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

I was supposed to be in Stockholm today...

I was due to be speaking at The Stockholm Summit 'Leaders in School Education' 2010 about our work and what we have achieved here in Leeds but the ash cloud cometh again and I wasn't able to get there. It's a shame because the speakers also included Andy Hargreaves, Brian Annan, John Mann and David Hopkins who are all inspirational. Still I suppose as always it is better to be safe than sorry!
Chris

Be your brilliant best!

How often do you have coaching conversations that help and encourage colleagues to improve their performance and how many of these conversations really made a difference?

Leaders need to coach and encourage their colleagues. Being a great coach challenges us to engage in a different kind of conversation; ones that deal with passion, performance, aspiration, values, successes and failures – topics that are often uncomfortable, difficult and emotionally charged. Great coaching means that we must engage in these tricky and difficult conversations.

We must ask each other the questions that need to be asked:

• How do you think you are performing?
• Are you passionate about what you are doing?
• What would you do if you could choose to do anything?
• Are you doing your very best work?,
• What stopping you being outstanding?

These are dangerous questions because they raise issues that are uncomfortable for even the most experienced leaders. However, if we want to release the magic and be our brilliant best we need to all develop the habit of having these important conversations every day.
Chris

Tell it like it is!

Whether we like it or not, your colleagues know what you think of them and we all know that children, young people, colleagues and friends live up to, or down to, our expectations of them. ...

When we think of our colleagues as unique, talented, creative and developing, they know and as a result will like working with us. They will like how they feel about themselves. They will want to work with us, and will go beyond the call of duty for us. They will allow us to make mistakes, get things wrong and be human because we have gained their trust, their loyalty and their commitment – rare commodities in today's dog eat dog world. That is the real strength of Education Leeds; the coaching culture we have developed; a culture that is constantly, relentlessly and uncompromisingly asking us to stretch and develop to be our brilliant best.

So if we want to coach colleagues for brilliant performance, we must begin by thinking the best of them. Only then can we raise and stretch their awareness of their uniqueness, their strength, and their potential. By being appreciative, supportive and caring we help our colleagues overcome the limitations they have imposed upon themselves, and significantly develop the possibilities and opportunities available to them. Great coaches leaves a legacy of people who know their strengths, know their abilities and, as a result, reach beyond what they believed was possible. Great coaching is a relationship that sees colleagues at their very best; challenges them to examine their own gifts, talents and aspirations and, ultimately, holds them accountable to become their brilliant best.
Chris

Why do Finland's children score some of the highest average results in the whole of the developed world...

The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind. The children are not streamed or setted but are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.

Interestingly Finnish children spend the fewest number of hours in the classroom in the developed world. This reflects another important theme of Finnish education. All through schools are common in Finland where primary and secondary schooling is combined, so the pupils don't have to change schools and so avoid the potentially disruptive transition from primary school to secondary school.

Children in Finland only start main school at age seven. The idea is that before then they learn best when they're playing and by the time they finally get to school they are keen to start learning. Finnish parents and carers play an important part in achieving these impressive results. There is a culture of reading at home and families have regular contact with their children's teachers. The educational system's success in Finland also seems to be part cultural. Finland also has low levels of immigration. So when pupils start school the majority have Finnish as their native language, eliminating an obstacle that other societies often face.

The system's success is built on the keep it simple principle. Teaching is a prestigious career in Finland and teachers are highly valued and teaching standards are high. There is an emphasis on trust and workforce development in relaxed schools, free from political prescription. This combination, they believe, means that no child is left behind.

Chris

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt

As we face yet another year here in Leeds, and sadly our last together as Education Leeds, we need to celebrate our incredible achievements with education, learning and schools, nurture and support the brilliant initiatives we are involved in and marvel at the people we have become...

These things are all the consequences of the journeys we have been on as individuals over the last however many years. Personally, I have been doing this for over 36 years and if we collect together the talent, the wisdom, the experience, the knowledge and understanding and the insight we have across Leeds what can't we achieve together... no-one can tell me that we can't build world class learning here in Leeds and continue to create brilliant learners, brilliant learning places and brilliant learning communities.

