Following the earthquakes that have rocked Christchurch, I set up a facebook page called Three Christchurch Blessings to focus on the things that went well for the day. This is one example of positive psychology. We can use such ideas to create new connections that addict us to the self maintenance of well being.

This positive self leadership absolutely has a flow on effect. Neuroscientists have identified the importance of mirror neurons, where our neurons mirror the behaviour of others, as if we were experiencing the event first hand. Emotions are catchy! Therefore, how we conduct our lives matters not only in our own history, but also in its influence on others.

In his latest book, Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, Dr Martin Seligman describes the importance of PERMA in focusing your own leadership positively. He describes these five endeavours as follows:

P – Positive Emotion – this is about life satisfaction and positive emotion. From the leadership perspective this is linked with the way in which we talk with others, especially the ratio of positive to negative comments.

E – Engagement - this relates to a sense of flow. Leaders can explore their greatest strengths and use these strengths in times of challenge to engage with the ideas and issues.

R – Relationships - focsuing on what works and doing more of it. For example, what do you do to celebrate success in your organisation? Is it active and constructive? How could you do more of that?

M – Meaning – belonging to or serving something bigger than yourself. How does your positive leadership expand beyond ‘you’ and make a difference?

A – Achievement - this is developed best through the determination to succeed, to never give up, rather than academic IQ.

Seligman describes some of these ideas in more depth in the video below. It’s not the most capturing of presentations, but you can’t go past the fact that he knows his stuff and has lots of research to back up his work. Positive leadership is a requirement for survival.

“We need to be psychologically fit, as well as physically fit.”

Little has been said about the future of education in this city. The Land Report maps carefully show schools sites as ‘white’ meaning that their individual futures have yet to be decided. Given the complexity of the situation this is not surprising. While the Ministry of Education has an important role in the future of our city’s schooling we cannot leave it up to them to provide vision and direction. Our principals are key players in the future of our city. Our community must also play a part. Development of a vibrant, future focused education system must be one of the key strategies for Christchurch – driven by local needs.

Our secondary schools have had the opportunity to share sites, to rethink timetabling structures and to explore other ways of curriculum delivery. While this has been stressful it has also helped school communities to think differently and find ways of making education work. As we move to a new phase of Christchurch’s redevelopment let’s maintain and grow some of these new ideas. As schools move back to their own sites, or to newly established sites, there are opportunities to deliver education more flexibly, to share school expertise, to collaborate and to move learning forward.

Good schools know that it is not wise to build a new building on the school grounds without having a whole school improvement plan in place. It’s not good enough to see a gap and put a new classroom on site just because that is where the gap is. It requires strategic vision for the future and a plan to get there. The plan needs to be flexible and acted on. On a bigger scale this is what must happen across the network of schools if we are to thrive in the future. As the picture for a new Christchurch emerges we must ensure we are future focused in terms of educational possibilities.

Last year Core Education ran a two day workshop Building Future Focused Schools, leading up to the ULearn Conference. Derek Wenmoth and I hosted this workshop, calling on expertise from around the country and the experiences of international experts from the UK and Australia. The workshop themes were vision, planning and governance; pedagogy and space; curriculum infrastructure; and buildings and architecture. There were many key ideas developed during these two days. Some of the ones that stand out for me are the importance of investing in capability development; to think collectively and respectfully; and to develop governance committed to the vision. Above all leadership is key.

One example of leadership that has led to educational transformation comes from Knowsley, not far from Liverpool, England. In 2001 the Knowsley borough decided to transform its model of education, following a review of school provision. Called Future Schooling in Knowsley, this initiative looked at the whole system of education, not just at the individual schools. They aimed to create something much more, where schools were at the heart of the community and where the traditional roles that schools had had with students were redefined.

