On my travels again over the past couple of weeks, I have been struck once more by the astonishing variety of vegetation in our world. Last week in humid Hong Kong, dodging astonishing thunderstorms and …
This week I am taking a break from the full-on coaching, speaking and advising of the past few months, which (since April) has seen me working with leaders and Boards in Shanghai, Jersey, Riyadh, Hong …
Travelling into London on the Elizabeth Line last weekend, on my way to the annual COBIS conference, I was sat opposite a baby, and I can honestly say that this was the best train journey …
Listening, last Monday, to former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, as he gave a detailed and incisive lecture at the University of Edinburgh Law School, hosted by the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, I was …
This is the time of year that I find myself immersed in budget discussions in each board meeting I attend, whether as non-executive Director, Trustee or simply as a governance coach/consultant. No matter where I …
If you have followed this blog over a number of years, then you will know that my movie-watching habits are limited to occasions when I travel on long haul flights. I cannot claim, therefore, to be anywhere approaching a seasoned critic or an aficionado, but I do usually find one or more films which make me reflect on important issues in the real world, and when I do, I like to share these thoughts. This is exactly what happened when I recently flew out to Asia, and I stumbled across ‘Swimming With Men’.
Starring Rob Brydon, amongst other recognisable actors – Rupert Graves and Downton Abbey’s Jim Carter, for example – this is the story of a disaffected accountant who stumbles across (and joins) a male synchronised swimming team. It is a humorous and honest reflection of the joys and tribulations of genuine male friendship, and was a light, enjoyable (and heart-warming) watch – well, I enjoyed it, anyway!
What I found particularly refreshing was the fact that this
film just allows men to be men – not pitted against, or compared with, women;
not denigrating women or trying to be better than women. If anything, it pokes
fun at the ridiculous expectations that society makes of women – in one scene,
for example, the men are relieved that they aren’t expected to wear the glossy
makeup and smile of their female counterparts. And their (competitive and
highly effective) coach is a woman who really knows her stuff. It was just so
nice to watch something that was, quite frankly, normal.
Of course, the reason why this film is worth remarking upon is that it is unusual. The results of the Bechdel test regularly reveal that ordinary, fun female friendship continues to be un-represented in film. Sigh. Still so much to do in this world. Still, if Swimming With Men can be a success, then there is perhaps hope for us all.
I recently picked up a secondhand copy of Padraig O’Sullivan’s book on coaching for expat leaders – ‘Foreigner in Charge’ – and although he wasn’t writing specifically about international school leaders, he might as well have been; his insights into the process that leaders go through when they move to new roles in new countries were deeply insightful. For a school leader who chooses to move overseas for the first time, or who moves from one international role to another, there are multiple transitions to navigate, and O’Sullivan’s very practical book lays these bare in a very user-friendly fashion.
A key factor into successful transition into a new role, however, as I have learned over the course of my career first as a school leader, and now as a consultant, is really good coaching. It often surprises me that while boards are happy to invest in the recruitment process for a new role, recognising the value of the expertise that executive search processes bring to ensuring the right ‘fit’, they are far less aware of the value of coaching for the new incumbent in the role. Sometimes this is because they think that they as a board are best able to help the leader settle into role, forgetting that they cannot provide the confidential space for leaders to explore and develop their leadership; sometimes they just assume that once the right appointment has been made, everything will just fall into place.
In
actual fact, from the moment the appointment is made to the moment the leader
takes up her or his new role – which in the case of international school
leaders can often be several months – both the leader and the organisation will
be shifting and changing, and without careful reflection and direction, this
can lead to an unnoticed divergence of paths and perspectives. Add into the
equation the fact that the leader will be faced with the need to learn and
understand cultural norms and assumptions on top of all the interpersonal and
structural norms and assumptions in the organisation, failure in any one of
which could easily result in stormy waters, or even failure, with the
significant financial costs and organisational disruption that this entails,
then the engagement of a coach for the leader suddenly seems like a very good
investment indeed.
I
have been absolutely won over by the power of coaching to make a difference in
the transitions that people make in their careers. I have experienced the huge
positives myself as a coachee, and I can see exactly where I would have
benefited in moving into other roles. I also see every week, with the leaders I
coach personally, how transformative it can be for both the leader and the
organisation to challenge, ask the right questions and set goals (and hold
people to account for the actions needed to meet these).
