Lesley* + The Pedestal

When my twin sons were about 3 years old, a colleague I enjoyed working with invited me to apply for a more senior role in a new organisation that he was to head up.

The New Thing was so new that it didn’t really exist yet. It was just a room full of office furniture in a beautiful building and a whole lot of possibility and enthusiasm. I was up for it. 

It was fun – we had to build something from scratch in a really interesting policy area. I felt we were making important things work better for people. We recruited other people we loved working with, as well as brilliant new people we didn’t know but who would become fantastic friends and colleagues. 

After a couple of years, the colleague who brought me in was invited by our Chair to move out of The New Thing to lead an established business. I was invited to lead The New Thing.

I hadn’t headed up anything before and my kids were still little and needed me a lot. I was tempted to say no because I didn’t feel ready or able (or qualified) – but I’d turned down an opportunity to apply for a promotion a few years previously and had been underwhelmed by the subsequent appointment so I was keen not to make that mistake again.

I agreed to do it. 

I loved leading a small organisation doing interesting work with a fantastic team of about 25 people – the best job I’d ever done. We had offices, furniture, good ideas, great projects, a fair amount of support. It was so much fun.

Then there was significant legislative reform which brought with it a tsunami of system-level restructuring. My small organisation was to merge into a Bigger Thing with more powers, more structure, a higher profile. 

I applied for the equivalent role in the Bigger Thing. I wasn’t sure whether it was the right thing to do. I tend to do better in smaller organisations rather than bigger ones but it seemed like a good opportunity.

And I felt protective of what we’d built, of the people, the future. I didn’t want to let go.

I was appointed into the role at the Bigger Thing following a pretty intense selection process. I gained a boss I respected, a flashier job title, a big office, a seat at the executive table and a budget to expand the team. We moved to a new location.

I felt responsible for making the organisation a great place to work. This was my responsibility as a member of the executive team. It was ok for a while.  What we were doing wasn’t straight-forward but it was part of a coherent set of policy objectives.  

Then the policy “iterated”, my boss was replaced, we merged with another organisation and doubled in size, we restructured.

It became increasingly difficult to get things done in the Even Bigger Thing, to make meaningful progress, to have an impact. We decided to add in more people, more layers. My area was in policy freefall and I personally slipped down the organisational hierarchy, no longer reporting into the CEO. Someone else was given my office and I was moved to a desk in an open plan area.

Our building had a rodent problem. The rats and mice scrabbled overhead regularly. The light above my desk was full of droppings.  I was no longer clear who was responsible for what in the Even Bigger Thing, what we were trying to do, what everyone was doing all day. The policy objectives started to feel less coherent by the day. 

One day Lesley came to take away my desk pedestal, all the desk pedestals. She never told me why. It had been decided that people wouldn’t have desk pedestals. It made life, well, messier, really. No drawers. Nowhere to put stuff at the same desk I sat at every day in my ratty corner. Show me an organisation where decisions are communicated by the phrase “It was been decided that” and I’ll show you an organisation where things aren’t working very well. 

I saw the team I had built, all the work that we had done, disintegrate, a little bit at a time. The reasons for it were not communicated, not discussed. It certainly wasn’t replaced by something better. Then there was another CEO, another restructuring on the cards. I left. 

I joined a Boutique Consultancy for a while. There were no rats running around overhead. I had a desk and a desk pedestal and everything. But the problem with the Even Bigger Place had been that it was no-one’s thing. After a while I realised the Boutique Consultancy was someone else’s thing. I came to the realisation it was time to do my own thing. 

So here I am. Doing my own thing. No desk pedestal. I realised I didn’t need one. Thanks Lesley.

*This is not her real name