I Just Wish

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

Many years ago, during the final year of my first marriage I remember Soozle looked at me and said, "I just wish."

It was a half-sentence she never finished, but she didn't need to. It said everything. It spoke of if-onlys and hinted at realities that are just out of reach. 

I knew what she meant. 

I've found the phrase on the tip of my tongue over the years, but have stopped myself from using it. It somehow seems silly and childish to wish as a grown-up.

But the phrase has lodged in my head again lately. I think it is because Corrie has announced her resignation. 

Good for her, she's off to start a career as a contractor with more $$$'s. The money will help her buy that house she's been dreaming of and even if contracting is just a short-term move, it will set her up for a career anywhere she wants to go. 

She's a smart, resourceful, funny, caring and efficient person. She'll be amazing wherever she goes. 

However, she didn't really want to go. She loves her people here at Kainga Ora and I can tell it makes her sad to be moving on. But her hand was forced. After stepping in to save the day when Shenée was forced out, I think she was expecting something by way of reward or recognition for turning into a successful Project Manager overnight. 

Her reward? Demotion. 

Yeah, they said, now that we don't need you as a Project Manager anymore you can go back to being a coordinator. 

Managerial incompetence shouldn't surprise me. We have all experienced it and experienced it over and over. But I had almost come to believe that maybe Kainga Ora was different. 

I think it's because their Project Managers themselves are really good. I mean, there are exceptions of course. But I've had great experiences with Shenée, Corrie, Laura and Jess. That's precisely DOUBLE the number of good PM's I've had at all my previous jobs combined. 

Not Ellie though. Ellie does not count. This is because she was never a leader as such. She wasn't even officially part of the team she led me in.

All senior managers agreed she was doing a great job but errrrr... Well....

She only recently officially GOT the job she's been doing for the past six months. And even then it's just as Team Member, not Team Leader. 

"We can't make you a Team Leader," they said, "because we don't know who you would report to." 

As if an organisation chart anomaly was a valid reason for their inertia.

So you see the problem here? It's not the Project Managers it's the department managers - the SENIOR managers - who seem utterly divorced from reality and empathy.

Corrie's predicament was just another case in point. You have a person who has clearly proven themselves and you kick them back down to their old position. What do you THINK is going to happen? That they're going to stick around for you to shaft them AGAIN?

I called this months ago, and you may remember, tried to hatch a plot to move Corrie sideways at least. There are a couple of places she could have gone where she is badly needed and would be valued and she would have loved it. 

But again, though senior managers made encouraging noises, none of them felt any sense of urgency to do anything with my recommendation memos. 

Or maybe they were too scared to rattle cages. Or maybe they think people LIKE being demoted. Who even knows what senior managers think. Or what they do. Or if they think at all.

And so here we are. I shouldn't be disappointed and feel foolish for feeling let down, but I am. I guess it's because I got a taste of how things could be, if senior managers could look at what we did and how we did it. If they actually followed our supposed values of "boldness", "working together" and "keeping people at the heart" instead of rote-parroting these values in speeches like passing wind. 

If only senior managers could find it in themselves to emulate us. To stop being so scared and political and corporate and embrace the possibility that there's a better way of doing things. 

It's just childish talk, I know.
 
I just wish.

And thanks to Shenée and Ellie and Laura and Jess - and Corrie - I'll keep wishing. 

S.