Mar 10

Celebrating the positive despite adversity

Sometimes the weight of the stories reported in daily news bulletins can, quite simply, be overwhelming. Pestilence, War, Famine, Death … if we listen carefully, can we hear the thunderous hooves of the Four Horsemen? Fear and anxiety certainly inhibit the creative act of putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, to capture and communicate the positive and the optimistic; it almost felt disloyal to fellow human beings to do this, when so much suffering was so evident on our screens.

One event this week, however, both lifted my spirits and brought back my resolution to communicate with deliberately focused optimism. On International Women’s Day, I spent a joyous hour, in my capacity as President of Changing the Chemistry, chairing an online panel for HSBC’s national Balance group, whose key focus is on diversity. The topic was ‘Being Board Ready – the how, what, when & who?’, and the purpose was to encourage the participants to believe that they could – and should! – put themselves forward for Board roles, and not be put off by any perceived hurdles. We explored the Board journeys of the wonderful participants – Kim Atkinson, Margaret McCaig, Nik Bobb and Silka Patel – and listened to advice in what turned out to be a super conversation, ably aided in the background by Susan Rowand and Brian Hunter, co-leads of the HSBC Balance group.

Key messages to emerge were how fulfilling it was for individuals to take up Board roles, how we all have something unique to bring, and how everyone benefits when we contribute to a Board – including our own employers, who gain a more motivated, more skilled, more experienced employee. We had over 80 participants, and the poll at the end showed a significant uplift in the number of people who would now consider applying for a Board role. What a success!!

Above all, though, it was immensely fun! It was fantastic to meet all the other panellists, some of whom I was meeting for the first time (although obviously, as a good Chair 😊, I had been in contact in advance, and had planned the outline and questions). I genuinely enjoy finding out about people and their journeys, and I love the thrill of shaping a meaningful conversation which has an important purpose … there is a reason why I position myself to chair meetings, panels, Boards … We laughed, we shared, we had impact … what was there not to like about that?! And it was all in celebration of International Women’s Day, the theme of which this year was ‘Breaking the Bias’.

This was a bright and energising moment in a world which can make it difficult at times to feel bright and energised … let us grasp and savour these moments, and then use them as a foundation to empower us to play our part to help create the world in which we want to live, and which we want to leave as a legacy for our children.

Feb 03

It’s getting lighter!

One of the joys of living at a latitude of 55.953251 is that the change in seasons every year is really quite dramatic. It is a marvellous source of conversational material – almost every interaction I have had this past week has been punctuated by references to the current change in the season. ‘It’s definitely getting lighter’, said with a contented smile, has been the staple introduction to many a conversation in the street with neighbours lately – and the follow-up, a few days’ later, of ‘It’s getting even lighter!’, is equally satisfying. Conversation on the topic of the seasons is trumped only by the weather, as in ‘Gosh, it is windy today!’ … and even in these circumstances, we find ourselves turning back, with unadulterated pleasure, to the issue of the light, and remarking how, yes, it definitely is getting even lighter.

Of course, none of this should be a surprise – the earth has been orbiting the sun for millions of years, maintaining (we suppose) the tilt that means a single spot on the earth will become progressively further away from the sun, and then closer, every single earth year since (literally) forever. Surely by now we should be used to it? Surely by now the change in the seasons should have lost its lustre?

And yet – what joy these changes bring! The change in the light brings the thrill of finding that exact moment when the streetlamps start popping off, one by one, on the walk to or from regular school drop-offs. It brings, too, changes in nature, and the excitement of seeing a snowdrop again for the first time in 12 months, or spotting the first buds on trees. Yes, it is still cold – and there will be spells of iciness ahead, because there always are in March (and April, for that matter …) – but goodness me! The delight brought by the freshness of the green of the shoots, and the anticipation of that long-awaited whiff of glorious blossom … what is there not to love about this time of year?

I could turn this into a metaphor for rebirth, inexorable forward movement, hope, and optimism … it is all of those, and more, of course. But it is also, quite simply, beautiful and amazing. Savour the moment; we are lucky to live on this incredible planet.

