Goal Setting!

We all know that setting goals and personal targets has been a vital tool for everyone in Education Leeds. It has given us our long-term vision as well as helping with our short-term motivation...

By setting clearly defined goals and targets we have been able to measure and constantly and consistently celebrate our achievements and our successes and focus on the areas where we are not achieving great outcomes. I know people talk about consistency but so much of what we are doing across Leeds is world class, outstanding and extra-ordinary; whatever anyone says we have achieved great things together. I know that many organisations I work with struggle with that long pointless grind as they move towards the barely adequate but our culture of success and our search for the exceptional means that we have seen some simply breathtaking progress and some remarkable achievements beacuse colleagues feel trusted, empowered, energised and release their magic simply because they passionately believe in what they are doing. By setting ourselves goals, which we have worked towards with real discipline, rigour and focus, we have raised colleagues self-esteem and self-confidence, and helped colleagues recognise their ability, potential and confidence. The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve; what you want to do with your wild and precious life now, tomorrow or 10 years into the future.

Chris

When we are dealing with the challenges we currently face and when the going gets tough we need to stay positive and stay focused on the things that matter, in our lives, our work, and in our relationships...

We all face a difficult, changing and potentially chaotic future where individuals, families, children, organizations, and businesses all face accelerating change, massive challenges and increasing problems. We must all stay positive and develop the ability to see opportunities as we cope with these challenges. We must develop the ability to bounce back from difficulties and setbacks and to get back up when we are knocked down and to continue to produce awesome results, even in the most difficult circumstances. We must learn to cope successfully with failure, now, and in the future. Learning to deal creatively with failure is a key to our success.

It is important that we understand that there is a great difference between failing to achieve a result and the conclusion you draw from that outcome. Those who stay down make a judgment that they have failed, not just their attempt. Moreover, they often generalize from their “failures” to illogical conclusions such as, “I am a loser,” and “I will probably always fail. Therefore, they assume, there is no point in getting up. So they quit, give up, seek a comfortable niche, lose themselves in alcohol, other drugs, shopping, or overwork, where they can avoid facing what they consider to be failure.

However, old wisdom says that the sooner we make our first 5000 mistakes, the sooner we will learn how to do anything really well. New wisdom talks about trying many things, failing fast and often, and learning lots and quickly. We must take small risks, make many small mistakes and learn each time. Try, try, try again. That is how we learn, in art or school or business—and most importantly in life.

In art, work, love, and life, there is no failure, just feedback!

Chris

As we all face the 'perfect storm' we need to stay positive and remember that those of us who work hard and play hard and always give our best will always be in demand...

Malcolm Gladwell is a writer with 'The New Yorker' and is one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People. He is the author of three bestsellers: 'The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference', 'Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking' and 'Outliers: The Story of Success'. In this brilliant book, Malcolm Gladwell argues that it is practice that makes perfect. Ability, according to Gladwell, is just one factor in success. Work ethic, luck, a strong support base and even being born in the right year play a far larger role. Gladwell argues that there is no such thing as a “self-made man”. Instead, the years spent intensively focused on their area of expertise place the world’s most successful people above their peers. Gladwell argues that luck, persistence, determination and hard work are the keys to success. So for us mere mortals the key to success and the answer to building brilliant is practice, practice, practice.
Chris

"All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pit at school. These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm biscuits and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had biscuits and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together."

Robert Fulghum.

Only seven weeks before the Summer holidays start, and then only another fourteen working weeks before Christmas with a final twelve school weeks before the contract comes to an end and Education Leeds is consigned to the history books...

So we only have thirty three working school weeks to go before a new dawn where a new children's services arrangement slides seamlessly into place and carries on the work we have been doing for the last ten years. Over the next thirty three weeks we must continue to work to make a real difference and to ensure that our legacy is much more than brilliant buildings, improved results and better outcomes. Our real legacy must be a cultural one; where our values and beliefs continue to shape provision and change lives; where our leadership continues to empower, engage and encourage colleagues to give their best; and where our systems and processes connect powerfully with best practice to release the magic.
Keep the faith!
Chris

There are some very hard decisions ahead for all of us with a very significant budget challenge on top of the situation we are currently facing....

Senior Government officials are talking about ‘savage and horrendous cuts’ to all our budgets to balance the budget deficit we currently face. We clearly need to work smarter, better, more closely and be more efficient and effective in everything we do. We all know that public services can and must deliver excellent, outstanding and brilliant services to the children, young people, families, citizens and communities we all serve. We need to think differently, think creatively and imaginatively and connect and use all our resources better. We need to look at how we can develop trust and empower communities and think family. We need to encourage and support more social enterprise, more use of the third sector, more use of public companies and more focus on shared responsibilities and community engagement and volunteering.

We must all ask ourselves what a modern highly effective and highly efficient local authority looks like… what it must do?... what it should do?... and what it can do?
Chris