Two weeks in the life of

The focus of the week before last was five days of intensive Spanish lessons. I was in a mix of fun but grueling one on one grammar classes with one of four Spanish teachers, individual computer assisted hour long language labs, and evening group discussions. Each day lasted from 8.20AM until 9.15PM. The good news was that I managed to understand the structure of the language quite well (thanks in no small part my ability to speak French). The bad news was that after five days of talking Spanish my pronunciation was as good as, well someone who’d only been speaking Spanish for only five days i.e. not great (and with something of a French accent to boot). That said I left the language school in Den Bosch (yes I went to the Netherlands to learn Spanish) on Friday feeling happy confident and tired, armed with a little speech for my team in Madrid the following week.

Last week was my first week back at work after a month away. My first stop was Madrid in Tuesday. It was a super day with a lot of very productive and positive meetings. The team was also very complementary about my Spanish which was nice – I even managed to raise a (intended) laugh in Spanish. Wednesday was a day in Zurich with the Swiss team. One of the most important meetings there was a closing interview with a pre-sales guy. It was a very enjoyable conversation in which I discovered his passion in life was to build wooden boats by hand. I learned by the end of the week that we’d managed to complete the negotiations. It’s so much more enjoyable building teams rather than letting people go. However I firmly believe that the latter type of experience only helps you during the recruitment process – having to release people makes you so much more aware of what you’re doing when you bring new people onboard. Thursday was a day in Paris. We’re entering a period of not insignificant change in France, so I suspect I’ll be spending a serious amount of time there over the coming weeks. Friday was a day spent with my old friend Dell Latitude – i.e. a day of emails. By 1AM on Saturday morning I considered myself fully up to date after holidays…so now the real value add work can start…