Of course I know that we are travelling through difficult and troubled times and that many of us have struggled over the years against command and control, missives from DCSF, OFSTEDs limiting judgements and frameworks, other national frameworks and potential straight-jackets which have in many ways limited and constrained learning rather than liberating and enabling it. This is an important time for those of us who are passionate about learning and how we create brilliant learners, brilliant learning places and brilliant learning organisations. As we wait for the 'perfect storm' we simply can't continue to tinker, to fiddle, to refine and to adjust the controls every five minutes... the current systems simply aren't fit for purpose!

The fundamental challenge is that the world is becoming increasingly complex, increasingly diverse and how we connect and communicate in this new conceptual age is critical to our success as individuals, as communities, as a city and as a country. Everything is changing and we had better wake up, stop looking backwards and start looking forwards. Looking forwards to a digital world, a world driven by abundance, automation, technology and global skills. We must understand that intelligence is everywhere... it is rich and diverse, it is dynamic and it is unique to each and everyone of us and not restricted to a priviledged and special few. As Dirk would say everyone is bright and everyone has a talent... it's the educators job to find it and to nurture and grow it.

We have missed the point with our never-ending focus and attention on testing and data and accountability and we must refocus our collective energies on creating a more personal, a more vivid, a more engaging and more stimulating offer for ALL our children, our young people, our families and our communities. If we are going to succeed in this challenge we must develop three things in our children, our families and our communities... creativity, capability and confidence. We must re-imagine our learning places and build.. brilliant leadership, brilliant teaching and intelligent assessment and accountability systems. We must work together to invent pathways to learning, pathways to excellence, pathways to success.

We must transform our provision... buidling on the outstanding practice we have here in Leeds and getting rid of the irrelevant, the redundant and the obsolete which clutters our lives. We must radically change the way we encourage, coach, nurture and support our children and young people, our families and our communities to become brilliant learners. This is fundamentally a partnership enterprise, a community enterprise, a cultural enterprise, an economic enterprise and above all it's a passionate enterprise.

And by the way anyone can join in!

Chris

'When the going gets tough, the tough get going.'

This year will be about attitude, determination and persistence. If you want to be successful in any aspect of your life you need great support, a lot of luck and to work hard, be determined and be persistent. There will always be people who will tell you that things can't be any different, that you are wrong to search for better things and that what you are doing is impossible to achieve.

Persistence is the powerful force that keeps pushing you on when that little voice in your head is telling you to quit. Persistence is an intense desire to succeed. You either have it or you don’t but the good news is that persistence is a state of mind and you can develop persistence. Now is the time to be more persistent than ever. Now is the time for us all to step up. Persistence will reward us all for our efforts when we achieve our goals.
Chris

"Another year is fast approaching. Go be that starving artist you’re afraid to be. Open up that journal and get poetic finally. Volunteer. Suck it up and travel. You were not born here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off. The world has much more to offer than what’s on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays. Take pictures. Scare people. Shake up the scene.
Be the change you want to see in the world."
Jason Mraz

More Success for Schools in Leeds

Seven Leeds schools have been recognised as being among the highest achievers in the country...

Woodkirk High Specialist Science School; St Mary's School, Menston; Otley Prince Henry's Grammar School Specialist Language College; Horsforth School ; Guiseley School Technology College; Garforth Community College and Abbey Grange CE High School feature on a list of high-attaining schools published by the Specialist Schools and Academic Trust after all hit targets of 60 per cent or more students achieving five or more A*-C GCSEs including English and mathematics; 53.7 per cent or more with two or more A* -C GCSEs in science subjects and 31.6 per cent or more with at least one A*-C GCSEs in modern foreign languages.
BRILLIANT NEWS
Chris

Mike Chitty sent me this post...

"Chris, If you think making change is hard you should try making progress. Change is inevitable. Progress is not."


I agree with Mike and the interesting thing is that wherever I have worked in local government, in Wolverhampton, North Yorkshire, York and now here in Leeds, we have made great progress. I believe that the real keys to success lie in developing great leadership everywhere across the organisation, valuing, empowering and trusting talented people and building strong and effective partnerships with those who share your passion and commitment. Alongside this wherever I have worked we have built strong performance management systems to ensure that outcomes drive the business and strong resource management systems so that every thing we have at our disposal is used to make a difference where it matters... in our business this means getting better outcomes for children and young people... whatever it takes!
Chris

A "perfect storm" is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of challenges come together to create something simply extra-ordinary...

