I had a lovely example of “work joy” on Friday, when Leigh Smyth and I co-presented a Masterclass in Creating Impact, a subject we both love talking about (and more importantly, doing!
Leigh has been an Impact Maker for well over 2 decades, and her list of achievements is incredible – from driving accessibility of the digital world for kids in the very early days of the “online” revolution, to setting up Go On UK with Baroness Martha Lane Fox, creating Digital Academies at Lloyds where she and I first worked together, and building the Consumer Digital Index that is now the baseline tool for UK Government in measuring the state of Digital Skills in the UK.
We were able to share why creating Impact matters so much, and to delve into a couple of IMPACT MATCH frameworks that Leigh has developed through her experiences.
And, brilliantly given the current state of ESG thinking worldwide, Leigh gave lots of hints and tips about how the absence of big budgets doesn’t need to hold you back. So long as you are prepared, as Leigh so often is, to ask “the cheeky question” of those who might have the budget or the assets you need to get your plan underway!
As a few minutes of light relief, I shared my Fairytale Castle, complete with train tracks and stations, as a simple way to create shared vision and to answer the question “are we nearly there yet”.
We also looked at how our amazing ActionAble 2025 event in February, had been entirely built to create Impact from start to finish, with over 450 organisations joining us online to start their journey to greater disability inclusive workplaces.
It’s always a good sign when you get difficult questions after speaking for so long. Our audience brought plenty of their own ideas and experiences to share with us and each other. A lot of the questions we fielded focused on how to find the money to make a start on your journey, or where to find others who can provide a sounding board or inspiration if you hit barriers or meet people who find it safer to say No rather than Yes.
We had loads of great feedback after the event on Friday afternoon, and it seemed like we all had a real buzz as we headed towards a sunny weekend. Leigh and I certainly did.
I’ve been wondering, since we closed the call, why we’d both enjoyed it so much.
The sunshine definitely helped of course – it was a glorious Spring day when the world looked fresh, and full of warmth and possibilities. But it was also that my chat with Leigh mirrored that feeling of optimism and a can-do spirit.
I think our Personal Purposes (for which Leigh shared a great tool for self-developing) probably overlap quite a lot, though we are in many ways very different.
- We are both driven by a deep-rooted desire to help build a fairer world, with more equity of opportunity for everyone. As the younger of two sisters, I remember saying “it’s not fair” a lot when I was young!
- We both love data, and the stories that emerge when you really mine the insight that your data holds. Scientific training probably helps us both here.
- And neither of us likes to admit defeat or take no for an answer; we stick to the task of finding ways to move forward no matter what barriers are put in our way.
So with shared values, our differences become a strength. A source of inspiration not a source of exasperation (at least, not often!)
So, this was a milestone week for me.
It started on Monday, with the best possible news, when I became a first-time grandmother to Alana, a tiny new arrival bringing joy to her mum and dad, and the hope of a fresh new life ahead for us all.
And it ended on Friday with a very different kind of joy and optimism: the “work joy” that comes with knowing that we can each create Impact if we match our personal and our business Purpose, know the change we want to make, find our game-changers and are willing to ask the cheeky question and not take no for an answer!
