Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:17: Defining initiative at work

00:02:45: An initiative watch-out

00:04:25: Why initiative matters

00:09:19: Factors you can control in taking initiative

00:11:07: Ideas for action…

00:11:26: … 1: minimum viable progress

00:16:55: … 2: know the what, but own the how and the how else

00:21:07: … 3: looking ahead and around

00:25:52: … 4: make more of the moment

00:30:23: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Each week, we talk about a different topic to do with work, and share some ideas and actions that we just hope will help all of us navigate this Squiggly Career with some confidence and control.

Helen Tupper: And every one of our episodes comes with other resources to help you learn.  So, we've got PodSheets, they're one-page summaries that you can print off and go through; we've got PodNotes so they've got swipable insights just to make stuff stick; and then, we've also got PodPlus, which is a weekly conversation with our Squiggly Career community, and all of that is free for you and all of the links that you need to get access to that stuff are either in the show notes or on our website, amazingif.com. 

So, our topic for today, we've had some interesting chats about this one, trying to get our head around it and make it useful, but the topic is how to take initiative at work.  And I guess the context for this conversation was just Sarah and I thinking about, what's really useful, where do people make the biggest difference?  And our insight was that initiative is something that really helps.  But as we started to explore the topic, there's not a lot of easy solutions we could find to help people with it.  So, we've had to work really, really hard to try and help you with it.  So, let us know if we've managed to achieve that. But let's start with what initiative actually is, what do we mean by initiative at work? 

Well, we think this is about taking a proactive and confident action without looking for approval from other people.  I guess a more simpler definition might be, it's about starting and suggesting stuff. It's being that person who brings something into a conversation or creates energy that makes something happen.  It's taking the lead even when you are not the leader, which means that you need to spot what can be done and that you're also probably the person that ends up sorting it.  It's that kind of behaviour.  I think starting and suggesting felt like an easy way in to what we mean by initiative

. Sarah Ellis: And I think with initiative, it's one of those skills or one of those areas that you know it when you see it.  And so, when Helen and I started talking about it, the way that we discovered and got our way to the useful actions, that hopefully we'll talk you through, was more thinking about examples.  And so, it could be a useful place for you also to think about, who are the people that you work with who you would describe as like, "Oh, they take a lot of initiative, they have a lot of initiative", maybe that's something that they're known for.  What is it that they are doing well?  Because I do think it is one of those areas that you've got to break it down to figure out, "Well, what am I going to do? 

If I want to increase my initiative, what will that change?  What actions might I take?" One watch-out for you before we dive a bit deeper into initiative, is watch out for the lone wolf.  I just made up that name because also, I recognise this in myself.  And I was reading an article about initiative and they talk about the balance of something called, "The theory of wisdom", which essentially means that you need to balance your own interests with other people's interests.  So, what initiative doesn't mean is just going off and doing your own thing, or being perhaps too focused on what you think and not involving other people.  And I think it does mean connecting the dots with what you take initiative on and how you take initiative.  So, I don't think this unfortunately gives you the freedom to just go off and do whatever you want, which I think I have done that a few times.

Helen Tupper: I was just thinking about initiative in our work, you know that point you just said, you're balancing your own interests with other people's interests.  I always think, what is your initiative in service of?  Like, it's not in service of yourself, right, it's in service of other people.  So for example, Sarah and I have a mission at our company, Amazing If, about making careers better for everybody.  So, whenever I might come up with an idea that I think, "Oh, that's something I'm going to start or something I'm going to suggest", I have to run it through the filter of, "But will this make careers better for everybody, do I genuinely believe that, or does it just feel like a nice thing that I want to do?"  And I think if it doesn't make careers better for everybody, then it's not initiative that is in the interests of something basically more important than me that's connected to the company.  So, I think having that.

Sarah Ellis: So, why does initiative matter to you and also to other people, to the teams you work in and the organisations you work for?  Well, I was thinking back to, as you do, the theory of self-determination.

Helen Tupper: We loved it!  I'm just going to ponder on some self-determination theory!

