The Essence of Poppy

By Dr Cecily Macdougall and Dr Hannah Macdougall

It is not what happens in life but how you manage it!

Poppy encounters challenges that many of us may confront in life, both professionally and personally.She suffers loss, stress and anxiety, anger, guilt, silence and withdraw

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mono Unlimited
• Release date: Jan 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9780648881544

Book preview

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The Essence

of Poppy

Dr C Macdougall

& Dr H Macdougall

On her journey, Poppy encounters some of the fundamental challenges that we may often confront in life.

Luckily for Poppy, her mentor guides her through these challenges, enabling her to build her mental strength and core resiliency.

The Essence of Poppy

Originally published in 2020 by Mono Unlimited

Copyright © 2020

Dr Cecily Macdougall and Dr Hannah Macdougall

Please direct all enquiries to:

Mono Unlimited

PO Box 324 Ashburton VIC 3147 Australia

The right of Dr Cecily Macdougall and Dr Hannah Macdougall to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968 (Australia). No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Copy editing by Fiona Curnow

Book Layout and Cover Design by Monique Lisbon

Mono Unlimited: Computer & Printing Support

www.monounlimited.com

Front cover photo by Yuriy Seleznev

Back cover photo by Mike Mareen

www.shutterstock.com (used with permission)

ISBN: 978-0-6488815-4-4 (eBook)

For John, Hannah and Duncan always

For Mum and Carmen – RIP

"Culture is to an organisation

what personality is to an individual"

– PAUCHANT AND MITROFF (1988)*

Main Characters:

Poppy

Madeline (Maddie) – her daughter

William (Willie) – her son

Chaucer – her mentor

Zabella – a close friend

Brett – her manager, head of Delivery

Pete – her program team lead and 2IC

Dave – a team member

Raychelle – a team member, working at a separate location

George – a relationship manager

Philip – CEO

Leo – CFO and later COO

Clare – head of HR

Isabella – head of marketing

Barry – a senior manager

Ian – a subcontractor

Kate – a subcontractor team member

Sue – head representative of the union

Emma – a colleague

Dennis – a good friend

Charmaine – Dennis’s daughter

Rose – Poppy’s solicitor

Alison – a nanny

Jackie – a neighbour

Nora – a childcarer

Rachel – a childcarer

Colin – Poppy’s partner

Sally – a colleague

Abbreviations:

CEO – Chief Executive Officer

CFO – Chief Financial Officer

COO – Chief Operating Officer

HR – Human Resources (department)

MBA – Masters of Business Administration (degree)

2IC – second-in-charge

PC – personal computer

Disclaimer:

The characters and events in this novel are purely fictional. No real person, program or organisation is depicted in this work of fiction. The events that have been constructed in this novel are those that another ‘Poppy’ may meet on their journey.

Introduction

Poppy finally sat down in an armchair at the end of a very long day.

Finally. Madeline and William were asleep. Despite only being six weeks old, Willie already had lungs that would challenge a Maori doing the Haka. Poppy smiled as Willie gurgled in tune with the slowly dying melody of twinkle, twinkle, little star through the cassette player next to the bassinet.

Oh my darlings, what on earth are we going to do? Tears started to prick the corners of Poppy’s eyes as exhaustion started to overtake her being.

The player slowly rolled over onto the next recording: Skip Ross, an author in dynamic living.

Skip’s dulcet and inspiring tones started. ‘You have, right now, exactly what you want!’

Poppy sat bolt upright in the chair, flicked off the tape and then began to rant. ‘We are in the middle of a recession, my husband walked out when I was four months pregnant, I have a child who is disabled and I have to go back to work immediately after my son’s birth! This is not what I want, how could he make such a statement!’

Poppy became very angry, got up and stomped off to finish the work she’d had to bring home. ‘How am I going to stay awake to finish this?’ she cried. These days the amount of time that was needed for work did not align to standard childcare hours. So, after consuming more chocolate and coffee, she set to work.

Skip’s statement kept reverberating in her head. Okay, she resolved, let’s see how I can change this. This is not what I want so I will call Chaucer tomorrow, and see if he can give me some guidance on this.

Part 1

Chapter 1

Poppy

Poppy buried her emotions and put on her non-emotive business mask as she walked into the organisation and pressed the button to the lift. Another day! Although there were some similarities, Poppy had to admit that every day was different and brought new challenges. She wondered what challenges this day would bring. She guessed she would start finding out soon enough.

In response to changing market dynamics, the organisation was currently facing new challenges. In their target market there had in the past been a focus on services for organisations, but the demand for these had dwindled over the past few years. Now it was individuals and small businesses predominantly seeking different services to those that had historically been provided. Further, the current existence and future of the organisation was being questioned by its funding partners, placing even more pressure on the executive. The organisation was going to have to change in order to remain relevant. The questions were when and how?