The new initiative saw eleven secondary schools replaced with seven new Centres of Learning. These centres were community hubs not just new buildings. They offered a more personalised curriculum and explored new models of governance, leadership and management. The New Zealand Curriculum and its partner document Te Marautanga o Aotearoa were developed to be future focused, and lend themselves well to a localised approach. We have opportunities for local government and CERA to take a role in developing a localised approach in our city. The Greater Christchurch Schools Network (GCSN) has already been working to support schools make better use of fast speed broadband for learning. How can we grow a strong network of education in Christchurch?

Everyone will have their view on this. At the end of the day it must be about the collective needs of our city. Learning must be at the centre of all decision making and planning and not everyone will have their needs met. Strong leadership will be needed to drive this forward. Principals are under pressure simply trying to keep their schools running, to deal with traumatised students, teachers, parents and whanau. And a number of them are also trying to cope with their personal griefs, their own red stickered homes and their own family circumstances. We must support them and help guide the future of education.

It is time strong leadership in education to consider next steps. Like many, I have an strong investment in Christchurch. I grew up here and intend to stay here. If we picture the city’s education in ten year’s time we can either look back and think:

• We shared sites and made some changes to education during the year of the quakes. Now we have less schools but we are all back to doing the same things in the same ways as we were pre-earthquake. OR:
• The year of the quakes was a catalyst for us to rethink education in Christchurch. We now share expertise across the city and take responsibility for the education of all students across the network. We are looked to as world leaders because we have reduced disparities in education and our students are engaged in learning.

It would be a tragedy if all we thought about was closing schools, downsizing and the doing the same things we have always done in education. What if we explored new possibilities and used these difficult times to create a new and vibrant education for our city?

We have decided to take a proactive stance by providing the opportunity for others to share their ideas and suggest possibilities. If you are interested in transforming Christchurch education fill out our survey Shaking Up Christchurch Education and pass it on to others who you think might be interested.

Deloitte’s Talent Edge 2020 Survey reinforces the importance of developing leaders within our organisation, and recognises retention, succession planning, career pathways and learning opportunities as important talent strategies. It is increasingly difficult with a diverse workforce to meet the needs of all. Yet having a strong organisational learning culture and a commitment to action helps.  The Deloitte survey found that:

“Companies with retention plans in place are moving beyond anxiety and taking action.”

Retention implies that leaders have found out what is important to their workforce and have designed their learning programs and incentives with this in mind. They have listened to needs, asked questions, adjusted their programs and monitored progress. At the same time they have provided challenge to employees; and engaged their minds as well as their hearts.
Where to start? Move beyond anxiety and take action.

Each day for the next week talk to at least one staff member about how their work is going:

The main focus is on interacting with staff on a regular basis and then following up with action. This is a 365 day of the year process rather than an annual survey – start with one week and keep it going. Retention happens when staff are engaged through having their needs met. And for that to happen leaders need to spend more time listening, and inquiring into staff needs.

Let’s be clear, I’m not talking about staff always getting what they want, the staff telling the boss what to do, the boss pandering to every staff whim and not having an opinion. I’m talking about the leader of the organisation or team being ‘present’, walking the work environment and developing a deep understanding of those they serve. I’m talking about the leader following up. I’m talking about the leader as a credible influencer of talent.

With massive unrest, diminishing trust and violent clashes the future picture for some countries is unclear and concerning. Now, more than ever, the way a country is led and how the people perceive that leadership, impacts on us globally. Swedish academic superstar Hans Rosling graphically illustrates changes in global development over the past 200 years, and at the same time models aspects of leadership that we all should take note of. He uses his expert knowledge and translates that transparently in ways that the masses can follow and connect with. He understands the power of technology and uses it to enhance his message. He can see the big picture, as well as break that picture into smaller parts to analyse. He connects and collaborates. Leadership for the future demands this.