Sarah Ellis: I did think.  I was like, "Oh, I wonder how this connects to basically what motivates us".  And that theory says there are three things that matter most: autonomy, competence and relatedness, and I feel like those first two are closely connected to initiative.  So, autonomy is the need to feel in control of choices and behaviours.  So, I think initiative feels good because you're like, "Okay, well, I've got the space and the freedom to go off and to make stuff happen".  And I think when we get initiative right, we also feel good about our impact, because this is where I guess you also see that your initiative makes a difference to other people, you get closer to your objectives, and you go, "Okay, well, not only have I had the autonomy, I've also got the skills and made a difference to, I don't know, the way that we work or how we get something done". 

So, I think when you have initiative and when you start taking more initiative, my hypothesis is that you will feel more motivated in your role. If I think back to outside of Amazing If, when I was in environments that I had less influence and control over, the jobs I always enjoyed the most were always the ones where I had the most initiative.  Even when I got initiative a bit wrong and did go a bit lone wolf and a bit rogue from time to time, I still really loved those jobs and I think it was because of those two things.  And in some of the research I was reading, it is definitely a skill, sometimes it's described as initiative, sometimes it's described as being proactive, that leaders look for when they interview people.  They want to know that you can get stuff done, that you can cut through all of their complexity and all the different demands that we all have, and take initiative to solve things, to sort things, to start things, as Helen's described.  And so, I think if you have lots of examples of this, it's a very transferable talent.  Like, what job doesn't want somebody who takes initiative?  Most jobs, I think.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, but you know what, you say what job?  I agree, I think jobs are better when people have initiative, but I do think you need a leader who isn't threatened by it.  So, yes, a job is better because of it, but a leader might feel threatened.  So, let's say you work for me, and I'm thinking, "Oh, I'm quite comfortable in my role, it's all going okay, I'm just going to tick along as normal".  And then I've got you taking loads of initiative, and I'm like, "Whoa!"

Sarah Ellis: Okay, I was a nightmare at times!

Helen Tupper: I'm like, "Get back in your box!"

Sarah Ellis: I'm thinking back to people I worked for, where I think I did probably turn up with a lot of initiative and they were probably a bit like, "Right...!"

Helen Tupper: But I think ideally, what you want a leader to see is that not only is that individual going to be better in their role because they've got initiative, but actually the team's going to be better because of it too.  But I do think that you need a leader who is confident in themselves in order to give other people the space to have initiative?

Sarah Ellis: I think the best leaders are very good at channelling initiative.  That's what I think the leaders that I worked for did with me.  I think they could see that I naturally had -- I was naturally proactive and got initiative, but it probably wasn't focused enough or necessarily always in the right places.  But I think that they could see the energy in that and the usefulness of it.  So, they were like, "Right, well if we can basically channel Sarah in the right way and use this initiative for the right reasons and to support the team, then actually we've got someone who can do some really good stuff".  And I think I did rely, certainly in my more naïve days, but I relied on working for a couple of people who I think saw that and, you know just the nice nudges that you need at those moments, nicely nudged me like, "A bit more over here, Sarah, a bit less over here".  And we did chat before.  We were talking about how much your environment impacts your ability to take initiative, and we do think everybody has some ability to do this.  But if you are micromanaged, which Helen and I have both been in that position before, if you are in a lower trust team, this will feel harder to do. So, I think you do have to spot, well, what does initiative look like for you right now in your current context? 

Because if I was almost plotting about how much initiative I could take in different roles that I've done, that definitely hasn't been the same.  That has definitely gone up and down depending on who I was working for and where I was working.

Helen Tupper: And just before we get into the ideas, because I don't want it to be like -- I don't want people to almost listen and go, "Oh, well my environment isn't supportive of this [or] my leader isn't supportive of this, so I can't take initiative", I do think there are some factors that are in our control that can sometimes get in the way of us taking initiative.  So, things like quite ladder-like thinking, "Well, it's not my job to do that", or, "I'm not senior enough to start or suggest this".  I think we are trying to get away from hierarchies holding us back, and actually if you've got an insight or an idea that can help an organisation, we want you to feel confident enough to put it forward, so not to hold that hierarchy in your head so much.  So, that would be one thing that I think you could do to help yourself take more initiative.

