Part of our rethinking recruitment experiment.
My first impression of the 2nd task (to produce comms about a 20min conversation between Abby and Andy) was: ‘I could summarise this information in a couple of paragraphs.’
There didn't immediately feel like there was much there to grow. Abby and Andy did a great job of explaining the concept of autonomy on their own, using their own examples.
They had asked us to ‘encapsulate’ the conversation and that word choice seemed important. So I googled it:
1. express the essential features of (something) succinctly. Summarise, abridge, digest.
2. enclose (something) in or as if in a capsule. Encase, contain, confine, envelop.
I opened up a blank page (hello old friend) and gave myself an hour to free write whatever came into my head.
I got stuck after 9 paragraphs.
I pressed the return key twice and started again.
I continued until my hour was up and after a quick copy edit and review I had something, and... nothing.
The edges were murmuring something, something bigger than a few stories from my professional life… but I couldn’t catch what they were trying to say to me.
The attempt trickled through my brain for the rest of the day, repeatedly reaching dead ends no matter what direction I took them in. I listened to the noise, hoping for that edge muttering somewhere underneath it all to become clearer... and pointedly ignoring the imposter syndrome that was snickering in the background: 'Oh so easy to summarise in a few paragraphs eh?' (Ugh.)
I idly read the definition of encapsulate again, treating it like the north star in a crowded sky.
Abby, Andy, and I would talk later about how many times I looked up 'encapsulated' – because I sheepishly admitted to them that I did this every single time I got stuck and by the end of the process, I’d probably read a dozen different definitions ten times or more.
I spent a lot of time searching for meaning in that one word as if it would unlock the meaning of the universe. Trying to navigate these new waters by highlighting the ‘keyword’ in an exam question like I knew I should.
Abby had to tell me it was meaningless (although by the time we reached the interview where that conversation took place I had already guessed it might be). ‘Encapsulated’ wasn’t chosen for a particular reason, it wasn’t a test. There weren't 'shoulds' here.
I’d spent a lot of time listening to a satellite pretending to be a star, searching for meaning where she simply hadn’t intended any.
I also knew I was looking for direction in a task that was supposed to be autonomous.
My experience of the task was truly meta from the very beginning: I was experiencing autonomy and the debilitation curve (the 'oh crap I have no idea what I am doing' rollercoaster) while writing autonomously about an autonomous conversation about autonomy.
I love a good dose of irony. I was truly the architect of my own demise, and I was taking myself along for the ride....
Today, however, I am writing this reflection weeks after the task with a dawning sense of new clarity. There was actually something there, something in that word that I was reaching for, I just couldn’t see it.
The synonym I was looking for just smacked me in the face and bought out the chair for a takedown when I copied it into this blog post:
Envelop.
I had started by trying to make things smaller, started fitting them into a capsule, containing and enclosing them - summarising Abby and Andy's words without adding much. I started trying to fit them into a box, a nice neat 'appropriate business comms' box. The same box I was trying to claw my way out of. 🤦
At the time I intuitively felt the need to go wider, I felt the wrongness in the direction as a sort of 'gut knowledge,' but I spent a long time fighting that and seeking the 'head knowledge' - the clearly articulatable, measurable, reasons for why something didn't feel right.
I wasn't valuing the felt knowledge - because felt knowledge has never been enough for any one else in any role I have ever been in before. I'd been taught to devalue it and I didn't know how to trust it again.
The word I needed to see, the star I needed guidance from, may have been there all along (and perhaps it is comforting to know that now) but it was also there in that moment, in a different knowledge, inside the feelings and the discomfort, I just needed to be brave...
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