{"id":6278,"date":"2021-09-07T03:43:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-07T03:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au02\/?p=6278"},"modified":"2022-05-31T03:07:54","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T03:07:54","slug":"a-dogs-tale-from-the-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/insights\/not-geek-speak\/culture\/a-dogs-tale-from-the-train\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dog\u2019s Tale From The Train"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the main touchstones we have at Insentra is The Train Story<\/a>. Our Train Story does a great job of capturing who we are and how we operate. Every crew member hired reads this story and they will reference it several times during their interview and onboarding process.\u00a0 However, it is one thing to read The Train Story \u2013 it is quite another to live it. We strive to do this and \u2013 quite honestly \u2013 it can be a bit confronting to people when they join our crew.\u00a0 This is OK.<\/p>\n

HOW ARE YOU?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Today, I want to share with you my experience with what I think is one of the most powerful concepts in The Train Story \u2013 How Are You? Here\u2019s an extract:<\/p>\n

On the train we have a very simple approach of asking two questions \u2013 and we don\u2019t wait until people have pebbles [in their shoes]. We ask them at every meeting when there are more than three people present. In fact, we encourage these questions to be asked as often as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n

Simple questions\u2026How are you 1-10 personally? How are you 1-10 at work? Why do we do this? We don\u2019t do it because we want to pry into personal lives. We don\u2019t expect you to say, \u2018I\u2019m a three out of ten personally\u2019 and then have to share why you are a three. You don\u2019t have to share why, however at least the people working around you know you are a three out of ten personally and dealing with some things outside of the train. They can give you moral support and be more understanding of the mood you may be in.<\/em><\/p>\n

And it is true \u2013 we do start meetings with How Are You?\u00a0 Sometimes this is short-handed to \u201cWhat are your numbers?\u201d or \u201cLet\u2019s start with numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am a pretty positive person, so I am generally an 8 or higher.\u00a0 Even when I broke my collar bone last year, I only dropped myself to a 7 because it hurt but there was nothing permanent about it. Like most people who join Insentra for the first few weeks I was 9s or 10s because I was loving the experience of the culture and discovering for myself Insentra was in fact \u2018what it said on the tin\u2019.<\/p>\n

ARCHIE<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A couple of weeks in I had a moment of truth which we all hit eventually.\u00a0 For the first time since joining Insentra I headed into the office (back when we did that kind of thing) when personally I wasn\u2019t OK.<\/p>\n

You see that morning had been tough.\u00a0 Our much-loved cocker spaniel Archie was over 16 and we\u2019d had him since he was a puppy who I could hold in one hand.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Archie had been blind and deaf for several years and been slowing down and getting frailer, he was still happy and comfortable. On this particular morning something had changed. He wasn\u2019t right. He was disorientated and unsteady to the point it was painful to watch. My wife arranged to take him to the vet, and I headed off to work and deep down we both knew \u2013 it was time.<\/p>\n

It was with this weighing on my shoulders I found myself in a meeting with more than two people being asked \u201cWhat are your numbers?\u201d.\u00a0 I remember thinking \u201cOh #&%^ – what do I do now?!\u201d. However, I found myself being honest and said, \u201cI\u2019m a 5 and an 8.\u201d And you know what? Nothing bad happened! I was asked by one of my colleagues what was up and if there was anything they could do to help. Now, as per the extract above you don\u2019t have to tell anyone what is up if you do not want to , in this case, I thought to myself \u201cin for a penny, in for a pound\u201d and shared how my dog was very old, had suddenly declined in health and I was fairly sure we were going to have to have him put to sleep. Bad things continued to not happen! Instead, the responses I got back were heartfelt and compassionate. Comments like \u201cWow that really sucks,\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve been there, I\u2019m so sorry\u201d or \u201cI\u2019ve got two dogs and I really feel for you\u201d, were genuine and really did help. When my wife called me after the visit to the vet confirming my worst fear, we booked an appointment for the coming Saturday \u2013 which I shared with a couple of people who checked back in with me after the meeting. The thing which really blew me away though was later the same evening when I was on my way home – I got a WhatsApp message from one of my new colleagues which said:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It really touched me.<\/p>\n

For me it was the first time I was confronted by How Are You? It was also the day I really understood the power of a simple question. I can\u2019t imagine ever feeling like I could have been so vulnerable in any of the other organisations I have worked in, let alone after a couple of weeks. Since then, I have seen the power of How Are You? and the love and compassion the crew has for everyone on the train many times over.<\/p>\n

MOVING ON<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Back at home, it was some time before we were ready to get another cocker spaniel \u2013 however, I was a 10 when the day came and I shared this with Insentra too. I think the second or third day we\u2019d had Campo I was due to be at an offsite at Ronnie\u2019s house, so Campo came with me! A photo from the day often shows up in the slides for our monthly All Hands call and it always makes me smile, not just because of the cute dog, which I\u2019ll leave you with as this tale comes to an end!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If The Train Story and How Are You have piqued your interest, check out our open vacancies<\/a> and perhaps I\u2019ll see you (and your dog) in one of our carriages soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the main touchstones we have at Insentra is The Train Story. Our Train Story does a great job of capturing who we are and how we operate. Every crew member hired reads this story and they will reference it several times during their interview and onboarding process.\u00a0 However, it is one thing to… Continue reading A Dog\u2019s Tale From The Train<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":6283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[35,34,37,32,36,38,30,33,31],"class_list":["post-6278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-crew-obsessed","tag-culture","tag-hit-aces","tag-insentra","tag-insentra-culture","tag-leadership","tag-train-story","tag-values","tag-vibe","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6278"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10154,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6278\/revisions\/10154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insentragroup.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}