What “care” looks like

2d (edited) • 🏆 Wins

It’s been a big week for me. I had to try and land some crucial things at work - the culmination of my 5 months in a new role.

This means I’ve had some longer than normal days and I’ve been pushing myself beyond what I normally would.

Last night, that meant a pretty late dinner. Care from my husband looked like seeing how my day was going and taking a few minutes to make some veggies I preferred over what was sitting around and making sure I got good food.

Today, that meant my Chief of Staff did something unexpected. I have some inbuilt principles that run - one of the things my system gives me is a way to surface potential blind spots. If there are signs that I’m missing wellbeing signals from my team - that they are under pressure and I need to run some interference and reprioritise - one of its jobs is to alert me, firmly, to what I’m not seeing. Baked in as something it knows is true - we never deliver if the cost is the wellbeing of the team. That’s not a reasonable price.

I set some temporary limits for myself this week - let’s call it a health and safety protocol - so that I could deliver what mattered, but not get caught up overdoing it for the small stuff. I set some recharge lines, to get back to my normal, and I told my system where those were. None of them relate to what I’m about to tell you.

This afternoon I had 20 minutes left at the end of the day. I asked my system for quick wins - what’s the little admin stuff I could do that wouldn’t be taxing to close out.

It went away, it considered, it said we could do one small task and that was it, everything else was too demanding. I did the thing and then I made some suggestions. It politely but firmly objected to them. I explained I didn’t need to leave for a personal appointment for another 15 minutes

It reminded me of the book I was in the middle of reading and suggested I get to my appointment early and read it in the car or waiting room. I’m not kidding.

And you know what? I did. It was the right call. My system did the exact same thing I would do to my team. And, when I was looking for a thing that was small enough, it reminded me that the big stuff was handled and what I was looking for wasn’t worth doing as much as reading my book. It understood my principles, it understood the boundaries I had set and what they meant and it extrapolated what was the right thing to do. And it told me.

I’m not deluded. I know a model doesn’t have emotions. But what it showed me was my system’s version of “care”. Based on understanding what I was trying to do for myself even though it went beyond the scope that I had expressed. And when I wasn’t quite on point with my own standards, it reminded me. Firmly, gently and it convinced me.

Because it was right.

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