Of
course, when coaching works, ie when leaders are in happier places, and
organisations work more harmoniously, everyone assumes it was always going to
be this way … Little do they know!
I spent time last week in a brilliant library – Double Bay Library in Woollahra, Sydney, and the experience was too good not to share. I had to find somewhere to dial into a board meeting in Hong Kong, and so I was on the hunt for good WiFi in the area – which indeed I found, but with so much more on top. I often say that I think schools should be at the heart of communities – well, so should libraries, and this one most definitely was. I have no idea how it was funded, nor what wasn’t built so that it could be built, nor how it compares to other libraries in the district or city (apart from the NSW State Library, which is fab) … I just want to celebrate what I found, and let others experience a bit of my delight!
Photo taken in Double Bay Library, Woollahra, Sydney
Opened in 2016, the library is spread over 3 floors and is marked by its hanging greenery, the multitude of different work spaces (including a stepped area which does dual duty as an auditorium), and what looked to my eagerly browsing eye like excellent children’s and adult fiction sections (I didn’t have time to look at the non-fiction section – this was at the very top of the building in the quiet zone). There was also an indoor slide for children … who would have thought that? The architects’ website describes it better than I ever could – with pictures – so check this out here – bvn website. They must have done something clever with the sound absorption too, because somehow, despite people talking and the fact that there were a lot of people using it, it seemed calm, yet warmly welcoming – a very facilitating place.
Anyway,
what I really, really liked about this library was precisely the fact that it
was being used! People were returning books, borrowing books, reading books,
working on their laptops, researching on the many computers and iPads that were
available, playing games in the Tech zone, and – essentially – engaging in lots
and lots of learning. What a marvellous experience! Surrounded by and immersed
in learning!
Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying ‘All I have learned, I learned from books’. Today’s books are more than paper and ink (although nothing quite replaces the touch and feel of the physical object …) and civilised societies, which is what we surely aspire to be, are learning societies; societies which invest in learning and in libraries are wise.
Wouldn’t
it be great if all our decision-makers had the same vision …?
A great day last Friday at the AIS Leadership Centre in Sydney, working with new Principals on how to enable their schools to become world leaders in the field of global education. It was gratifying to receive 5/5 ratings from all the participants (thank you!), but what really uplifted me were the ‘lightbulb moments’ that I witnessed, coupled with a determination to make sure that each and every one of their students was going to benefit from the thinking we had worked on, and the models which I have created, and to which I introduced them. What drives me personally is being able to have positive impact on leaders – and through them, young people – and Friday was a perfect example of how this can happen. Well done to the AIS for being so forward-thinking on behalf of its new Principals, in arranging this!
I was struck in particular on this occasion by how open
these new Principals were to the thought that they could engage their
communities in creating opportunities for their students. Working with – and
shaping – the local, national and international community around schools is one
of the key pillars of my focus in the schools with which I work, and I heard
some brilliant examples of early-stage initiatives in schools run by some of
these new Principals, which they were then able to share with their colleagues.
All too often, schools feel as though they can’t ask for help from their
immediate wider community, let alone a community that stretches far, far wider,
but it is incredibly important that leaders do in fact have courage and reach
out – only by doing this will they be able to provide the opportunities and
pathways that their students deserve and need in a global world that is
connected as never before, and where – as long as schools really, really
prepare them to work interculturally – they will have amazing choices.
So – a huge shout out and good luck to all those new Principals who are either in their first year of leadership, or who are shortly to take up a new post. Remember to put the global at the heart of what you are doing in school, and you will make astonishing things happen. Go for it!
First, the background. Last week I attended a Maths Challenge certificate ceremony at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, during which I had the enjoyable experience of hearing a lecture on game theory. As part of the lecture, we all pondered again the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and why it was always statistically better to cheat or betray to gain an advantage in a game. (If you don’t know the Prisoner’s Dilemma, read about it here; in fact, the rest of my own Dilemma won’t make sense unless you do.) Now, obviously at least one of the prisoners is still worse off if there is some betrayal than if neither prisoner betrays, but game theory explains, through an analysis of the statistical probabilities, why behaving in what the outside world might see as a less honourable way is often the ‘safest’ route for game players to take.