Jan 17

Is Amsterdam calling …?

One of the hats I wear is that of the Chair of the Supervisory Board of the British School of Amsterdam – a role in which I have sought to do my bit for the school since December 2019, having joined the Board in 2017. It is a great school – no question of this! – and is now seeking a new Principal, as the esteemed current Principal, Paul Morgan, moves to take up the role of Headmaster at St Julian’s in Portugal in September of this year. Paul has more than done his bit for the school – it is unrecognisable since he took over, not least because of the major move which took place last year to a wonderfully renovated historic building in Amsterdam, which meant that all 3 sections of the school could come together under one roof for the first time. The school is going from strength to strength, growing in numbers; bottom line, it is a really splendid place to be, with a clear vision and mission for the future.

So … the school is looking for a new Principal … could this, perhaps, be you? 😊

I won’t repeat all of the information provided by the school for the role, because you can find this here; you also don’t need me, I am sure, to wax lyrical about the quality of life in Amsterdam, which I am certain you will already know is high. What we are seeking at the British School of Amsterdam is an experienced leader, who can consolidate the work undertaken so far, and take the school to the next level. It is a great role … and the Supervisory Board is pretty good, too!

Do have a look at the details, do pass them on, and do feel free to contact me for a chat …

These are exciting times!

Jan 01

Happy New Year!

At the dawn of 2022, let us commit to making it a year of hope!

In doing so, I wanted to reflect back on my experience in late 2021, when I was lucky enough to visit the vast learning emporium that is Expo 2020 Dubai. Delayed for a year because of the pandemic, but nonetheless (in fact, arguably more) potent for this delay, the Expo site contains an astonishing array of pavilions, each dedicated to a different country of the world, as well as a wealth of activities, parades, roving robots, and other events. (It is still running, by the way, albeit with some Covid restrictions, until the end of March 2022, so do think about going … the website itself is worth a visit!)

Anyway, I can’t pretend that when I visited the UK pavilion, I thought it was the most impressive of the country pavilions – far from it; I did smile, though, when one of my companions for the day commented that it was utterly authentic, as British people love to feel disappointed with their own country! The more I have reflected on the premise behind the pavilion, however, the more it has grown on me, to the point where – in the spirit of positive hope at the start of a new year – I have embraced it, and appreciate its wider value to the world.

The concept embedded in the construction of the UK pavilion was inspired by one of the last projects in which the late Professor Stephen Hawking, was involved – ‘Breakthrough Message’. This project was part of the Breakthrough Initiatives launched in 2015 – “a suite of space science programs investigating the fundamental questions of life in the Universe: Are we alone? Are there habitable worlds in our galactic neighborhood? Can we make the great leap to the stars? And can we think and act together – as one world in the cosmos?”. ‘Breakthrough Message’ focuses within this collection of programmes on thinking about what messages we – the human race – would seek to communicate as a planet, should we ever encounter other civilisations in space, and the main activity at the UK pavilion was to create a massive poem constructed using the words we would choose to share with other inhabitants of the universe.

After walking up the slope to the top of the UK pavilion, I entered the main auditorium, and was faced by an enormous wall with a set of screens, each of which contained a word recently chosen by a visitor. Every visitor is asked to think of a word, enter it into a tablet, and then the AI behind the process (about which I would fascinated to learn more) creates a unique couplet which is then added to what will be, by the end of March 2022, the longest poem ever created by an artificial intelligence, using the input of humans.

My word was ‘together’ – a small but, I felt, meaningful, contribution to this global project, because I was reflecting on how the entire Expo is fundamentally about togetherness, harmony, and sustainability based on co-operation, collaboration … and hope for a positive, better, future. It was incredibly uplifting.

So … a hopeful message for the year, the decade and century ahead. And as a small point of practical action, let’s commit to choosing our words carefully with those around us, in public and in private. For you never know who might be listening …

Nov 18

A meeting of minds in Dubai

I felt genuinely fortunate and blessed this past week to have navigated reams of pre-travel requirements successfully and to have had the opportunity to contribute as a speaker to the GESS Dubai conference. I was speaking on values-led leadership in schools, and the importance of understanding and developing self in order to be a highly effective and impactful leader … and what a pleasure it was to meet, connect (and re-connect) with many other leaders, friends and colleagues in this phenomenal international profession, which is driving the future of our world.

