observations and mixed feelings

I find myself rather frustrated lately, on several fronts, all at work.

The peer reviews I requested have been returned to me by several of my colleagues. The responses are all very positive and, from what I can tell, very genuine. I've received some valuable suggestions from a couple of people too, for which I am most appreciative. The frustrating part is that three of my five immediate colleagues (team members at the "peer" level) have not responded and two of those three definitely don't intend to respond. Although I indicated that I very much value their feedback and any suggestions they have for me, they feel that they have "contributed enough by filling out the survey a for my last cycle." Neither was hostile in any way, they are just not interested in participating in the process and don't feel that it is part of their job - which is certainly true. I have not pressed the issue, but it does make me sad and I think it speaks to a lack of trust (although it is not clear who or what it is that they don't trust since the overall atmosphere at work these days is one of insecurity, fear, and suspicion).

For Cycle 2 - I did make significant progress in my revised approach to formal critique and feedback. For myself, I've succeeded in turning the editorial critique process into something I honestly value and look forward to rather than just a "required step." I think I've also come to not only view the process as a dialogue but also demonstrate to others in the department that approaching the process as a dialogue is valuable. One drawback to this new approach is that I can tend to be disappointed when I don't receive content centered feedback (when I only receive editorial-grammatical type comments). Now that I have all the peer reviews that I think I'm going to receive, I need to finish writing up Cycle 2. As much as I love to write, in this particular situation I do find that the action and reflection comes much easier than the formal writing. I'm not sure if this is because it is such a fundamentally personal project or if there is something else at work there - I'll have to think on that further.

Cycle 3 is nearly done too - so it looks like a may be writing up two cycles this weekend. The event to celebrate interdepartmental collaboration was approved, I was given a budget of $150, and I was given the freedom to plan the event with out too much oversight. The colleague who I worked so closely with in cycle 1 helped me to create the "publicity" for the event (fliers and a little something to had out to anyone who attends). He did a wonderful job with it too. Another colleague made the excellent suggestion that rather than thank individual people (all the people that impacted the project in any way), we thank entire departments (and everyone in them). After all my talk about encouraging and acknowledging collaboration - it is funny that it took someone else to see this approach (I was ready to list dozens of names). I think the intent of the suggestion was inspired by a desire to not hurt anyone by accidentally leaving them off the list of names. But I see another level - for each of these people to take the time to work with Education on this project, others in their department had to "take up the slack" (even if that just meant answering a couple more calls or waiting a bit for their colleague to return and collaborate with them on something). So - in fact - it really did take the effort of entire departments and not just some individuals in those departments.