To be honest, at the time I enjoyed the intellectual challenge, and filed it (probably rather naively) into my ‘fictional world’ or ‘suspension of disbelief’ folder – an interesting question about amorality in the virtual world, but one which could be explored at a different time, and which might not in any case transfer to the real world. Then, however, on Monday, I realised suddenly that we need to take this a lot more seriously than I had thought. I was listening to a very different lecture in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, following a board meeting, this time given by Tom Steyr, billionaire-turned-grass-roots-activist and arch-critic of the current political structure of the US, and he pointed out that in his opinion the behaviour of the current US President was a sign that he was trapped in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, choosing to cheat and betray his way out of situations because on balance, this made it more likely that he would win. This really, really made me think … I wonder how much of our culture is permeated by people consciously (or subconsciously, through imitation of others) employing the learnings from game theory. A simple Google search reveals hundreds of thousands of reflection and scholarly articles on the impact of game theory on war, politics and international relations. And my question is this – are we really turning into a society where cheating is the de facto modus operandi?
Well, I refuse to accept that this is either desirable or necessary – every ethical bone in my body screams otherwise – but what I could do with is some input from experts (amateur or professional) in game theory which will help me (all of us) understand game theory in practice in real life … Is there an equation out there that incorporates the multiple, layered and complex variables that actually influence how we can and should choose to behave in the kind of civilised society to which we aspire?
I’d love any pointers – links, thoughts or theories – that any of you might have … please, just get in touch. Where shall I start reading? In the meantime, I shall be busy resurrecting my school Scottish Higher Grade Mathematics in my spare time …
Yuval Noah Harari’s ‘Sapiens’ has been sitting on my shelf for FAR too long, waiting, tantalisingly, to be read, but this past weekend I plunged in … and couldn’t put it down. I haven’t finished it yet – so, please, no spoilers – but given that there is a sequel of sorts (Homo Deus), then I am hoping it doesn’t end (yet) in total annihilation and catastrophe. As global issues become more pressing – as plastic waste builds up (and countries like Malaysia wake up to not wanting to be the dustbins of the world, and turn container ships back towards Europe), and as the biodiversity of our planet plummets – we really, really need to start considering the possibility that it won’t actually be all right after all, no matter how much we hope it will be.
In this window of time where we can choose still to hope,
however, we can’t simply sit around and ruminate. Action is needed … and in
this, Dr Harari gives us some direction. He deconstructs the notion of unique
nationhood, and challenges what we mean by ‘Us’ and ‘Them’; moreover, he points
us towards global solutions:
“The appearance of essentially global problems, such as melting ice
caps, nibbles away at whatever legitimacy remains to the independent nation
states. No sovereign state will be able to overcome global warming on its own…
the global empire [is] being forged before our eyes”. (Chapter 11)
How, though … well, an uplifting meeting a cup of tea that I had earlier this week with a wonderful, highly experienced coach and change agent reminded me of the importance of dialogue, and it set me thinking about how we can more explicitly teach everyone (including young people – the future of the world) to engage in dialogic practice. We don’t have a lot of time, but we do need to do something. So another book is winging its way to me … William Issac’s ‘Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together’.
Escaping (literally) from the turmoil of Brexit and the
political machinations of the UK can appear a particularly attractive option at
the moment. Although I have written in the past about why teaching abroad can
be enormously beneficial, both personally and professionally, I thought it was
an apt moment to recall why this is the case – especially because I was
reminded at the recent Council of British International Schools (COBIS)
conference in London very vigorously of the great opportunities for UK teachers
(and others) that lie in cultures other than their own.
Last year, COBIS conducted a major survey looking into teacher supply in British International Schools and found that 94% of senior leaders in British international schools find it challenging to recruit the required quality of teaching staff; by implication, this means that the roles are there and waiting for highly qualified and proficient teachers. They also looked at the flow of teachers out of the UK and back into the UK, and found positive motivations underpinning each of these – a desire for travel and new experiences when going out, and a desire to come home and bring back knowledge and experience when returning. Teacher movement abroad is – happily for children in the UK – demonstrably not a one-way process.
Of enormous encouragement were the findings of COBIS about
what teachers gained from their time working in schools in different countries:
79% felt that they had grown in cultural awareness, 76% felt that they had
developed a global outlook and were more internationally minded, and 58% spoke
of the greater adaptability that they had developed. What marvellous personal
and professional outcomes! And how amazing if as a result of this personal and
professional development, teachers – with their immediate access to young
people – can be role models for global mobility!