One of the most inspiring talks I attended over the 3 days of the conference was given by the wonderful Dr Rana Tamim, with whom I subsequently shared the platform in the GESS Arena as I reflected my personal journey throughout my career in understanding why schools are not always set up to be the best places for children and young people to learn and grow, and why it is so utterly imperative to place the student and their needs at the very heart of any consideration around their education. 

Dr Rana eloquently challenged the separation of schools from the rest of a child’s life, and I was particularly struck by her focus on the ideas and observations of the late Alvin Toffler, whose book ‘Future Shock: The Third Wave’ is now on my ‘to-read’ list. Thinking about schools and their role in the future, he gave a prescient interview in 2007 where he spoke about his vision for a future school, anticipating the 24/7 life we all lead online. A flavour of the content …

“Any form of diversity that we can introduce into the schools is a plus… like in real life, there is an enormous, enormous bank of knowledge in the community that we can tap into. So, why shouldn’t a kid who’s interested in mechanical things or engines or technology meet people from the community who do that kind of stuff, and who are excited about what they are doing and where it’s going? … I think that schools have to be completely integrated into the community, to take advantage of the skills in the community. So, there ought to be business offices in the school, from various kinds of business in the community … “[The school of the future will be] open 24 hours a day. Different kids arrive at different times. They don’t all come at the same time, like an army. They don’t just ring the bells at the same time. They’re different kids. They have different potentials … I would be running a twenty-four-hour school, I would have non-teachers working with teachers in that school, I would have the kids coming and going at different times that make sense for them.”

Ref: Reshaping Learning from the Ground Up | Edutopia

Is there a simple, straightforward, one-size-fits-all answer to the question of what schools can and should be? Of course not! Schools are complex organisms, and part of a wider ecosystem … more importantly, each child is even more beautifully complex and unique. What matters is that we keep asking the question, and keep seeking and trying out answers.

And in Dr Rana, I have a new and wonderful friend; together, we are all stronger, and have a better chance of contributing solutions to the world. Onwards and upwards!   

Oct 25

‘10% braver’ – learnings from WomenEd Thailand

‘Be 10% braver’ is the (now surely really well-known) call to action from the WomenEd movement, which aims to support and connect aspiring and existing women leaders in education, … and I was 10% braver on Saturday last week as I said ‘sure, I will speak!’ at the WomenEd Thailand Career Clinic. It was all online, of course, and was attended by a number of fantastic women leaders from the region; I was speaking as an LSC Education Associate and coach about my insights into the pandemic, and how this has changed some patterns in international school leadership recruitment, while others have remained very much the same … bias (conscious or unconscious) didn’t just disappear because the world was overtaken by Covid in 2020.

I had such an uplifting time! It was fantastic to feel the sense of community and energy in the (virtual) room, as many women spoke up in a safe, encouraging and vibrant space about their frustrations and successes in looking for leadership roles. What was striking was how they presented as articulate, thoughtful, obviously highly competent, and clearly stalwarts of education; why, then, should they find hurdles in their way to apply for leadership roles in schools?

One of WomenEd’s commitments is to help women leaders progress in their leadership career by working to remove systemic and organisational barriers to this progress, and this session was part of this commitment. If I were to capture the 2 messages that seemed to emerge, these would be: ‘work at knowing and believing in yourself’, and ‘remember – we are all part of creating positive change’. Neither of these messages will be unusual for educators, because they live and breathe them every day … for their students, though! What this event reminded us all (including me) is that we all have a role to play to help make this world a better place, and when we can do something, we should.

Together, we are of course stronger … and the value of community, co-operation, and generosity of spirit in supporting others to become the best of themselves, in order to help and support others, is not to be underestimated. So … in sharing these thoughts more widely, I want to offer a shout-out to the fantastic WomenEd Thailand team. You are all fab, and you have so much to give the world. Go for it!!!