The second is linked to that confidence point really, which is that fear of failure.  I think if one of the gremlins that you find gets in your way, then the reason you might not take initiative is because you might be thinking, "Well, what if it fails?  "What if this isn't a good idea?  Or what if we try it out and it doesn't work?"  And with that one, I would go back to, the outcome will always be learning.  Will your idea or initiative always lead to success?  Probably not, to be honest.  But will there be learning as a result of it?  Yes.  And so, attach yourself to the learning, not whether your idea, your initiative is going to result in success. I think the other thing is we might say, "Well, I don't see any senior people who do this well".  You know, the point about managers, they're not very good at it, so how can I learn to?  And I think for this one, looking around you or outside of your organisation, that exercise that Sarah said at the start, like who do you see with initiative and what do they do, this doesn't just have to come from people that are more senior than you.  So, I think if you hold those things in your head, it's a lot easier to get started with taking more initiative at work.

Sarah Ellis: So, we've got four ideas now where we think if you took these actions, it would help you to take more initiative at work.  And if you've got other ideas, we'd love to know, but we went through and really tried to think about what does this practically look like; what do we do; what have we seen other people do well?  So, the first idea is minimum viable progress.  So, we felt having initiative went beyond just having an idea.  Yeah, let's not diminish ideas, I absolutely love them.  But there is a difference between having an idea and just throwing it out there.  And I'm definitely guilty of this sometimes.  And I think people who take initiative just go that bit further.  They prototype, they do. 

We've talked about it before on the podcast when we talked about, "When is good enough great?".  I think they get to good enough.  They actually recognise that just having an idea alone is actually not good enough.  So, they're like, "Right, I've got to get to good enough.  So, I need to sketch something out, I need to test this quickly, I need to do an experiment just to get a feel for whether this idea that I've had, or this idea that I want to start, or something that I want to create, does this feel like it's going to be worth it?  Is this going to be useful for other people?"  And I think at that point, they then share. So, it often sounds a bit like, "Oh, I've been thinking about this challenge that we've got in the team", or, "I've spotted that often you say this is difficult.  I've heard you say this quite a few times.  And so, I've come up with a bit of a solution", so someone's created something, "Oh, and you know what?  I ran it past three other people in the team.  We've got some extra builds", or, "I put it on this WhatsApp group, and actually it got 30 thumbs up, and most people voted for it rather than against it".  When you take initiative, I don't think you have to have all of the answers, but we were saying these people are really good at getting it far enough to then start to get some feedback, some buy-in, some challenge and build.  But you've been there, like self-starting, you've been the self-starter.  Whatever that minimum viable progress looks like, I feel like it wouldn't be there if you hadn't done it.  And that's my filter for it.  I'm like, well, that's happened because of you.

Helen Tupper: I've got two examples of this that are podcast-related.  So, there's one of which I can talk about and one of which I could only lightly talk about, because I don't know if it will happen.  But on the minimum viable progress, so we are doing something called The Career Collective.  So, it is an event that is happening in December where we have brought together a number of people who podcast about the topic of careers, people like Bruce Daisley and Isabel from Working It and Jimmy from Jimmy's Jobs of the Future and us.  We are bringing people together for a one-night-only event where we're all going to give our perspectives on what's next for work.  And that idea came from a conversation that I had with Jimmy.  And I wasn't sure, I was like, "Oh, how will it work?"  And I remember we put a WhatsApp group together, basically just to test the idea, and I'd put a little bit of detail behind it, that we know wasn't very good detail, but it just brought it to life.  It was like, "It could work like this, we could give the money to charity, we do it in December", so it felt like a feel-good moment for people, you know, just took it that bit further.  People at that point could have gone, "Bad idea", but they didn't.  They attached themselves and then it's built better, and that event is happening. Then another example would be, we had an idea for something we want to make happen in January, and there's a few things involved in making this thing happen, which I can't quite talk about at the moment, but it's something for our community that we want to put live in January to help you start with success.  And I had a session with a team where I just got a Miro board and I mapped out the who, what and why of this thing we were doing in January.  And then I did a little bit of a process, far from perfect.  It was very high level, but it gave us enough of a structure for people to spot things I hadn't seen and suggest ideas and come up with questions that needed to be answered.  And it was, if I just said, "Oh, I think we should do that on January", people might've gone, "Okay".  But just that taking that idea just a little bit further means other people can contribute to it, it all gets built better, and I think it's more likely to succeed if it does go forward.