You could argue that this is what happened nine years ago to create Education Leeds and today's challenges threaten to overwhelm what we have achieved together over the last nine years with huge budget cuts looming, capital funding disappearing and an increasing difficulty attracting and retaining talented colleagues. However if you look at it more creatively these challenges are really opportunities for talented colleagues with the future of public services hingeing on brilliant leadership, social enterprise, powerful communities, responsibilities alongside rights and civic companies enabling local authorities to champion and commission rather than provide services.
Chris

I have been managing change for the last twenty five years and over those years these are the biggest mistakes I've made in managing change -- and the lessons I've learned on the way...

Mistake Number 1 : I didn't understand the critical importance of people.

Lesson learnt: Organizations don't change. People do -- or they don't.

Mistake Number 2: I didn't appreciate that people throughout any organisation have different reactions to change

Lesson learnt: Some people are more "ready for change" We need encourage the early adaptors and champions.

Mistake Number 3: I treated transformational change as an event, rather than a mental, physical and emotional process.

Lesson learnt: Large-scale organizational change usually triggers emotional reactions -- denial, negativity, choice, tentative acceptance, commitment.

Mistake Number 4: I wasn't totally honest with colleagues.

Lesson learnt: Communicate openly and honestly.

Mistake Number 5: I didn't carefully "set the context" for change.

Lesson learnt: Colleagues need to know the vision, goals, and strategy for any new arrangements.

Mistake Number 6: I tried to manage transformational change with the same strategies used for incremental change.

Lesson learnt: Continuous improvement is linear, predictable, logical, and based on a progressive acceleration of past performance. Transformational change is none of these things.

Mistake Number 7: I forget to negotiate the new "agreement" between the boss and his colleagues.

Lesson learnt: A new relationship needs to develop, based on mutual trust and respect.

Mistake Number 8: I used to believe that simple communication engages colleagues.

Lesson learnt: We must learn the importance of behaviour-based communication as a requirement for leading change.

Mistake Number 9: I underestimated the potential of my colleagues.

Lesson learnt: Trust in the innate intelligence, capability, and creativity of your colleagues and people will simply amaze you.

These lessons have helped me build something extra-ordinary at Education Leeds; a unique, award winning company that has transformed education and learning.

Chris

We are entering another difficult period in the story of Education Leeds, where we need to carefully manage another complex and difficult change...

I have been talking to my colleague Dirk Gilleard about how we do it and we agreed that these are the approaches we should use:

1. We need to educate and work with all the colleagues involved.
2. We need to use a "systems" approach to ensure that all aspects are considered when planning and implementing the necessary changes.
3. We need to use a team approach that involves as many stakeholders and partners as possible in the change process.
4. We need to share power to encourage the implementation of the change.
5. We need to make plans, but "hold our plans loosely." Develop plans, but know that they will have to be adapted to change as opportunities arise and needs change.
6. We need to realize that there is a tension between establishing readiness for change and the need to get people implementing new approaches quickly.
7. We need to provide considerable amounts of training and staff development for everyone involved.
8. We need to choose innovative practices that are research-based and "organisation friendly."
9. We need to recognize that change happens through people; understanding colleagues resistance to change and working with it to build consensus and engagement.
10. We need to be prepared for "implementation dip"; things often get worse temporarily before improvement begins to appear.
11. We need to help colleagues develop an "intellectual understanding" of the change process we are engaged in.
12. We need to seek out "enablers" and "champions" who are interested in and supportive of the substantial changes we are making.
13. We need to take the long view; realizing that change takes time and should not be forced to occur too quickly.

I hope this helps.

Chris

“And the pleasure of discovery differs from
other pleasures in this [...] Other desires perish
in their gratification, but the desire of knowledge
never: the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor
the ear filled with hearing. Other desires
become the occasion of pain through dearth of
the material to gratify them, but not the desire
of knowledge: the sum of things to be known is
inexhaustible, and however long we read we
shall never come to the end of our story-book.”

A.E. Housman, 1892