2022 is ending on a personal development high. We are at the end of Week One of Alicia McKay’s Not an MBA Strategic Leadership course. Our first piece of ‘homework’ is to draft our own Leadership Manifesto. I have spent the week reflecting on my experiences, my skills, my values, and the qualities of leaders I have worked with that I admire. It is a work in progress. I feel that a statement of who I am and what I stand for like this needs regular review and consideration. Tara Sutherland-Leadership-Manifesto-2022Download ..read more

Friday 01 October: cheers to the weekend, cheers to new glasses, cheers to daylight savings ..read more

Part One of Two Welcome to the Sunday morning edition of Things I Said I Would Do But I Didn’t. After three days, the Photo A Day posts kinda died.  A Photo A Day was an ambitious project with my current workload – we are six weeks from Go Live on a project we have been working on for close to two years.  Its one of the reasons I need a project like this but probably one that doesn’t have quite this level of commitment!  But its Sunday morning and I am chilling in bed with my dog so lets review the prompts I have missed and find some photographs from the archives to suit. Oh g ..read more

Todays post is less about the photograph (which lacks any technique at all) and more about my current journey. Today was my first workout in a fortnight. Any one who knows me knows I workout 5/6 times a week in the mornings. And I have done so for about 7 years now. Oriri in Latin is I arise, get up, I appear, become visible. Today is about me getting back up. Slightly worn, battered but making small steps ..read more

Latin effigies, from effingere ‘to fashion (artistically)’, from ex- ‘out’ + fingere ‘to shape’. My reflection is dark, heavy, hard.   ..read more

Crux – Latin for Cross – is a constellation in our southern skies that we know as the Southern Cross. Making star constellations in my garden with a manual free lensing technique. Fujifilm X-T10. 35mm. 1/250. f1 ..read more

Years and years ago I completed a 365 Photo a Day project with a group of friends.  It was the most creative thing I had ever done and I enjoyed it so much, I said I would do another some time. I think that time is now. My Dad passed away a month ago.  I’ve been so busy doing the things that need to be done – as well as working on a huge project thats about to go live – that I haven’t really allowed myself time to sit with my thoughts or process how I’m feeling.  Even though his death wasn’t a surprise, he had been end stage kidney failure for the last couple of years, knowing ..read more

When I started my Strategic Leadership journey, I thought I’d write a manifesto, do some assignments and come away with some skills I could use in the future. I realised that I had long-held views of who I was and how and why I did things and these had changed a lot over time but I was still using those stories.  And creating disadvantages and false strengths for myself. I actually changed the way I responded to action items and project plans and deadlines and started to reshape the whole way I worked.  I actually worked less and got more done. I sat back and let my team do more of w ..read more

Saturday 02 October: appreciating the effects of a wet end of winter, wet start of spring. My garden is a hot mess and I love it ..read more

It’s Day 2 of Level 3 in the Waikato. Facebook and Instagram and Whatsapp are down. I read earlier on Twitter that all we need now is some kind of huge storm or earthquake and we could probably be reassured that this is the end of the world. But that seems a bit too defeatist. Even for me right now. We always knew it was only a matter of time before Delta escaped Auckland (everyone manages to get out of Auckland eventually). In the last seven weeks, I have had a total of three meals not in my house, two takeaways delivered to my house and have worked in our city office twice. Don’t get me wron ..read more