Sarah Ellis: And with both of those examples, I think I can confidently say as a bystander to both of those things, that if you hadn't taken the initiative, almost both having the ideas, but like I said, going beyond the ideas to get to the minimum viable progress, there's no way they'd be happening.  So, the December podcast that we are doing, yes, there are other people involved, but it is down to you.  You have started that, you have kept the momentum going, and of course now there's other people and it goes beyond you, but that is initiative in action.  Whereas I think you could have had, if you play the alternative scenario through, you could have had that conversation with Jimmy.  Yeah, it's like, good idea, but then other stuff can easily get in the way.  You could have been like, "Oh, yeah, that might be good at some point", and it becomes vague and no one really does anything.  And that happens loads of the time as well, right?  But I think that's the difference, is that when you're taking initiative, you don't just let things lie, you create enough.

But then exactly as you said, the idea we've got for January, you've taken initiative to get it to now, yeah it might not work, we might not do it for other reasons, but you still took the initiative to get far enough so we could make that decision.  And I think you can't make the decision unless you get it far enough in the first place.

Helen Tupper: So, our second idea for action here, to help you take initiative at work, is to know the what but own the how and the how else.  We'll explain what we mean by this.  So, the 'know the what' thing is, most of us have a larger strategic objective we're working towards. 

So, I mentioned for Sarah and me, our big strategic objective that we are working towards is to make careers better for everybody.  It might be you have an objective about maybe there's a certain revenue target, or maybe there's an improvement that you're trying to make in your job, or there's something you've got to deliver by the end of the year.  That is what you have to do in the job that you do.  The thing with initiative is that you take the lead on how that happens.  So, perhaps that outcome and objective is set by someone more senior than you, like a manager or the head of the department or whatever, someone else has created that objective for you. 

But when you're taking initiative, you own how to make that happen.  So, you're thinking, "Well, I could do it like this", and you decide the direction of how you do it, but also the 'how else' is important. So, if you're taking initiative, what we want you to do is almost have more than one solution.  We don't want you to get too fixed.  I think if you've got initiative, you can see other options.  You're able almost to adapt as you go as well.  So, you own the 'how', and you are also thinking about the 'how else', because that just gives you more opportunities to influence the outcome.  And I think that's what people with initiative are always doing, influencing the outcome by taking initiative in the first place.

Sarah Ellis: And as we were talking this one through, it's almost the 'how else' where people with initiative really stand out.  Because we all think about the 'how', we all think about, "Well, how am I going to make that happen?"  But then along the way, something unanticipated gets in the way, and it's always quite tempting to either hope it will go away or to keep going.  You just persevere in the same way.  Whereas I think when people have got really good initiative, they're like, "Right, okay, I can see that this is not going in the way that we thought it would go [or] working in the way that we had imagined.  But we know this is still important, the outcome of the objective is still important.  So, how else, where else, who else?"  It's almost that 'beautiful constraints' thinking.  I think people with initiative are able to adapt and to keep coming back to, "Oh, do I sort of --" they're not intimidated by starting again.  You know like loops of lots of -- like, initiative is not a one-off activity, is it?  You have to keep coming back. Often when things are bigger or harder or longer term, if I think about the examples you shared on the minimum viable progress, they're quite short term.  They're quite start and sort and find a solution and we're done with it.  Whereas I think this probably works really well for when you're thinking more over like a year or six months, where that 'how' will change.  And so, that initiative to know, "Oh, it needs to change and how else might we do it?" again, it's quite a rare thing, because I think we all like a plan and you get quite fixed to a plan, or we just get used to familiar patterns and our brains always quite like that, it's back to that familiarity point.

Helen Tupper: I think a really confident conversation that you could have with your manager, so let's say Sarah's my manager, and we're talking about a project and I could say to Sarah, "What's most important to you about what we achieve with this project?"  And Sarah might say, I don't know, just use a podcast example, "Okay, well I think I want to double the amount of listeners in January".  And then I could say, "Okay, got it, that's really, really clear.  Let me come back to you with a plan for how we could make that happen".  And so, sometimes we're not always neatly given the 'what' with a bow on it in the form of an annual objective.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, totally.

Helen Tupper: Sometimes you might have to find the 'what', but I think in finding the 'what' in that confident conversation, you can then set yourself up to succeed with the, "Well, I'm going to own the 'how'.  I'm going to come back to you with how I think we can make that happen".  So, I think that could also be a way that you maybe take control a little bit of being able to do that particular action.