From the scant information communicated by the organisation, Poppy only knew that she had two predecessors in the role she had taken on and expectations of this role by management were high. What was the old saying? Yesterday we were recruiting and today you are staff! It had taken her six months to get this role and she was fearful that she would let her manager and the team down. When she came into the role she understood that she was going to have five people in the delivery team directly reporting to her.

Her manager, Brett, had kindly organised a team meeting for her to meet and greet her new team. Usually she prepared in detail prior to such a meeting but her focus and time had been diverted to a minor drama with the children’s daycare this morning. Poppy hadn’t been particularly concerned; after all, how many problems could such a small number in her delivery team have? However when she was guided to the boardroom, which had telecommunication facilities, she began to get a little worried. As they rounded the corner, she saw multiple faces outside the door and many more inside the room, already seated. There were still more people on the phone lines. She quickly counted twenty-five in the room as Brett was introducing her, and then he proceeded to include staff in other locations. From what she could deduce, there were another fifteen or so in the team in other locations. Heavens! She wished she had prepared her introduction with greater focus.

Her natural facilitation style came to the forefront, and she respectfully asked each of them to introduce themselves and share something that the other parties did not know. Fortunately, she had skim read the 365 page delivery concept of operations in the days prior to commencing the role and had a semblance of an idea of what the team were building and delivering.

One voice called out over the line to introduce himself. ‘I am the person who wrote the concept of operations.’

‘Wow!’ Poppy said. ‘Congratulations, that is a great document and a wonderful achievement!’

With this response, the tone of the meeting was set. After several further introductions going clockwise around the boardroom, Poppy introduced herself. ‘Well, I guess what you might not know about me is that I am a taxi driver outside of office hours.’

There was a gasp and confusion on many faces. Poppy smiled and said, ‘Yes, what many of you might not know is that I am a mother with two small children and they constantly need to be taken here there and everywhere, so I provide the taxi service!’ Some of the team roared with laughter and many smiled.

‘Okay team,’ Poppy said, ‘let’s close, but I would like to catch up with each and every one of you over the coming weeks. Coffee is sounding and smelling good!’

As they were leaving the room, one of her direct reports said to her, ‘You realise, Poppy, that you have inherited a toxic wasteland.’

Poppy was a little shocked and confused by this comment, but thanked him for sharing his thoughts with her. Was this the reason why she had two predecessors in her role? Her fear of failure formed a lump in her throat as she maneuvered her way to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Thoughts were whirring through her mind. What had or had not gone on here before? Why were some of the team feeling like this? Did all of the team feel like this? Had they not been respected? Would they respect her? Respect, she knew, is earned, not demanded. How would the pending organisation changes affect each and every one of them? What were the values of the team and the organisation?

As she reflected on the meeting, she realised that the five who were reporting to her were her direct reports and the other thirty-five in the team were her indirect reports who reported to her direct reports. She smiled to herself for her error in judgement and thought to herself, this is one little secret I will keep to myself for a while.

Over the next few days she met with many in the delivery team. She determined that the culture of the team was influenced by the organisation and as such was very individualistic. Open communications were unheard of and a person’s vulnerabilities were cloaked in many guises. The team felt extremely pressured as the delivery was to be three years, but eighteen months had transpired already with little or no results so far. The timeline for delivery was immovable. Had Poppy been given a poisoned chalice?

Poppy decided to start with a clean slate. She got the team together location by location and worked through some of the fundamentals of working as a team and her expectations. These included honesty and respect for each other above all, and ethical play with the rest of the team and the wider organisation. Poppy vetoed the use of ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘it’. Each person had a name and everyone was expected to use it. Poppy also vetoed the belittling or humiliation of others and focused on the promotion of the strengths of each individual and how they could be used in the delivery. Leading by example, she earned their respect quite quickly and over time they came to trust her judgement and opinion.

Poppy was not one who operated simply for her own interests, but focused on the outcomes required by the delivery. She illustrated each component of the delivery, who was responsible for each component, when it was expected and the dependencies and interdependencies of each component. This way the team had a clear understanding of who was doing what and when – something they had not had before. With such tight timelines, Poppy vetoed rework and got the team to think of ways to make everything transparent, with immediate escalations of concerns and feedback.

Poppy involved her direct reports and as many of the delivery team as she could in the development of these artefacts, so that there was cross-pollination and understanding. In one workshop, Poppy included players from the five subcontractor organisations. Poppy couldn’t believe that this was the first time they had all come together. To continue the information sharing she got the group to determine what information was needed, when, and with whom it needed to be shared. Poppy stressed that at no point in time did she want anyone on the team, the subcontractor organisations or wider organisation to be uninformed or misinformed.

The feedback from the wider team was very positive: ‘we can’t believe we have not done this before’, ‘I now have a clearer picture of what we are doing’ and ‘now I can see where our piece fits and who needs it by when’. The program started to take on a different dynamic.

The threat of not being able to deliver in the timeframe was looming larger and larger. Poppy sat down, looked at all the components and calculated the amount of effort required. Oh my goodness, she thought, it doesn’t matter which way I calculate the effort to delivery, the team needs fifteen more people to deliver this in the timeframe. Given that it had taken her predecessor six months to recruit five people, Poppy nearly choked on the apple she was crunching on.

