CMgr: Tackling blocked pipes and self-sabotage

Section editor / Mark Rowland

How Simon Cyhanko flushed out a serious problem

Our 2021 Chartered Manager of the Year is preventing floods, one wet wipe at a time

When Simon Cyhanko CMgr MCMI became head of wastewater networks at Northumbrian Water Group (NWG), he was tasked with making a “step-change improvement” in the sewer system’s flooding performance.

Sewer flooding is a pressing issue for the water industry. Flooding has a huge impact on the general public and hits water companies’ bottom line. NWG’s sewer flooding performance was among the worst in the industry when Cyhanko took on the job.

“I definitely felt the pressure,” he says. “When you’re given a task like that, you take a bit of personal pride in trying to make sure you achieve it. That comes with a bit of a fear of failing and of letting people down.”

The first step in addressing the problem was to bring the right team together. Cyhanko gathered experts from around the business to get their opinions on how to tackle the issue. This consultation process involved managers, technical experts and frontline operatives. The output was a plan of action to move things forward.

Some parts of the plan were relatively straightforward changes in processes and operations – for example, a risk assessment process to reduce the risk of operational flooding. Elsewhere, Cyhanko’s team surveyed sewers and fixed defects in the system.

Flushing wipes blocks pipes

A key part of Cyhanko’s plan was getting his team to play detective, using sensors across the network to identify – even to the individual household level – who was flushing wet wipes and other items that shouldn’t go into the system. These create the “fatbergs” that can block sewers and cause flooding.

“Our team knocked on customers’ doors, telling them that the wet wipes had come from their property and that, if it happens again, they will be liable for our costs and will be prosecuted under the law.”

The pilot project looked at 1,000 properties near Middlesbrough. Over the past 18 months, the team has expanded to 15 people working full time, covering 150,000 properties.

The biggest challenge of the project was to change the mindset of the staff. Sewer flooding has not always been a strong focus for the business. Work was needed to change the culture across the organisation so that everyone was on the same page. Cyhanko achieved this by making flood prevention part of everyday conversations.

“Managers and team leaders were talking to their teams about it every single day: ‘What has flooded? Why is it flooded? What do we need to do to stop it happening again?’ When you start doing that day in, day out, you start building a culture and an appreciation that sewer flooding is important.”

Although the process took time, Cyhanko and his team were able to land some early wins. These helped to build trust around the organisation and took some of the pressure off.

COVID-19 delayed progress but, as essential workers, Cyhanko and his team were able to keep things moving. The hard work is paying off: flooding numbers for the regulatory year 2020/21 suggest that external flooders fell from 4,697 to 3,862; internal flooders from 472 to 244; and repeat flooders from 97 to 25. Those are 18, 48 and 74 per cent decreases respectively.

“We’ve been quite brave with some of the things that we’ve done,” says Cyhanko. “Particularly with our initiative tracing wet wipe offenders. Nobody in the industry had tried something like that.”

It’s this boldness that put Cyhanko in the running for Chartered Manager of the Year, and having his work recognised outside the organisation has been encouraging. “It means a lot to know that somebody is looking at the work you’ve done and saying you’re doing the right things.”

Congratulations to our other CMgr of the Year finalists:

— Payal Gaglani-Bhatt CMgr FCMI, CEO and founder, The Little Gurus

— Emma Finney CMgr FCMI, innovation manager, South Eastern Regional College

— Daniel McKay-Smith CMgr MCMI, regional sales director for the UK & Nordics, Mintel Group

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How Rachael Jones overcame the ultimate resilience test

In 2015, Rachael became a homeless single mother. Her fight to get out of that situation has informed her approach to her new business

As the pandemic took hold on the UK economy, Rachael Jones CMgr FCMI watched her work opportunities dry up. As a freelancer in the charity sector, she was seen as an unnecessary extravagance. When two major contracts were cancelled, it became clear that the work just wasn’t there anymore.

Jones was no stranger to adversity; five years previously, she had been homeless, hopping between friends’ houses and landing in council-funded temporary accommodation in a Travelodge, while bringing up two young children.

At one point, she only had enough money to buy either a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk to feed her children. Her youngest child had just turned one. That kind of experience makes other hurdles seem easier to overcome.

“Once you’re in that position where all of your stuff genuinely fits in a carrier bag, you realise that anything above that is actually not that bad,” she says. “Certainly not in the bigger scheme of things. It puts things into perspective.”

When you’ve got children, you have no choice but to be motivated. They won’t allow you to kind of wallow in self-pity and stay in bed

Jones had previously cofounded PANDAS Foundation, a charity offering advice and support for those suffering from pre-and post-natal depression. She set it up in 2011 after suffering from post-natal depression herself after the birth of her son. She was young and had no formal qualifications, but was able to turn the charity into a prominent force for change, winning a Good Morning Britain Community Health Star.