Sarah Ellis: So, idea number three, we're calling looking ahead and around.  And the bit we're most interested to hear is the 'around' bit.  Because by looking ahead, you can take initiative because you might anticipate opportunities, I think you can pre-empt problems.  But when you start to look around as well, that's where I think you start to be really smart about the initiative that you take.  This I think is going beyond the obvious and just thinking, well, let's imagine you were launching a product in a new country in six months' time.  And you might be like, "Right, okay, I'm going to look ahead to that and I'm going to try and think about, okay, well, what might go wrong?  What would the worst case scenario be?  How are we going to get that product into that country?"  And you work it all through, so great, and then that means you can take some initiative because you might be like, "Right, okay, well to mitigate that risk, we could do this now", and that would mean taking initiative.  If you started to look around, what you might be thinking is, "Well, what else could influence what's happening in that country, maybe across different industries, across different cultures, maybe what's going on in the news or in the economy?"

 So, you've both broadened, but you've gone around your area of interest, and then I think that helps you to take a different -- it's almost like next level initiative. We were talking about a really practical example of when Helen and I are travelling around and sometimes going to different countries, I was in Paris last week, or different companies because we spend a lot of time with lots of different companies, it's a really small thing but we will often try and look ahead and look around when we think about getting there.  Because if you just look ahead, you think, "Well, a train takes two hours, so fine.  I get on the train at this time, I get off the train, it's all good".  Then you look around the travel and you're like, "Right, okay, what's the likelihood of a strike?  What else is going on in that country?  What else is going on in my life at that moment in terms of travel?  So, if I travel that morning, is that going to be really stressful?  Because right before that [I don't know] I've got to get my kid dressed for school and sorted with breakfast", and all those kinds of things.

So, by looking around and I think you're coming at a situation from different angles, you then take the initiative to go, "Do you know what?  My life will be less stressful and I will do a better job, let's say, if I get there the day before".  And it's a really, really small example, but taking the initiative to work those kinds of things out actually can make a really big difference.  And so, that was a real-life example for Helen and I, where we've gone, "You can't think about travelling in that just look ahead way, you've got to look around".  And we've taken this initiative to make some changes to how we schedule our diaries and schedule our time, and it is already paying off.  I saw it last week when I was in Paris.  I got there the day before, and actually I've been able to say to the company we were working with, "Do you know what?  I'm there the day before, so if something changes in your day the next day, I can be flexible".  And funnily enough, do you know what?  They didn't need me to be flexible but they really appreciated that I could.  So, then I get some goodwill from our client that we work with and obviously we want to do a good job with; and then for me personally, it then meant I had time to go for a walk in Paris!  They didn't need me to be flexible. That was quite a high-pressure, quite a high-profile workshop that I was doing that day.  And do I think I did a better job because I'd spent an hour-and-a-half walking around Paris hoping not to get lost in the morning?  So, I'd got some fresh air, I moved around, and that initiative paid off in all sorts of ways.  It paid off for me, it paid off for our client, and nobody really missed out.  But it would have been really easy not to have taken that initiative.  But I think it's only by looking around that you make those things happen.

Helen Tupper: I'm just thinking about how I respond when people do those two types of looking ahead and they're looking around.  When people look ahead, I go, "Oh, that's a good idea".  Like, if you're looking ahead and you go, "Oh, I'll tell you what, in January, we could do this", and I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, that's a good idea".  But when people do a look around, when you go to me, "Oh, I've had a bit of a think about what else we're working on at the moment and how we could maybe bring those things together to make it better", I go, "Oh, that's smart".  It's like I have a different --

Sarah Ellis: A different reaction.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I go, "Good idea for the future-focusing".  But the looking around it, I go, "Oh, that's smart.  You've seen something that I completely haven't seen because you've..."

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, it's visibility isn't it?

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: Because you've looked around, you've got more visibility.

Helen Tupper: You've looked around and I'm like, "I would have missed that, or there would have been a mistake there if you hadn't taken the initiative to think that bit through".  So, our fourth and final idea on this one is to make more of the moment.  So, we're trying to almost differentiate here, like what do people who have initiative do in some common situations at work versus people who don't?  And to give you an interview as an example here, we were thinking people who go to an interview but don't necessarily do that with a lot of initiative, will show up on the day, they might have a good interview and then they will go away, end of. People who have got initiative, they make more of that moment. 

