What a week!

It has been another of those weeks that proves to me that success is NOT plan driven, it is NOT the product of strategic thinking or planning or the product of focus groups. It is NOT about strategies, inspections, targets, meetings, command and control, power, bureaucracy, glossy publications and paper mountains. Success is NEEDS driven, it is messy, unpredictable, about living on the edge, evolutionary, trivial, creative, experimental and the product of trial and error. It is about brilliant colleagues, powerful relationships, dynamic partnerships, no-blame, trust, taking risks, empowerment, intelligent accountability and action.

It's been one of those roller-coaster ride weeks where you are one minute on a real high... with brilliant school visits and stimulating breakfasts... and the next hit by despair with yet another school going into Special Measures after an OfSTED inspection. Perhaps my problem is that I just take it all too seriously.... but failure is hard to come to terms with since it impacts so powerfully on some of our most vulnerable young people, their families and some tremendously hard working colleagues.

However, let's try to look at this as a learning opportunity and recognise that as a learning organisation working right at the edge we must learn from our bizarre failures. We must continue to look for innovative and creative solutions to the hardest problems we face and those seemingly intractable issues around our hardest to reach young people in the hardest to reach families and communities. I know that we can resolve these issues and learn from our best practice and from practice elsewhere... I suppose the thing is to simply get on and do it.

Why not let me know what you have learned about how we tackle the really hard things, because we must continue to think local, network, share, engage, involve and connect.
Share your magic and keep the faith.
Chris