Her attention was diverted by one of her colleagues. ‘Hey Poppy, we are going for a quick bite at the corner café. Would you like to join us?’

‘Pete, thanks for the invite, but I have already eaten. Next time!’

‘Okay you’re on. Next week!’ called Pete as he headed out the door. Pete was Poppy’s 2IC and one of her five direct reports.

When Pete had gone, Poppy checked her wallet. All she could find was one dollar, and this needed to last her for another two days until the next pay run. She was living hand to mouth every week. ‘Oh if only I could get a little bit ahead,’ she sighed.

Poppy had recently become a single parent, and was finding that rearing two children on her own was starting to take its toll, physically, mentally and financially. How many invitations had she knocked back both professionally and personally? She just couldn’t afford to go out or the cost of babysitting if she was going to keep paying the bills for the house they were living in. She knew that the invitations would stop coming if she refused them often enough. However, a roof over their heads, a vehicle to pick up the kids from childcare and food on the table was more important to Poppy at the moment than trying out the latest food court or bar.

‘Gosh, look at the time! I have to run to get to childcare! Catch you tomorrow team,’ she called over her shoulder as she went running to catch the lift.

Turning on the radio in the car she caught, ‘There has been a major accident on the M1 freeway, please take an alternate route.’

‘Just my luck to catch an accident when I am running late,’ she fumed. The childcare charged ten dollars every five minutes you were late and she had two care centres to get to. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ she muttered under her breath as she wove in and out of the traffic. She arrived at the first one and flew inside to pick up her daughter. ‘Hi darling, sorry, we need to run to pick up your brother.’ She dashed into the car and back into the traffic. Phew, one minute to spare! ‘Can you keep the car locked while I run in and get your brother darling?’ Poppy ran inside the gate and into the childcare and scooped up her baby boy into her arms. He was red in the face and screaming, tired and hungry at the end of another long day. Poppy grabbed his bags, ran back to the car and bundled him into the baby seat. ‘Okay guys, let’s head home’.

The dinner time rush hour then started. Poppy turned the bath on as she carried Willie into the family room and set him up on the bean bag. Maddie traipsed behind her carrying her bag. Poppy brought in the rest of the day bags and then threw on some old clothes. She started to unpack the lunch boxes and dirty clothes and suddenly remembered the bath. Turning on her heels, she ran to turn it off. An overflow would just be the last straw and she certainly didn’t have the money to pay insurance or replace carpets.

‘Okay Willie, what are we eating tonight?’ Willie blinked at her and batted his long lashes, as he did to every female he saw. ‘You are such a cutie!’ said Poppy, and gave him a big kiss and cuddle. Lifting Willie into the kiddie chair she decided to try him on some leftover meat and vegetables. She quickly gave him a rusk to gnaw on while she grabbed the mouli and called to Maddie to come for dinner. Willie chewed contentedly on the rusk and made gurgling noises while he banged his spoon up and down on the tray. ‘I am sure you are going to be a drummer one day young man!’

Maddie pulled out a chair at the kiddie table as she was hungry. However she screwed up her nose when she saw the leftovers. She ate a few mouthfuls, but Willie on the other hand stuck his fingers into the bowl and then wiped them all over the tray and started to play with the food.

‘No, we don’t play with food Willie,’ said Poppy, and encouraged him to have another mouthful. He promptly spat it out and let it dribble down his chin. As Poppy turned to get a kitchen sponge, crash went the bowl off the kiddie chair tray and the food splattered all over the floor. Poppy took a deep breath and wished children could learn about gravity without involving food.

‘Okay guys, how about some stewed apple and ice-cream?’

‘Yes please mummy,’ cried Maddie, who had finished her bowl. Maddie was a good eater, thank goodness.

By the time they got into the bath they were all as grubby as Willie. Bath time was a fun, happy time! All the toys and the singing of nursery rhymes. The worries of the day began to float away and the children began to tire.

Bedtime stories were next, cuddling first together in Maddie’s bed and then off with Willie into his bed. Poppy switched on his little night light and turned off the big light. Willie was a bit of a night owl and Poppy wondered how long he would sleep for tonight. Fingers crossed she might get more than a couple of hours sleep herself.

Poppy started to pick up the debris as she walked toward the laundry. She threw a load into the machine and turned the dial and pressed the button. Next, her dinner! Poppy decided to have leftovers as well, as the day was beginning to catch up with her. She still had too much to do to even think about being tired.

While the microwave was heating her dinner, Poppy opened her mail. Bills, bills and more bills! The last envelope was from her solicitor. This is unexpected, she thought to herself, and decided to eat her dinner before opening it.

After dinner, Poppy started to get her second wind. She was still living in the marital home while the settlement and divorce were going through. Maddie and Willie still went to the outlaws one afternoon a week – Poppy picked them up from there on her way home from work. It was good that at least the children maintained a relationship with their father’s family. Her own