So, what they are likely to do ahead of the interview is more research.  So, they might be looking at who's interviewing them, maybe what they've been sharing on LinkedIn, for example, or maybe they're going to go and look at the company values and think about, "What experiences have I got, or what examples have I got that could show that the company values are ones that I naturally show up as in the work that I do?"  And so, before that moment, they are looking at insights that can help them.  And they go into the interview, and they do the interview, maybe just the same as the other person, they do the interview.  But then what they do again is they make more of that moment, because after the interview, maybe they get in touch with the person they had the conversation with, and they say, "Oh, you mentioned that you're working on this area...  I've put a few ideas together that I thought might be useful for what you're doing".  Or, "Actually, I know somebody who works in this area, I'd be really happy to make an introduction to you because you mentioned that was an area that you're wanting to do". So suddenly, it's gone from, I just show up to an interview to, I know more about the organisation so I can be maybe more insightful in that moment; and then I'm more memorable, because I have gone back to that person with something that is useful and relevant to them because of the conversation that we had.  And I think the person that has taken the initiative in that situation is much more likely to be successful than the person that just showed up, had an interview and went home at the end of the day.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I see people doing this.  So, last week I was doing an event for Postcards of the Midlife, so they were recording their podcast live at Leicester Square Theatre, loads of people there, I think they had like 300 people in that theatre.  And beforehand, only a few, but a few people connected with me saying, "I am going to be at that event", and so I am always going to accept that invite.  And then one of those people came and talked to me.  So obviously, I can just remember them, because they were like, "Oh, this is who I am, and I connected with you".  I was like, "Oh, yeah, great", and then they follow up afterwards.

Helen Tupper: Smart.

Sarah Ellis: Now I think you have to be careful not to go too intense.  But I do think if you want to stand out, that person has really taken initiative.  And that podcast was all about changing careers.  I think that's out soon.  We'll link to it in the show notes as soon as it is, because some of the guests who I got to listen to before me, I was like, "They're absolutely incredible".  So, definitely worth listening to if you're interested in career change.  But that person was obviously thinking, "I want to change my career and I really want to make the most of this event.  I'm really going to take initiative around this".  And then you just stand out, you know, you stand out versus the crowd.  And I do think it's rarer than we imagine really taking initiative in the way that we've described today.  I don't think it's that common.  I don't think of that many people who are very good at this consistently.  If I even think about myself, I think I am good at some of this some of the time.  I think you're good at this.  I feel like I would say you're high on the initiative stakes.  I feel maybe the only one I would say is less you is the look ahead and look around.

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: That's less your vibe.  I feel like that's my job in life for you, is to look ahead and look around.  But you're really good at making more of the moment, you're good at minimum viable progress, you're good at asking, "How else?"  I feel like this is one of your natural talents.

Helen Tupper: I feel maybe it's because I see opportunity in numbers, as in I don't have a fear of failure.  I don't think all the things that I take initiative with will lead to success.  But what I think I do believe in is opportunity in numbers.  So I think in my head, I have linked initiative to opportunity, and therefore the more initiative I take, the more opportunity I create, and that's probably why I do it.

Sarah Ellis: You're probably a good case study for it.  You're probably a one-woman case study for 'initiative pays off', which we then just need to scale up if we want to actually make anything credible that we could write about for research.

Helen Tupper: This podcast, let's go with the feeling.  It's done, it's done in this podcast!  So, maybe let's just repeat the ideas that we've talked about.  So, idea number one was minimum viable progress; the second idea was, know the what, own the how, and the how else; third idea was look ahead and around; and the fourth idea was to make more of the moment.

Sarah Ellis: So, we hope that helps you to take initiative, both in your job, but also I think everything we've talked about today applies to your career more generally, as you're thinking ahead and what you want to do and where you want to go.  If you have read, watched or listened to anything on initiative that you found useful, please let us know because we didn't find that much in our research beforehand.  I found one good article on Harvard Business Review, which is where I got that wisdom of balance and balancing your own interests and other interests from, so we'll make sure that we link to that.  So, if you want to read a bit about that, that might be a good place to start.  But other than that, that's everything for this week, thank you so much for listening and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.