John Linton .......that ducks are smarter and better organised than human beings?
We had a very pleasant day doing not very much. We spent the morning at the bird sanctuary that is only a few minutes walk from our hotel and saw an avocet up close for the first time as well as a marsh harrier that was extinct in the UK for over a hundred years until a breeding pair was sighted in 1984. The afternoon we spent visiting the Queen's house at Sandringham and wandering around the grounds - something Annette finds an indispensible part of any time spent in rural England. So, amazingly, the day just disappeared and we are now back at the hotel - Annette watching Nadal at Wimbledon and me catching up with events in Australia in the bar - not because of my preference - it seems that the internet wifi only works here.
I have read through the Australian Saturday media - a fairly mundane task with little new added on any topic other than how Australia can be proud of its performance at the world cup - an interesting view of how the team played and how it generally conducted itself (based on press reports only) - I guess it sums up the general veracity of what is published in the Australian media.....where do those hacks come from to write such rubbish? Again, I didn't bother to read the political columns - to me they would be like reading the sporting columns.
I started to put together a list of things that Exetel needed to accomplish to justify its continuing existence as part of the long term job goals and 'learning' for some of the company's key people while we were scanning the skies for incoming avia of interest in one of the 'hides' this morning having to keep quiet or risk offending the more dedicated 'twitchers' either side of us who seem to demand funereal silence as the only possible atmosphere in which waiting for new arrivals at the water in front of the hide can be conducted. I didn't get very far along that route but it did indicate that there was more to do than I had thought in terms of 'people development'. I used to be quite a fan of structured career development and formal in house education; almost certainly because of what I experienced in my early years working for multi-nationals. Over the last decade or so I have become quite uncertain about the value (to either party) of such processes.
So I made a list, when I returned to the hotel, for two people in Exetel that would be a series of targets (in terms of knowledge and skills) that they would need to achieve to free them from my 'interference' in their day to day and, more importantly, half year to half year job responsibilities. I didn't get very far beyond a lot of meaningless 'motherhood' nonsenses that would make me laugh out loud at their inanity if anyone else had suggested such twaddle as I wrote down. It's a major problem for me, for Exetel's shareholders and for Exetel's employees that I (one of the main determiners of individual career paths within our small company) is so lost in determining sensible 'paths' from here to there - let alone time frames and with absolutely no idea how to define the actual skills and knowledge that's required.
How do you actually teach/define a suitable process that provides any individual with the required abilities to become a "manager" as the least level required but then leading on to the required forward thinking and analytical abilities and processes that allow them in increase the scope of their activities and benefit themselves personally as well as providing the necessary growth required by their employer? The reason I started on this 'tack' was having been "shushed" by a fierce looking female at one of the hides this morning my mind drifted to this subject while watching a group of ducks (two parents and 6 ducklings) slowly swimming in single file (one adult at the front and one adult at the back) with both adults moving other birds in their path or intersecting their part out of the way with whatever aggression such delicate creatures possess and the 'rear' adult chivvying the ducklings that fell behind or tried to stray back in line. Who taught them to protect their offspring in such a truly sensible manner?
Was there a 'parenting for first time hatcher's classroom hidden in the reed beds? Obviously not. But those two adult ducks were doing an excellent job of teaching and protecting their young with only what their genetic material provided to them. Thus my mind started to think about what human beings needed in terms of vocational training and why we didn't have what every other species on the planet has - an intimate and intricate understanding of exactly what to do from birth until death. Then I thought that obviously our species has exactly the same genetic material and we also know, without being taught, how to conduct ourselves at every stage of our lives - we just choose not to.
No education or career direction discussions should be necessary for any human being who wants to have a career - they just need to follow the guidance within themselves and select from the multiplicity of vocational training resources available to them.
I wonder if it is that simple?
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