNotes
Hi, welcome to my MonthNotes — reflective notes looking back over the past month, loosely based on a set of questions which help me reflect.
1. What was difficult?
- Hearing about someone who is in a coma
2. What went well?
- Another win for ‘governance as a service’
- The first module of the second year of my Somatic Experiencing (SE) training
- The response from UK academic leaders and funders to the report we published last month on the challenges ahead for them
- The launch of our new report on the transformative role of the Eindhoven University of Technology in delivering innovation and impact and how universities can support and drive local innovation
3. What did you experiment with?
- An internal hackathon:
Our hackathon in Q4 last year left me inspired and led to some great results. So we’re running more this more. In doing so, we’re trying to learn from last time, keeping what worked well and experimenting with a couple of changes (including the scope of ideas and the scope of people we’re inviting to participate).
4. Who or what inspired you?
“Creativity is really important for people’s well-being, it validates them. Using that side of the brain and using your hands is fundamental to a person’s well-being and health, and it’s fulfilling.”
As she put it, our greatest intelligence is not about learning knowledge to be able to regurgitate it, “it’s about being able to think for yourself and have faith in your beliefs. CCI helps to develop these qualities.”
I did a day of yoga and Rolf movement with Giovanni in London. I first met Giovanni six and a half years ago, in September 2017, when he gave me my first Rolfing session. Then, a few years after I completed the Rolfing series with him, he played a major part in my recovery from stroke — he introduced me to my first SE practitioner, and his online yoga sessions were fundamental to me coming back into more fully being in my body (I regularly watched several per week). It was inspiring to be with him again.
5. What made you proud?
- Customers sharing how they use our products to help them do their important work. I’m fortunate that in my role I hear lots of examples of this. But nonetheless I still enjoyed this story of how our latest product, Scopus AI, is helping a researcher advance cancer research.
- Hearing about the cutting-edge research our Data Science teams are doing. I see some of theit output — eg in prototypes— but I’d not previously appreciated or realized the depth of research they do (and publish) that underpins their work.
6. What words did you learn?
- Vorfreude (in German) is the joy that can come in anticipating joy*
- Ma is a Japanese concept to describe the gap between things, a gap which is pregnant with possibilities. It has been described as “the silence between the notes which make the music,”* “the fundamental time and space from which life needs to grow,”* and “an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled.”
- Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) is a form of talking therapy, based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and specially adapted for people who feel emotions very intensely. Its aim is to help people understand and accept their difficult feelings.* It is based on four major pillars/skills: mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotional regulation.
7. What else did you learn?
- Want to increase your empathy? Reading fiction is more effective than empathy training programs.* (HT Tom Geraghty)
8. What did you get reminded of?
- ‘This is home’, by Sophie Efthimiou
- It is amazing how our outlook/perspective/mindset changes what we see
- Music is medicine (HT my colleague Shiv Gaglani)
- Danya Shults’ coaching resouces
9. What books did you read?
- Growing into Silence, by Paul Nicholson
- Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, by Robert Sapolsky (one of the books on the reading list for my SE training)
10. What poems touched you?
- The-bell and the blackbird, by David Whyte (which I first heard five months ago, in November 2023 but which still struck me this month as though hearing it for the first time)
- Intimate invitation, by David Whyte (which I heard for the first time)
- Farewell letter, by David Whyte
- ‘A stone from Poland,’ by Henry Shukman
- ‘Riches I hold in light esteem,’ by Emily Bronte
11. What was fun?
- Being reminded of Ali G
- Kiran Millwood-Hargrave and Tom de Freston talking about their new Leila and the Blue Fox
- Walking across the bridge of sighs in Cambridge
- Going to a comedy club
- A yielding session
“Good travels at a snail’s pace. Those who want to do good are not in a hurry, they know that to impregnate people with good requires a long time.” Gandhi
12. What did you enjoy?
- Nature: the dawn chorus, countryside walks, flowers, hares
- Music: sitting in a cafe, walking along the road
- Seeing my brother and family
13. What are you looking forward to in May?
- Seeing friends
- Seeing my dad
- Going to a concert (The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc)
- Running a couple of sessions on psychological safety for one of our senior management teams