Let’s make the world better …

Sep 14

The power of connection – why the support of our peers makes a difference to us

Einstein once wrote: “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe’ – a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.” Einstein then went on to say: “This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Who are we to argue with Einstein, particularly when what he writes makes perfect sense? At a deep level, we realise – or, at least, I hope that we realise – that we are all profoundly inter-connected, and that we all have a part to play in the story of the world. Connectedness in harmony with the universe is not merely a state of existence; I like to think of it as an organic and vibrant process, where by engaging with others in the spirit and understanding that we are benignly connected, we are able to achieve more together than we could as individuals (which would, as Einstein points out, be a delusion anyway).

This is where the power of an active network of our peers comes into play; whether you are a school leader looking to grow and develop, or someone who wants to improve board effectiveness through increasing diversity on boards, or an activist seeking to reduce consumption and food waste (I name here just 3 interests particularly close to my own heart), or anyone who wants to help shift anything in the world, for the better, in any way … a peer support network will help connect you with others, and will – should – widen your circles of impact as well as of compassion.

Peer support networks bring opportunities for:

  • Sharing of experience, insights and learning
  • Understanding different perspectives
  • Friendship and empowering relationships

Importantly, peer support networks can also develop courage – the courage to pursue a task which alone would be much harder, if not impossible, and the courage to know and believe that together we are indeed stronger.

Courageous connection … a thought for us all. The world needs us to be connected; let’s take a step – small or large – to engage in this process today.

Aug 16

New school year … a new approach to school leadership?

A new school year begins shortly in the northern hemisphere, and – as with every new beginning – it is an opportunity for school leaders to reflect on how they are going to take their organisations forward, learning from the past and venturing boldly into the future. The disruptions and upheavals of the pandemic are far from gone (and the ripples in some parts of the world continue to be felt particularly vigorously), but the start of a new term and year is an opportunity to affect the direction of the school and its community, and to forge ahead with courage and clarity of vision. When school leaders stand up in front of their staff, their students and their wider community, they have a powerful platform from which to communicate, shape, guide and invest in the growth and development of the school; it is an opportunity to be grasped with both hands.

What about the leaders themselves, though? Who supports, shapes, guides and invests in them? Leaders can and should of course benefit from an infrastructure of support around them, from a Board to a supportive Deputy, and from colleagues in other schools to a mentor or coach. Ultimately, though, it is – and always has been – down to leaders to develop themselves. As leaders, we can – and do! – learn every day when we reflect on what went well and what went less well, and we adjust our future behaviour accordingly; most leaders will also turn to sources of inspiration, too, from books to conferences, to keep their understanding of the sector and the wider world topped up. But what about ourselves? How deep do we delve into who we are, and what we stand for?

Interrogation of self (and acting on the ideas and directions which emerge) is a powerful form of investment in self … and like any kind of investment, it is easier to do with the support of others, drawing on their insights, perspectives, and expertise. This has been a common thread in the discussions I have been having over the past few months with LSC Education colleagues as they shape and refine their Leadership courses due to start in September or October, and it really feels as though the autumn will bring a wealth of opportunity for school leaders really to flourish in their leadership by exploring who they are, and who they have become, as leaders, especially over the crisis-riven past couple of years.

If school leaders do not demonstrate investment in self, how can they expect their communities to believe that they should be investing in turn in themselves? 2021-22 awaits … make it the year of investment in you, the leader.

Jul 26

Three pieces of advice for school leaders

It was a pleasure to participate in a panel last week at the WLSA (World Leading Schools Association) biennial conference for leaders of some of the world’s top independent schools, and I particularly enjoyed the fruits of the preparation which had gone into it. This included the curation of videos of current leaders sharing their thoughts and ideas about how they were planning to take learnings from the Covid pandemic and turn these into practical – and better –strategies that will be embedded into the future direction of their schools. One message was clear, above all – Covid has accelerated change, and we want to use this momentum to effect a step change in education.