Team work is not enough. We must question and challenge our own thinking and that of others. When ‘group think’ occurs there will be no forward momentum – “We’re okay as we are! In fact we’re really good so why change?” While organisational coherence is necessary, so is creative tension and challenge. “Challenge is the crucible for greatness” – Kouzes & Posner.
Over-consultation stymies creation. I’m a fan of involving people to gain deep commitment, and of listening to people’s needs. At the same time I worry that ideas generated from consultation sometimes focus only on the past and present; without building in ways to explore possibilities and to ask “What if…?”. There is the famous quote from Henry Ford “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” If we spend too much time in consultation we slow things down, reduce clarity and conform to the average.
Courage is needed. We live in times where we are pulled back to standards, quality assurance and risk aversiveness. Moving beyond this takes leaders who are strong in their beliefs about learning, have a dream of what could be and can intelligently advocate their position. Courageous leadership is not about the position we hold in the organisation and doesn’t make excuses that those ‘above’ require conformity. “The greater the darkness, the more brightly the candle glows.”
Learning will happen if we get out of the way. Most schools of today are over-structured and over controlled. What would happen if educators stepped back and let students do more for themselves? Allow them to be expert learners and teach the adults – it’s a reciprocal arrangement that acknowledges the expert knowledge of the teacher. It also acknowledges that students can create their own learning when they engage, collaborate and choose.

I was reflecting on this as I watched one of the latest TEDTalks from Sugata Mitra, on The Child-driven Education. His work in putting computers into holes in the walls of buildings in Indian villages has had profound results. His latest work goes well beyond this. He has come to understand that children will learn to do what they want to learn to do. Sugata talks about the way in which the learning happened without intervention from the outside.   When the students asked him “How do we do that?” his answer was ” I don’t know that actually…” and he left them to it. They worked together to move their learning forward.

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education

While I’m not yet convinced of the depth of the learning shown in the TEDTalk what I am sure of is that a new idea was tried and has had amazing results. Sugata Mitra didn’t conform to the tried and true. He had an idea and went with it. If we are aiming for future focussed schools perhaps one of the key understandings is to look outside the current realities and explore the possibilities, generate some creative tension and take a giant leap.

Heifetz, Grashow and  Linsky (2009) describe adaptive leadership as the practice of mobilising people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. I think this is the way to go. Adaptive leadership is needed for the growth of individuals and organisations. Perhaps, to avoid low expectations, future leadership involves:

• looking for those things that should be preserved and having courage to abandon the expendable;
• accepting that conflict is a necessary part of the organisation and can be productive;
• creating a culture of courageous conversations;
• acknowledging the importance of collaboration, networks and global connections; and
• building the capabilities of others to lead in adaptive ways.

This quote from Egon Zehnder (2000) reminds us that future leaders will need to be flexible, future focused and capable of thinking in new ways. “Stability is a liability, not an asset in today’s world. Each new view of the horizon is a glance through a different turn of the kaleidoscope.”

I’m going to leave the survey open for a few more days so take a few minutes to contribute here. And join the conversation about what the biggest challenge for future leaders will be. Do you agree that it is low expectations and if so what do you interpret this to mean?

The greatest lesson Greg learnt was to “share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects (p.150).” This may have seemed more time consuming to start with but in the long run it produced more sustainable results. Too often leaders are focused on doing things rather than creating connections. They become driven by improving the external environment of their organisations without considering the foundational relationships that underpin the organisation’s success.

In their work based in Chicago schools, researchers Bryk and Schneider came to the conclusion that relational trust was foundational for school improvement. They suggested four vital signs for identifying and assessing trust:

• Respect – genuinely talking and listening to each other in ways that acknowledge and accept the views, ideas and beliefs of others.
• Competence – the ability and willingness to fulfill responsibilities and believe others to be competent.
• Personal regard – caring for each other personally and professionally. Going that extra mile.
• Integrity – keeping ones word. Putting the needs of children first, even when tough decisions need to be made.

These points were all exhibited by Greg Mortenson. He did not try to impose his views on those he was working with and he was prepared to do what was needed, at times with great personal sacrifice. The building of trust allowed him to work in areas that few could access and to provide education to many.

Future leadership is very much about collaboration, building professional learning networks and growing capabilities in others. It builds on trust and integrity and comes from the heart as well as the head. Future leadership requires leaders who listen and who constantly reflect on their own behaviour.

