39. The Reset | Elizabeth Uviebinené
Friends,
This is not just a book for those of you working in a corporate space, there are ideas in here that will help creatives too.
Elizabeth writes a column in London for the Financial Times and in it she challenges our ways of working, and the businesses we work for, the communities we are a part of, and the society we all help shape.
Some of my favourite snippets:
“Hiring the right people and creating a framework in which they can succeed will create a business that can respond to crises and build growth because you will have the right people in the right places. Valuing people, first and foremost, is the key to making a business thrive in a sustainable, lasting way. And part vol valuing workers - making them feel valued - includes how, and most importantly, where the business woks.”
“Flexibility isn’t just about allowing people to work from home and the implications of the room in your house you’re working from, it’s about where that house is. It’s about allowing people to choose how and where they live so long as they are contributing to the business. It’s also about trusting them to know and choose for themselves the best and mist effective way for them to contribute.”
“Meeting new people is how we discover opportunities, both professionally and personally. This is the power of ‘weak ties’ or casual acquaintances. Close family and friends tend to circulate in the same social pools as we do. It’s much harder to gain new perspectives or fresh ideas from people we are already very close to. Our casual acquaintances have a level of distance from our own lives that can be beneficial in introducing us to new opportunities. Research has shown that building new networks can boost happiness, knowledge and a sense of belonging.”
and this line, which resonates and ties into my most recent resignation:
“While money is so fundamentally important, we all need it to keep food on the table, so were other things, like actually valuing the people you work with, actually learning and growing, actually enjoying your job, and actually working on things that have purpose and meaning, not just going to work on something that you don’t really care about.”
On mainly white, mainly male office spaces: