I read the Hay Group publication 'Make or break' this evening...

The little booklet highlights the fact that to be successful we must ensure that our organisations have the capacity to keep our promises. It stresses my view that it is not the execution capabilities that make all the difference. Programme management, performance management and measurement systems matter but they are not enough. We need to understand the three major tools we have for turning strategy into reality:

• translate the strategy into a structure that allows the organisation to best serve its customers, clients and stakeholders;
• constantly and publicly reward the way things are done as well as the results achieved;
• consistently repeat the message through stories and check that the message arrives.

We all need to understand that there is a risk within organisations that our body language and our tone contradict the content of our message. We must think very carefully about rewards and structures to ensure that they match our strategy. Content still matters and we still need a vision and a strategy but we should reserve words for what they do best - telling stories that inspire and inform.
Chris

Colleagues gave me a copy of our new 'The Education Leeds Learning and Development Guide' which I read over the weekend...

It's a powerful little statement about the support for talent management and highlights three golden threads:

• equalities and diversity in everything we do;
• working in collaboration - in teams, within Education Leeds and with our partners;
• Leaders and people managers - developing a culture, inspiring and managing colleagues.

The booklet covers induction, personal development, enabling programme, aspiring programme, inspiring programme, health, safety and well-being, child protection and information technology. The document sets out our commitment to our colleagues and their professional and personal development. We need to help colleagues with their own progression pathways to ensure that each and every one achieves their potential and releases their magic.
Chris

Exceptional people in exceptional organisations refuse to choose between
performance and people...

If we want to be outstanding we must do five things to promote both people and performance:
• Get colleagues to trust us;
• Engage directly with colleagues;
• Maintain our focus and consistency of purpose;
• Build our collective leadership;
• Foster and nurture our shared purpose.

It's as always about ownership, engagement, passion and belief. Simple really.
Chris

Change is with us: perhaps it always has been and perhaps it always will be...

We need to recognise that social, economic, end environmental issues all impact on what we are doing. Schools, 21st Century Schools, lie at the heart of Children's Services and the relationships between learners, their families and our colleagues are vitally important if we want to tackle disadvantage and underachievement and release the potential and magic. We need to continue on the journey to excellence with passion, commitment, energy, belief and determination.
Chris

I read a copy of the new Education Leeds Strategy 'Brilliant Learning, Brilliant Learning Places' over the weekend...

It sets out our vision for the next three years. That all our children and young people will be engaged in learning that:

• challenges their expectations;
• rases their aspirations; and
  
• enables them to fulfil their potential and their ambitions.

It's a great document full of wonderful photographs of our children and young people and expresses our ambitions for 2012:

• we will ensure that children will have a good start and thrive in learning;
• we will ensure that young people will be engaged and thrive in learning;
• we will narrow the achievement gap for vulnerable children and young people;
• we will work to support the continuation of learning into adulthood;
• we will ensure a 21st century learning experience for Leeds children and young people;
• we will ensure that we develop and support the leadership and governance needed to deliver 21st century learning;
• we will promote learning that supports children and young people to make informed choices;
• we will ensure that schools and services provide integrated support to safeguard children, young people and their families;
• we will ensure that schools are at the heart of strong communities with places to go and things to do;
• we will ensure that Education Leeds is a strong and successful learning organisation where people are trusted, valued, respected and enabled to release their potential.

Thanks to those colleagues who produced such a wonderful statement which will drive our efforts here in Leeds over the next three years.
Chris

The mind is similar to the muscles of the body: if you do not use it and give it a good workout every day, it will become flabby...

Too many people are neglecting their brains and the world is in serious danger of becoming flabby. What are you reading and doing to keep your brain engaged and active.
Chris

You’ve done all the right things; provided leadership and direction to your colleagues, rewarded courageous risk-taking, encouraged innovation, honored diversity, demanded personal accountability, put children and young people first but it all just went to the dogs in an OFSTED inspection report...

It’s 3:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and you’re at the fridge again because you can't sleep. You find yourself breaking into a rage every time some well-meaning and over-paid consultant who has never managed anything tells you he has all the answers, to “play to your strengths,” and “enlist everyone in a positive change effort.” So what do we do?

However tough the going gets, there is always hope especially when some of us have travelled this road before. There is a light at the end of the tunnel which isn't a train coming the other way. We all know that it’s a very tough journey but they all are aren't they when you work in the big cities. There are clearly no guarantees of success, but pressing on is our best hope.

This is our business and we are ultimately responsible for the health, the well-being and successes of all the young people who live here in Leeds. So let's all list the five things that will make the biggest difference for our young people. Take a moment to recognize how difficult these things will be and then do them anyway. Our job is to convince enough people to join in the pursuit of a better and more sustainable tomorrow; a tomorrow that delivers better schools and better outcomes for our children and young people than we are achieving today... whatever it takes!
Chris

The current short-term, and quick fix interventionist approach is not based on in-depth understanding of the context and culture of the school, but on superficial data analysis and instant judgements...

It is important to remember that the situation is clearly very different in real schools. The core business of schools is teaching and learning and, to achieve this, the school leaders have to find ways to overcome the many obstacles real schools are facing. To achieve their core purpose and become successful, we know that schools need to move from a culture of dependency to a culture of enterprise, discipline and hard work. That requires strong and highly effective leadership, powerful governance, an organisational infrastructure, financial resources and autonomy, professional excellence at all levels and brilliantly responsive and flexible support.

We know that some of our schools have moved very successfully in this direction and achieved great things; simply look at what John Smeaton Community College, the David Young Academy and Morley High School have achieved over the last few years. However, a small number of our schools still lack great leadership, have poor discipline and are too dependent on support.

We must develop a "can do" approach where there are only challenges and opportunities not problems. We need to contribute practical advice and insightful reflections about the issues faced by our schools; ideas rooted in the reality of effecting lasting change and adding to what the schools already know.

We know that the task we all face is enormous but we know how to do this and we simply need to be break the problems down into bite-sized, manageable strategies and tasks targeted to make a real difference.

Chris

When things in your life seem to be getting on top of you and almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough to get everything done, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee. If you haven't read the story read on...

"A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things---God, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else---the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for th e pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

"Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled and said, "I'm glad you asked." The coffee just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.""

Whenever things are getting you down and you need a friend remember about my offer to buy you coffee.
Chris

“I have yet to meet the man, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.”

Charles Schwab

It' s funny but few people I know have learned how to deliver criticism...

We learn by making mistakes. Simply watch a small child learning to walk. The best way to correct our mistakes is by finding something to praise before we are criticised. In this way people show faith, confidence and trust in our abilities and talents and we will be more willing to listen once we know the intention is to be helpful and constructive.

Praise works. Top football managers dish out praise and appreciation regularly and publicly. Genuine praise is not flattery. We are all more willing to listen to advice when we know the boss has faith in our abilities.
Chris

At Extended Leadership Team this week, I mentioned that I was awake at 2.30am and had thought about other colleagues doing exactly what I was doing, hungering as I hungered, wondering as I wondered and unable to sleep and that we were all members of the 'Fellowship of the Fridge'. This is where that came from..

"Leftovers in their less visible forms are called memories. Stored in the refrigerator of the mind and cupboards of the heart.

These are just few of mine that came up tonight: the laughter of a friend, the last embers of a great fire, the long glance of love from my spouse from across a room full of people, an unexpected snowfall, the year everything went wrong and turned out right, and a chunk of poetry I learned in high school. These precious things - these leftovers from living on - remain to serve as survival rations for the heart and the soul. You can't entirely live off them. But life is not worth living without them.

My solitary late-night forays for food in the fridge are often garnished with such thoughts. I don't go to the refrigerator just to eat. But to think. To sort it all out. And sometimes I think about the other people who must be at the same place in their kitchen at this very moment, doing exactly what I'm doing, hungering as I hunger, wondering as I wonder. We will never get together. There will never be an international convention of us. No kitchen is big enough. But we are bound together. We make up the secret society of the Fellowship of the Fridge. Somehow muddling through and getting by. And not really as alone as we often think we are, after all."

Robert Fulghum

On yet another night when my mind is refusing to let me sleep, I wonder who else is out there.
Chris

"If educators invested a fraction of the energy they now spend on trying to transmit information in trying to stimulate the students' enjoyment of learning, we could achieve much better results."

Csikszentmihalyi

It's important that we all understand that the chief impediments to learning are not cognitive; it's not that any of our students can't learn; it's that many of them don't want to. One of our major challenges is to switch on what is currently switching off so many of our young people.

All ideas welcome.
Chris

What is it that is driving this uncompromising and relentlessly critical approach to standards, safeguarding and provision by the DCSF and OFSTED...

Do we really believe that headteachers, teachers and schools will only do their job properly if they are constantly criticised, tightly directed and carefully monitored. Do we really believe that a significant and increasing minority of headteachers, teachers and schools are performing so poorly that they need to be identified and removed from their roles. Do we really believe that headteachers, teachers and schools are generally well intentioned and professional in their work, but that they need to have continuous, unequivocal external guidance about what they are doing.

What we all need is intelligent accountability. Accountability that...

1. preserves, enhances and develops trust.
2. develops ownership and involves us in the process.
   
3. supports professional responsibility and initiative.
4. encourages deep, worthwhile responses rather than shallow surface window dressing.
5. recognises and compensates for the severe limitations of our ability to capture educational quality in simplistic performance indicators.
6. provides effective feedback that promotes insight into performance.
7. supports good decision making about what we should celebrate and what we should change.
   

Let me know what you think.
Chris

If only...

If colleagues live with criticism They will learn to condemn. If colleagues live with hostility They will learn to fight. If colleagues live with ridicule They will learn to be shy. If colleagues live with jealousy They will learn to feel guilty. But if colleagues live with tolerance They will learn to be patient. If colleagues live with encouragement They will learn self-confidence. If colleagues live with praise They will learn to appreciate. If colleagues live with fairness They will learn justice. If colleagues live with approval They will learn to like themselves. If colleagues live with security They will learn to have faith. If colleagues lives with acceptance and friendship They will learn to find love in the world. Chris