She decided to take a CMI work-based course in 2014 because she often met resistance for not having professional qualifications. “I never wanted to go off to university, that didn’t work for me. The happy medium was to do something where I could learn on the job.”

After her marriage broke down, she became a single mother and had to step back from her charity. She took on work as a script adviser for the TV show Emmerdale while living at the Travelodge, and kept working on her CMI qualification. “When you’ve got children, you have no choice but to be motivated. They won’t allow you to kind of wallow in self-pity and stay in bed.”

Jones’s tutor and mentor stuck with her throughout this difficult period. This helped her to stay focused. She was also driven to prove to herself that she could get back on her feet. “Once you’ve lost something that you’ve created and that was important to you, you feel like you need to prove to yourself that it wasn’t a fluke.”

There were moments where she thought about quitting, but she stuck to her guns. She achieved the qualification and started piecing her life back together, taking on freelance work and lecturing at the University of Hertfordshire and Birmingham City University. She became Chartered in 2019. “That was a real confidence boost. I always wanted to aim for it, but I didn’t know how possible it would be.” In 2020, after her freelance work dried up, she founded Third Sector Experts. It’s a consultancy helping people to launch charities, social enterprises, NGOs and community groups. To her surprise, it has grown rapidly; by June, the business was turning over £100,000, and Jones was profiled in The Sun.

“I thought it would be a slowburner, but I’m still waiting for that quiet moment!”

Her experience of homelessness has influenced her management style. It has helped her to be more understanding, she says, and it has taught her to deal with things that are outside her control. It has also shaped how she works with people. She likes to take a supportive, trusting and “non-managerial” approach. “I manage the company, the workloads and clients, but I don’t manage people. I’m there for help, support and leadership. They can manage themselves.”

Rachael is now working on a scale-up plan for year two. And even if everything doesn’t go to plan, she knows she’ll be able to adapt and adjust.

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How Damian Culhane learned to stop self-sabotaging

Damian Culhane helps clients slay their inner self-sabotage “dragons”. He learned how through bitter personal experience

In 2005, Damian Culhane CMgr FCMI’s son was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It was a devastating blow. Culhane felt it was up to him to hold it together. “I had to be positive for my family, even though I was crushed and crumbling inside.”

But his son’s health made him reconsider his priorities. It was the push he needed to start his own coaching business. His specialism would be compassion and empathy. It was a far cry from the intense sales and targets environment he was used to working in. He was ambitious and successful – but only to a point. Promotions would often be followed by underperformance, and he sometimes struggled to get on with his managers.

“I would often move company before I was pushed out,” he recalls. “But I didn’t realise it was a pattern until much later.” Culhane obtained several coaching, management and NLP qualifications and became a Chartered Manager in 2007. All seemed to be going great. But while he was helping other people improve, he’d never considered himself. He was still repeating the same self-destructive patterns. In 2015, his marriage of 24 years ended.

I had sabotaged my marriage, which affected my relationships with my sons. I remember thinking ‘Now, why did you do that?’

“I wallowed in self-pity,” he says. “Then I gradually realised that I had put myself in this situation. I had sabotaged my marriage, which affected my relationships with my sons. I remember thinking ‘Now, why did you do that?’”

Culhane had this epiphany during a personal growth workshop in 2017. He realised how much of a self-saboteur he was and where he’d been going wrong all this time.

Self-sabotage is linked to our fight or flight response within our reptilian brain. It’s designed to keep us safe from all sorts of real or imagined threats. Culhane subscribes to Stanford lecturer Shirzad Chamine’s “Ten saboteurs” model for identifying how you sabotage yourself.

In that model, the self-critical Judge is the strongest, followed by accomplice saboteurs: Avoider, Controller, Hyper-Achiever, Hyper- Rational, Hyper-Vigilant, Pleaser, Restless, Stickler and Victim. Saboteurs will question your natural ability and are triggered by the judgment of yourself, others and your circumstances.

“Learning all this was like waking up from the Matrix,” recalls Culhane. “I realised I didn’t have to accept the way I’ve been. I was always ambitious in my career, but I’d been holding the underlying belief that I wasn’t capable or wasn’t good enough, which is why I kept moving on.”

Now Culhane has transformed his thinking and behaviour, using the benefit of his experience and knowledge to help others change their mindset. “It’s about making a positive difference to people’s lives so they can be the best version of themselves,” he explains. “The best managers are the ones who can unlock people’s potential through guidance and support, and that means offering compassion and empathy while transforming someone’s thinking. That’s what I love to do.”