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The plane just won’t crash

The plane just won’t crash

Last week, I had the chance to share the stage with the incredible Dan Gregory (of “The Gruen Transfer” fame) at the Future Of Leadership Conferences in Brisbane and Sydney.

Dan is one of those almost intimidatingly clever people who says it like it is (or even more bluntly than it really is!) and he told two stories about designing for success that I thought were pertinent to the many schools out there tackling school reviews and 2018 strategic planning right now.

Firstly, Dan spoke to the relationship we have with our alarm clocks and how many of us need to set multiple alarms in the morning for we know that our own discipline and willpower are insufficient to get up and run/walk on a cold morning. Dan says this isn’t a willpower problem, but a design problem. Those who merely put their alarm clock on the other side of the room are far more likely to get up, due to needing to get up and turn it off.

Then Dan talked to a US Air Force plane that encountered a severely damaged wing midflight. After returning safely to ground, the pilot reported that his role in the miraculous outcome felt quite minimal. He said “The plane simply refused to crash”. You see, the plane designers had thought about this type of unexpected problem and had prepared the rest of the plane to cope with it.

As you set about assigning targets and implementing programs for 2018, you’ll need to do better than goal setting, scheduling and training to succeed. You need to imagine failure and what could go wrong in the uniquely human system that is a school.

Could coaching, dialogue, mentoring and modeling be the missing pieces in your journey and also work as the features that will mean a successful design above a doomed intention?

 

Free WEBINAR – 21st Century Approaches to Home-School Communication

21st-Century-Approaches-to-Home-School-Communication

Schools all around Australia are grappling with the best ways to have their relationship with Parents look a lot more like a partnership than a conflict.Schools all around Australia are grappling with the best ways to have their relationship with Parents look a lot more like a partnership than a conflict.It certainly isn’t for lack of effort that it sometimes seems that schools and parents just aren’t on the same page any more. We know you’ve heard the cliche before, but perhaps this really is a case for ‘working smarter and not harder’ for once.If we took a moment – yep, like spending one hour on a webinar! – to learn about the best ways, the best channels and the best messages to send parents then we might just start to feel like we’re getting a greater return for investment on all the time and effort we’re putting into parental communication.

It’s not about doing more. It’s about speaking to:

  • the new spaces that today’s parents are active in.
  • using means that they engage with.
  • and speaking with conviction to what really matters.
This webinar is all about how you can do just that through a series of research and field proven tips, tricks and strategies that you can deploy immediately in your school.

An entertaining and engaging online event presented by Adam Voigt we’re bringing the expertise of Real Schools and SchoolStream together for this one. Our mission – to combine forces in building powerful home-school connections across Australia.

Your school really can’t afford not to be a part of this!