Our Spring Onion event is central to Buttress' organisational culture, where we come together to explore themes that are important to us and we invite external perspective.
This year, our theme was 'Finding the Joy', something that seems harder to come by in busy lives and careers, whilst being core to Buttress' mission to embrace and enjoy what we do.
Why is joy important?
It would be easy to dismiss the idea of joy as something unnecessary, frivolous, something that runs counter to ideas of what makes a good business. The Spring Onion provided the counterpoint to such notions, demonstrating that the joy that comes through togetherness, collectively seeing joy in our achievements and the potential of the future is energising, motivating us all to confidently take Buttress forwards.
I believe finding joy is all the more important in the context of an employee-owned business. The collective endeavour required to make employee-ownership a success is founded on joy, a joy that comes from delivering purposeful work with our clients and collaborators and importantly with our close colleagues.
Where is the joy?
What brings each of us joy is deeply individual. In our working lives, there are perhaps common threads. In the built environment, the completion of a project, collaboratively achieving a tough deadline or successfully navigating a complex statutory process, can all be sources of joy.
Equally, seeing users of our work find joy in what we have delivered can be a joyful experience for us, as can witnessing the progress of our colleagues or simply doing a great piece of work.
What became clear from discussions throughout the Spring Onion is that joy can, at times, be hard to find. There are times when we have to work at it, to find joy in the little things, the fleeting moments, knowing that even better moments aren't too far away.
For me, in those moments where joy is in short supply, I try to remember that Buttress exists to serve a purpose, architecture for an equitable tomorrow. I can see that my colleagues are working towards that purpose every day - and that brings me a deep sense of joy, knowing that the work we do today will have a positive impact for so many people tomorrow.
I find it also helps to remember past joyful moments. A project which brought me considerable joy is our work at Caernarfon Castle. Two moments stand out. The main project objective was to make parts of the Castle accessible that had never been accessible before. Seeing a wheelchair user take the new lift and share the experience on the viewing deck with their friends and family was a joyful moment, fulfilling years of work in collaboration with Cadw, our colleagues and collaborators.
The other was on completion of the project. We were fortunate to be able to share that moment with Heritage Network, who held their annual conference in Caernarfon that year. A reception was held within the Castle and, with Buttress colleagues closely involved in the project, we took a moment to celebrate the completion, sat together on the viewing deck with a glass of bubbly. That was a moment of deep joy and fulfilment, shared with colleagues, which will live with me forever.
Whilst joy is sometimes difficult to find, it is energising and motivating. It is therefore an important part of our working lives, necessary for each of us to be at our best. How we find it may be individual, but we can find it through delivering purpose filled work, as well as in every day experiences with our colleagues and collaborators.
Keep on finding the joy!
*The Spring Onion is our affectionate name for coming together as colleagues to share, reflect and connect. The 'onion' phrase came about in reference to the many layers of the business, and 'spring' due to the time of year we hold the event. With thanks again to our guest speakers, partners and collaborators at this year's event.