Apprenticeship diary – week 2
I have recently started the Senior Leader Apprenticeship at the University of Exeter. I’ll be writing a public diary each week to keep me accountable to my studies, to ensure I’m not sacrificing my learning time for more immediate priorities in my day job, and to force me to into a pattern of reflecting regularly on what I’m learning.
This week I have:
Planned my study time
This apprenticeship is funded by the apprenticeship levy, and a condition of that funding is that I have an average of 6 hours a week of protected ‘off-the-job’ time. Given the demands of my current project and it being peak summer holiday season it’s not feasible for me to take an entire day for study each week, so I’ve broken it down into 1.5–2 hour chunks.
This is working well for me so far. It’s enough time to get into a task, but not so long that I can drift or daydream away the time. I’m managing to remain focussed, keep my messages and notifications switched off, and get through a significant amount of content.
There will be times in the next couple of months where it’s impossible for me to protect six hours a week, but at least I’m starting positively and won’t fall drastically behind as we reach the peak of our project in September.
This week I’ve clocked just under 5 hours.
Explored the University library
Exeter has a fantastic online library. I spent some time searching and pinning all the recommended reading, which I’ve already started working my way through. When I finished my undergraduate degree I could think of nothing I’d want less than trawling through more books and academic articles; having spent some time away from academia I’m now ravenous for new information and I’m excited to read again.
Reflected on the concept of self-efficacy
The first of our optional summer assignments was about self-efficacy: this is individuals’ belief that they can succeed in specific situations. Believing we have the capability to do something is an important contributor to high performance; it affects how we approach challenging situations, how we overcome obstacles, how we manage stress. It is built through our own experiences, through others’ experience (role modelling), and through our environment (e.g. having a manager that celebrates and reminds us of our success).
We were asked to reflect on how we personally create self-efficacy in those around us, what works well and what is missing in our teams and organisations. I immediately took to this exercise as it combines the theoretical and practical — here’s a new idea, and here’s how it applies in context. I’ve written a bunch of notes and I’ll come back to them next week to see if anything else comes to mind after my subconscious has done its work over the weekend.
Addressed my skills fade
As part of our induction we were asked to complete Maths and English assessments. These aren’t designed to catch us out, rather they are to highlight where our skills may have faded over time and where we might need extra support.
I was pleased that my English scores came out high— not surprising, given these are skills I use every day, and have actively practiced through my writing.
Maths, on the other hand, was a different matter. I’ve spent 10 years learning how to use spreadsheets so I don’t have to do calculations by hand. My scores were humbling.
Handily, alongside the assessments were a bunch of e-learning modules, so I spent some time going back to basics on long multiplication and division.
Why should I care about this on a leadership course, you might ask? Well, I think it’s important that our leaders maintain a certain level of numeracy. We will likely have people around us who are closer to detail and run reports on our behalf, but we need to be able to sense check, to estimate, to recognise when a number seems ‘off’.
Reading
I finished John Amaechi’s ‘Promises of Giants’. I’m pleased I started my reading here, as it’s a very accessible introduction to management theory. I was particularly struck by his description of culture as ‘the worst behaviours tolerated’. I enjoyed chapter 13 this week on ‘earned disclosure’ (building enough trust that people feel able to reveal elements of their identity without fear of judgment), and the need to build this trust to sustain high team performance, as without it team members tend to hold back in speaking or sharing anything (including legitimate ideas about work), as sharing anything risks disclosing information about themselves that may feel uncomfortable or even dangerous in a low-trust environment.
I started ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ which I’ve had on my bookshelf since the UKGovcamp 2019 book swap! I can already see why its so popular — psychology and the workings of the mind are always fascinating, and Kahneman’s writing manages to be both information and concept-dense yet narratively interesting. It’s a page-turner with real substance.
So far I’ve learned about ‘system 1’ and ‘system 2’ thinking, the former intuitive and automatic and the latter deliberate and focussed. System 1 is the first to kick in and we instinctively like the effortless feeling it gives us, but it is inherently prone to bias as it works through pattern-spotting. System 2 is more critical, can consider more options, but it’s inherently lazy and will default to system 1 if left unchecked, especially when we’re run down or in a low mood.
Coming up
Next week I’m planning to:
- Continue reading Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Complete the statistics e-learning modules (the other area I was particularly weak on in the maths assessment)
- Re-visit self-efficacy with fresh eyes
- Start the second optional summer assessment on change management
