Meetings, Magic Pens and 2024 plans
Meetings, Magic Pens and 2024 plans
Plus a link to the annual review
Hey,
Hope you are safe and well. We’re super close to the festive break - and I for one am very much looking forward to it! The house is coming on nicely indeed and very much hoping it will be ready in March next year.
It’s that time of the year for an annual review, but I also want to say thank you for your support and for reading this newsletter. It is so appreciated. Thank you.
The annual review is something I’ve done for a couple of years now (last year’s is here), but it is a little self-centred.
So, I thought I’d include the roadmap plan for next year in this newsletter, to give you something to look forward to - and also a fun little Pens of Power meeting note.
As such, the actual annual review is on my website here. I chat a little about it at the end of this newsletter but the actual review is here.
Read on for pens of power and the 2024 plan.
For those new to the Cultivated newsletter, welcome, I’m Rob, Chief Reflections Officer at Cultivated Management. Every Wednesday I publish this newsletter about envisioning bright futures of work, as well as tips and advice on improving communication skills - a genuine super power in the world of work. Welcome.
In this newsletter
Pens of Power - magic pens to use in meetings - a fun little end to the year
2024 Plan
Link to annual review
Pens of Power
As part of a drawing course I have been doing, we had to draw pens. It was remarkably good fun. My brain often goes all over and so it logically went to a magical place where pens could be used in meetings to change things.
What magical pen would you have? What’s missing?
As you know, I’m not a fan of meetings - and would love to have these magical pens sometimes :)
A little bit of fun to end the year.
1. End the meeting now
2. Transport me home
3. Please stop them speaking
4. Listen to me, please!
5. Make the smell go away
6. Trade my boss for a better one - can only use once
7. Automatic pay rise - can only be used three times
8. Bring me a drink, please
9. Tune into the grapevine - what’s really going on?
10. No more death by PowerPoint
11. Don’t sit next to me
12. Don’t make me put my camera on
13. Please, no more new initiatives
14. Don’t make me have fun (forced fun meetings suck)
15. Destroy all micromanagers - harsh, doesn’t actually destroy people!
16. Find me a new job
17. Respect me by default
The 2024 Plan
As per usual, I have some ambitious plans for 2024 with regards to this newsletter and my wider content.
I hope you stick with me and I am pretty sure there will be something for everyone in my plans for next year.
You can find the annual review on my website here. I do the review first, then plan for next year.
I’ll be honest with you, this newsletter is a labour of love, so I’m exploring keeping a lot of it free but also adding a paid tier to it. I spend around 3 hours a week working on this newsletter, and as much as I love writing it, it’s not growing much year on year. Well, it is growing, but not by as much as I would like it to :).
I’m trying to address this in 2024 by getting back on social media (yuck, but it does work sadly) and by making the content a lot more focussed.
Meeting Notes
The main newsletter will continue with the Meeting Notes format and will always be free.
Each week it will be a poster and some useful information to help you in your career.
The focus will still be on helping people build companies/teams than enrich lives - coupled with a heavy dose of communication, critical thinking, creativity and personal development.
New New! Releasing Agility (Here’s an idea worth playing with)
I will also add in an audio show that will be free until March 2nd (my birthday), it will then be only for paid subscribers.
I will set the price at the lowest that Substack will let me, to make it accessible for as many people as I can.
I find it so hard to charge for things, but I need to pivot my income from 99% consulting to a more reasonable balance across my offers and content.
This audio show will still be called “Here’s an idea worth playing with”. The new format will be longer audio episodes packed with useful and practical managerial and business agility insights.
I have 120 episodes planned for now about Releasing Business Agility, measuring business value, leading teams and all of the other work I do as a consultant. A kind of behind the scenes as a consultant working to help businesses get better.
Expect straight-forward ideas about releasing agility but also nuggets of ideas on how to move people into action, sell your services, garner support for ideas, manage people, work with HR and other aspects that come into work as a consultant/change leader trying to help companies get better.
I’ve been an independent self employed consultant for 7 years now and each year have brought in a good salary (I hate talking about money) and many people ask how to do the same. I’ve also lead teams, been a VP of HR and VP of Software Engineering, as well as head of agile and head of comms - so all of this experience will be weaved in to the audio show.
So, I’ll share what I do, how it works and also maybe some ideas on how to charge a valuable rate for your work/ask for pay rises etc.
But all of this will be wrapped into the Releasing Agility model (Emotional painted picture + goals, overcoming obstacles, aligning and managing people, process improvement and learning).
I’m basically sharing everything I know - that I believe will help you if you’re a leader, manager, HR pro, keen change maker, agilist or consultant.
There will be rich and deep insights, workbooks, slide decks and the very material I use with clients to help them get smoother and quicker, whilst building a workplace that enriches everyone’s lives.
Here’s a quick screen grab of just a fraction of the content:
It will be heavily about communication, hence all paid subscribers will gain access to the online comms super power workshop also as part of their subscription.
I reckon it will be about $5 a month - so about $60 a year for advice on how to potentially build a six-figure consulting business, or develop your existing career to new heights.
Damn, I hate talking money. We Brits aren’t good at this :) I suspect everyone is the same, right?
Zero To Keynote
I hope to have my Keynote presenters field guide ready in Q1 next year. It will be epic and super helpful for anyone looking to do better presentations.
YouTube
The channel will pretty much detach from my Cultivated Management business and become a playground for me to explore creativity and learning.
Many topics will still be relevant for you all but it won’t be about management and leadership. It will be about comms, learning, personal development and behind the scenes. I’m trying to remove the pressure to create videos and to just get back to having fun with this medium.
Stationery Freaks
As some of you may know, I also co-host a podcast about stationery. Yes, you read that right. It’s going SO well and I’m pumped about this project.
We often cover many topic I cover here as we are exploring how analogue methods can help us get more done. Expect more focus over there, but not at the detriment of this newsletter.
Seminar
I also said I’d try and run a seminar this year but I didn’t get a chance. That is on the cards for next year, for sure.
Closing Out
The annual review is a good process for ensuring my next actions are starting from a clear and realistic starting point. It might be something you find valuable also.
I am certainly struggling with health, so that will be a focus for next year. I am being less ambitious with content but I do hope the Releasing Agility podcast will be a very useful resource for you all.
With that, have a cracking festive break - I’ll be back next year for more goodness and advice.
Thanks again for you support. Have a joyful rest and see you next year.
Rob…