• Haptics -the ability to experience the sense of touch and apply pressure through a simulated environment. Will this help experts share their knowledge and skills (eg surgeons) in all countries without leaving home?
• Surface Computing – smart surfaces with no keyboard mouse. So do we need to learn to handwrite beyond a basic level? Is it relevant in this day and age? How much longer will we need keyboard skills?
• Gesture controlled computing – a swish of the hand to make yourself understood. How could we use this to communicate in new ways? Does this mean that communication will be more in the head and the gesture than in the vocal chords? Implications?

The videos below explore cutting edge technologies. They pose many challenges to the way we think, and open up many new possibilities. I’m not suggesting all these are positive. But we do need to be watching the trends and keeping up to date if we are to develop our preferred futures.

As you watch the videos you might like to consider some of these questions:

• How could these technologies change the ways we learn?
• As a leader, how will I adapt and help others adapt? What will I keep doing? Stop doing? Start doing?
• How will I enable these new technologies to distribute leadership and to collaborate globally in new ways?

These are just some of the tensions that face leadership for the future. Take a look…and ponder…

Visteon Haptic and Touch Screen

An omnidirectional projector being developed by Microsoft

And another example: The g-speak Spatial Operating Environment inspired by Tom Cruise’s The Minority report film

In an online environment our integrity can be compromised if we do not think carefully about what we make public. In Joe McCarthy’s blogpost on The Dark Side of Digital Backchannels in Shared Physical Spaces there are examples of backchannel behaviour that has had dramatic effects on people’s lives.

Our actions are amplified because so many people have access to our thoughts and behaviours. This amplification can help our message reach a wider group of followers. It can also amplify decisions that, in retrospect, we wish we had not made. Online integrity is connected to our moral beliefs yet the day to day living of these beliefs can easily be eroded by quick, irreversible online decisions. The establishment of online behaviours, etiquette and cultural norms can be developed by:

• parents understanding and modelling sound online behaviours so that their children can follow by example;
• schools recognising that social networking is here to stay and that we will get feedback from students through backchannels whether we like it or not. You can bury your head in the sand and ban social media or use it as a way to deepen online integrity and build student awareness and skills;
• constantly checking your own personal behaviours to see if your offline and online behaviours are congruent – and ethically sound; and
• not responding unethically in response to inappropriate online behaviour.

Let’s face it. None of us are perfect. Yet if we have well defined values and beliefs we may be less likely to cause offense or put ourselves in situations where we wish we could turn back time, erase 140 characters, remove a photo before a job interview or get back our privacy.

Some useful sites to visit:

• Safety Tips
• Cartoon on Good Samaritanism

This comment led to me facilitating two World Cafe events at the learning@school conference. The people who came to these sessions were ones who had been listening to the hype of 21st century learning, teaching and leading for some time and who wanted to challenge themselves and others to move forward. The World Cafe format allowed time to slow down, engage in dialogue and leave with some personal and professional ideas for the future.

Some of the overheard discussions during these sessions included:

• Where is the expectation that things will change?
• Just because we can’t do it doesn’t mean we should stop others from doing it.
• I’m looking forward to being made redundant as a teacher.
• If you believe in it you prioritize time.
• I don’t think it’s written anywhere “Thou must do it alone.”
• Schools should be laboratories for life.

Many of the comments focused around the need for changes in teacher practice and increasing the role of students in their own learning. If we really want to transform education we need to start with teacher change, otherwise students will not have a greater say. For teacher practcie to transform across an organisation school leaders must be committed to the transformation and lead by example.

One World Cafe participant jotted his thoughts clearly on a post-it, as shown below. I liked the quirky idea of a post-it on an iphone and also the call to personal action. I don’t think it is suggesting we will get change by riding over top of people. We know we need to build trust and gain commitment. We also know we can’t go at the pace of the slowest.  The time for educational leaders to step up is now. We need to move beyond the rhetoric and start taking action. We could even involve students in the plan…