Corporate work and creating skirts

After taking a look at my blogging for the last 3 weeks, I realized that there are 2 major parts of my life that I only mention in passing - my job and my kids. My kids are personal. They are also young men who are likely to feel embarrassed or betrayed by my analytical view of their behavior being shared with the world. My job, however, is an entirely different story.

I recently heard a jazz musician say that she was told at a young age to memorize other musicians' jazz solos. She would lock herself into a practice room with their recordings and learn them note for note. The point, she said, was to have all of that music filed away at a subconscious level. That way, when she records, she says what she wants to say using language that is informed by the masters.

In my own way, I began using this approach with my work life in 2001. I researched cross generational team functionality, problem solving ideas, methods and means, strategies and stratagems. I trained myself to observe individuals and groups in order to identify compatible strengths and potential points for compounding results. I developed theories, observed experiments (both my own deliberate ones and the intentional or unintentional tests of colleagues), tallied results and revised my theories. I have investigated this world through 3 roles at 2 companies that could not have been more different. I believe that I'm starting to understand these corporate entities, but that isn't why I've done it.

My intention in all of this has been to create a space where business can be done my way - efficiently and effectively while feeding and developing unique individuals. That sounds like it could be a rather idealistic corporate mission statement. For a lot of reasons, however, corporations find it impractical to actually work this way.

This is not a revelation to me and even writing it all out here doesn't change much. But, during the course of this day, these last few paragraphs have changed direction quite a bit. That is in large part due to my sister, V, and her creating skirt.

V created a creating skirt today. It is to help her feel at home in her own creative life again. It is of her own, very V design made of very V bits of fabric in her own V creating space. When she put it on, she could see how to solve problems in an entirely different way. She even had a solution for this one. I'm not sure that I will take it, but I will apply her creating skirt idea to this.

In other words, I have decided to take my boss' offer and work entirely from home. Since the team I support is in the UK, it will be no change for them. But I will be able to approach my conflict from my own space, in my favorite clothes with my very own coffee. In itself, this will not resolve the tension that I feel, but at least I will be able to give it my best shot. As V said, there is no problem that can't be solved in a creating skirt!