Nothing beats travelling, working and living in a place other than one’s original home. Teachers have a ready-made pathway and opportunities just waiting for them. Seize the day …
Two very different events which I attended at the end of last week in Edinburgh ended with a very similar message about the importance of getting to know the people around us, and I thought this was worth reflecting on for a moment.
The first event was a session on diversity – and, specifically, how we can deal with our unconscious bias, hosted for the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) at the offices of KMPG in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. People from all fields of actuarial work attended, as did a number of connected guests (I was there because I chair one of the IFoA’s Strategic Boards, their Lifelong Learning Board), and the discussion was robust and at times (to quote the chair of the IFoA’s Diversity Action Group), “appropriately uncomfortable”. For there is, of course, an incredibly vast amount more work that we need to do as individuals and collectively to address the prejudices that we have, and the harm that these can cause; and we should not fall into the trap of feeling self-satisfied because we have a small level of awareness, or of assuming that we have ‘done our bit’ … learning to accept people for who they actually are is a lot harder than it sounds, and we need to work a lot harder on it.
This task is made even harder because, as we heard at the event, research shows that 61% of the workforce regularly engage in ‘covering’, ie covering up or hiding something that is important to their identity … and yet, the more we know about people, the more likely it is that we all understand them, and therefore the more likely it is that we will embrace who they are, and that our lives – and theirs – will be enhanced as a result. There are plenty of very good reasons why people ‘cover’ – through fear of being disadvantaged or ridiculed or hurt – and so therefore the message that emerged was the imperative of practising getting to know people, to give them places and spaces where they feel they can trust enough to talk more openly about themselves, and of accepting them for who they are.
The very same message emerged the next morning when I visited the Edinburgh Steiner School, set in lovely surroundings in South Edinburgh, and gained an in-depth insight from teachers and students about their particularly creative and grounder approach to education. They were calmly and confidently explicit about their intention to nurture a harmonious personality in children with all aspects of their character well-developed, resulting in confident, independent and self-aware young people. What was interesting, and what differed slightly from many other schools which I have visited over the years, it that this sense of self-awareness went far deeper than the individual; it has a purpose, best articulated by one of the current students, who delved deeper – “Steiner has taught me”, he said, “not to make assumptions about people but to find out about them, and stop and appreciate them.”
I have often thought that good schools have a lot to teach other professions about how they grow and manage people, and to hear the same message articulated in two very different contexts, but within less than 24 hours of one another, served to confirm this. More importantly, the message these events mutually reinforced is one that we need to act upon if we are going to have any real chance of drawing out the best of the human race in these challenging global times. So … at the risk of stating the obvious, be aware of the sameness and difference of others, and practise getting to know people (and not just people who seem like everyone else we know).
Above all, let us take responsibility and commit to making a difference. And do it today.
I spent Sunday morning this week with my daughter at
Kidzania, the ‘indoor city for kids’ situated in Westfield Mall at White City,
London (and replicated in various major cities across the world). For those of
you who don’t know Kidzania, it is designed so that children aged 4-14 can
explore a replica ‘city’, with a range of structured activities centred on
establishments such as newspaper offices, a fire station, a detective agency, a
hospital and a pilot training facility … the sorts of establishments, in fact,
that can be found in any city, but just condensed (and shrunk in height) to
make them entirely accessible to children.
It was not in fact my first visit, but I found it as highly stimulating
as my first – and do remember that the adults are not really supposed to be
involved in the activities; my interest came purely from my observations and
reflections on the concept and practice that I could see. The children were joyful,
moving purposefully from activity to activity, making choices about where to
go, counting and managing their money (they earn a salary for some activities,
and have to pay for others), and generally taking charge of their learning. As
an educator, what could be more exciting?!
Reflecting on the session, I returned with renewed vigour to
the question of how our schools can replicate a sense of this meaningful, relevant,
work-orientated learning as part of their curriculum. Schools, after all, are
mandated by society to nurture and develop the interests, skills and awareness
of their students, and part of this mandate must be to ensure that these young
people can connect with the sorts of experiences that they will have when they start
to work in paid employment in their twenties.
