“When Rob first came in to work with us, the team was thinking like a teaching team rather than a leadership team. Now, they have a deep understanding of how to function together for the benefit of the whole school, how to prioritise and how to connect with one another.
People have become more curious. Rather than coming from a fixed, defensive position and have changed their outlook/mindset. Our leadership team is more unified and we have deep clarity around purpose.”
Why start with strengths?
I believe that when the culture’s right, it’s easier to implement strategy, and having worked with Rob previously when I was DP at Arrowtown, I knew that his work influences culture.
I already knew that when you have skilled leaders who know how to adapt to different people’s styles and work collaboratively it makes it easier to handle and manage change.
When Rob first came in to work with us, the team was thinking like a teaching team rather than a leadership team. Now, they have a deep understanding of how to function together for the benefit of the whole school, how to prioritise and how to connect with one another.
People have become more curious. Rather than coming from a fixed, defensive position and having changed their outlook/mindset; our leadership team is more unified and we have deep clarity around purpose.
As we progressed through the programme, people said they felt a change in respect of being able to share openly without fear of being judged, and being able to contribute to decision making.
The benefit of building out your toolkit
Upskilling is another good reason to work with Rob. We all had a particular bag of skills, myself included, which we were able to enhance; we worked on having tricky conversations, how to work with a coaching approach and we got a bunch of definitive skills that we use regularly.
He also left some artefacts and as a result, a bit of a playbook which outlines the way we agreed to operate and function. It helped us define the ‘how, what and why we do these things’, the approach/mindset we want to take, and we can refer to this at those times when we need to think about how we engage and ways to seek understanding between each other.
During one particular event I was able to pull out the material and use it as an anchor point. Another time a new team leader came in, almost at the conclusion of the programme, and because we had established norms and touchstones of how to be, we were able to quickly integrate this new leader into the team.
The benefit of fine tuning
It was useful running the programme over an extended timeframe as it built on itself as we progressed. We were able to analyse actions, revisit documents regularly and take a state of the nation look, building on what we had depending on how things had gone.
We needed time to reflect, test and try things, because it’s only when you start using them you’ll know if they will work.
Tim Young, Principal
We already had a clear vision before, but it had been a responsive journey to that point; we now have touchstones, guardrails and a roadmap of where we want to be.
“There’s a level of trust, openness and vulnerability now between the team and they are able to express disagreement with each other and then present out to staff with clarity, and with unity and understanding between them.”
I already knew that when you have skilled leaders who know how to adapt to different people’s styles and work collaboratively it makes it easier to handle and manage change.