I was asked to speak on a panel of Global Principals by virtue not so much of my 13 years in the past as a School Principal, but rather because I spent much of the past 18 months advising school leaders, Boards and schools generally across the world, through what has been – undeniably – the most disruptive period in education in living memory. I was so grateful to have the opportunity to support so many leaders; equally, I harboured a sense of relief that I was not in charge of a school this past year, because it has been incredibly hard for school leaders – really, really, really hard. It is testimony to the utterly dogged, determined persistence of school leaders across the world that children and young people (and their families) have been able to keep their sanity, and I absolutely bow to them in admiration.   

One of the questions I was asked was what advice I would give to school leaders moving forward, and I responded with 3 key points, which I wanted to share with you:

  • First, scrap what you don’t need. Operate on the Marie Kondo principle … if you have done without something for the past year, you don’t need it. Save yourself time, energy and space by binning any processes you haven’t used. If you want to keep the best of your new structures, necessitated by Covid, then some things need to go. Dump what you don’t need.
  • Secondly, don’t lose the questing innovation which you put in place in order to tackle the hurdles you faced. Make the effort to continue to encourage the innovators and disruptors who emerged during the pandemic, and create structures – task forces or working groups, perhaps – which support and value them. Keep the restless energy bubbling away as you plan for the future.
  • Thirdly – and most importantly – invest in yourself. If you aren’t fit and well, if you don’t have a clear head, if you don’t know who you are as a leader, if you don’t have make time to learn and grow … well, how are you going to be able to lead as effectively as you can? Too many school leaders (and still, I would observe, far too many female leaders …) put themselves at the bottom of the list of priorities in school. It is time to change! If your school is going to thrive, and you are going to have the impact on the world which you are destined to have, then you need to take yourself to the next level, and this actually means investing in your own learning, coaching and mentoring. You deserve this! And so does your school. And the wider community. And the world …

So – thank you to Charlie Jenkinson for inviting me to be part of this conference; it was great to be able to share this message! Roll on 2023 …

Jul 05

Sustainability: how Boards can – and should – contribute to net zero

COP26 is only a few months away, and is – quite rightly – focusing our collective minds globally on how we can move to net zero as soon as possible. Just in case anyone is still vague about the concept of ‘net zero’, this refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gases produced across the world, and the amount of greenhouse gases removed from the atmosphere – we reach net zero when the amount produced is equal to (or, ideally, less than) the amount taken away. And we can’t just keep waiting, because the world’s climate is changing in some quite scary ways (just ask the residents of western Canada), and we have to work out how we can (at least try to) limit the impact. Doing nothing is not an option any more.

Sitting in the Board room, however, dealing with the usual strategic stuff that comes up, it can be easy to allow sustainability to slip down the agenda; I’ve certainly been guilty of this in the past. A typical Board agenda is packed with discussions on finance, on improving quality, on opening new markets, of aligning personnel structures to strategic directions, and, currently, of the impacts of Covid. Where is the room for discussions on sustainability and net zero, especially as they are often accompanied by the realisation that any strategic moves towards these goals could be expensive and involve different ways of working?

Reframing the question, we might however ask ‘how can we afford not to place sustainability and net zero on our agendas?’. ‘Expensive’ has different interpretations; arguably, the consequences of doing nothing towards net zero are likely to be hugely – perhaps even impossibly – expensive in the long run … and if we think that an acceleration in climate change will allow us to keep working as we are, then we really do have our heads stuck in the sand.

There is no room for complacency in thinking about sustainability from the perspective of the Board room. A tick box ESG culture can deceive us into feeling that we are doing our part, but the danger lies in doing the minimum, or in finding loopholes. Fundamentally, though, if we are caught cheating in our homework on this issue, we will indeed be letting ourselves down, and letting everyone else down too …

Where to start? Put it on each agenda as a standing item. Read this article by Fran van Dijk on 5 mission-critical shifts in ESG which Boards need to know about. Learn and think about how you can measure your organisation’s carbon emissions, and then how you will do something about reducing them. Work out what you expect from your executive, and make sure that together you set real, effective targets which will motivate without encouraging skewed reporting.

Together we can make a difference – let’s not waste a moment longer.