Carl Haggerty shares his ‘year note’ about his first 12 months in post as Somerset Council’s Head of Transformation and Digital:

We haven’t fully broken the reflex that speed is the answer when pressure rises. We haven’t made learning feel consistently safe everywhere; blame and defensiveness still appear at times. We haven’t stabilised roles and handovers across the system enough to stop energy leaking through rework and uncertainty. We haven’t made “whole‑council” feel real in every interaction yet; transactional habits and silos still pull hard.

Buckle up for a long read – I think it must have taken at least 10 of those months to write this thing 😉

In all seriousness though, it’s full of honest reflection and worth spending time with to understand what it is like being in one of these jobs.