(Note that I resist here the temptation to write ‘when they enter the ‘real’ world’; I believe more and more firmly that we do not take seriously enough the fact that our children already inhabit the ‘real’ world – they work, live, experience the world around them … how much more real can the world be? This will be a topic for another blog…)
When I speak at conferences and work with schools on social and global mobility, I emphasise the importance of community involvement in developing relevant work opportunities for students, and I sometimes refer people back to a paper which was written in 1998 but which still rings true today. Written by researchers at Brown University, as part of the drive to facilitate a better transfer of people to the then ‘workforce’, the paper makes a particularly salient observation:
“The most important factor in a school’s ability to put [the vision of developing a strong school-career path] into practice is the involvement of a broad community of adults in the learning experiences of young people. This is by no means standard practice in our schools. For most of this century, what students have been expected to do in school has been dissociated from the life and work of the community in which they live. Unlike the last century, when young people participated in the farming, small businesses, and trades of their family and neighbors, the work of adults has become largely invisible to today’s young people. There are few, if any, opportunities to work alongside adults, or to be taken seriously in an enterprise worthy of adult concern.”
The authors then take the reader through a series of very
practical ‘how to’ steps, based on the 6 As of planning work-related experiences
and strategies (Academic Rigor, Authenticity, Applied Learning, Active
Exploration, Adult Connections, Assessment Practices), which – as they demonstrate
– help teachers and school leaders see students going out to work as a rigorously
and carefully thought through part of their learning journey. It is often said
that the old ideas are the best – and certainly, ideas which have stood the
test of time as these ones have are absolutely worthy of our attention.
What we should perhaps consider carefully is that education
systems on the whole have not really embraced these notions – ‘work experience’
is often seen at best as an add-on (and at worst as a distraction) from the ‘real’
focus of preparing students to achieve high academic grades … ignoring the fact
that these are systems where the majority will (no matter how this is packaged)
by definition fail, because they won’t be able to reach the highest grades,
upon which the rest of their future is predicated.
Experiential learning – learning by reflection on actual doing
– is how we learn as adults, and so (unsurprisingly!) so too do children. Let’s
start by talking more about how we can all work together to integrate and embed
whole world experiences more effectively into the education of our schooled
children. Learning is for life, not just for Sundays, after all …
I have just been dipping in again to Erin Meyer’s very readable book ‘The Culture Map’, which I do from time to time, just to remind myself of the urgent imperative of developing cultural understanding in a globalised world – the world in which our young people are growing up, and in which they will have to work and live. To the initiated, the terms ‘intercultural sensitivity’, ‘intercultural understanding’ and ‘intercultural fluency’ – all of which I group together under the encompassing term ‘global mobility’ – are without any shadow of a doubt essential for our young people to be able to flourish and thrive in today’s world; what is deeply concerning, however, is that so many people are as yet uninitiated into this concept …
Perhaps Erin Meyer’s words will help … in her conclusion,
after several chapters of (fascinating, thought-provoking and enjoyable)
examples of how diverse cultural teams have learned to work with one another by
understanding better where they stand on various different scales of
interaction and philosophy, and by exploring the preconceptions with which they
have been brought up, she reminds the reader that while every individual is of course
different in their own human right,
‘Yet the culture in which we are brought up has a profound impact on how we see the world. In any given culture, members are conditioned to understand the world in a particular way, to see certain communication patterns as effective or undesirable, to find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, to consider certain ways of making decisions or measuring time “natural” or “strange”.’
Leaders who are armed with this appreciation are, she points
out, far better prepared to be able to understand and work effectively with
people from around the world, and, as she points out,
‘When we worked in offices surrounded by others from our own tribe, awareness of basic human psychological needs and motivations, as well as a sensitivity to individual differences was enough. But as globalization transforms the way we work, we now need the ability to decode cultural differences in order to work effectively with clients, suppliers, and colleagues around the world’.
For adults already enmeshed in the world of work – or wishing
to extend their sphere of influence and their success – then The Culture Map
makes an excellent starting point; school leaders should absolutely read it
too, because the beauty of school is that it provides an opportunity for children
and young people to have time, over several years, to become immersed in an appreciation
and working knowledge of the subtle differences of other cultures … provided,
of course, that the school really, really commits to a fundamental shift in its
priorities and in its primary focus.
In our world today, where our children’s generation face whole-world
problems which can only be tackled on a global scale, cross-cultural communication,
at a deep and powerful level, is essential. In the schools where I have challenged
and worked on global mobility, I have seen how it is possible to make a
difference, and my message to schools and their leaders is … act now … and
start immediately by educating yourselves … because where you lead, others will
follow …
