#EdInfluence
In his inimitable style, Nick unearths the secrets of good leadership from his guests.
Trusted by thousands of education providers across the country, Browne Jacobson is an award winning national law firm helping clients and partner organisations shape and influence education policy.
#EdInfluence
S04 - E09 Series 4 retrospective with Emma Hughes and Iain Blatherwick
What makes truly exceptional educational leaders? In this final episode of Series 4 of #EdInfluence, host Nick MacKenzie is joined by colleagues and fellow executive coaches Emma Hughes and Ian Blatherwick. Together they reflect on the leadership insights, learnings and their favourite highlights from the conversations with inspiring leaders published this year.
The trio explore the transformative power of being influenced rather than always influencing others, captured beautifully in the phrase "cherish the people who change your mind." They discuss how this openness to having thier perspective shifted stands in stark contrast to traditional leadership models that emphasise unwavering certainty.
Through stories shared by guests like Caroline, Hugh, and Sarah, they examine how diversity of thought becomes the bedrock of effective leadership.
Whether you're an aspiring or experienced leader, this reflective conversation offers rich insights that challenge conventional thinking and inspire a more human, connected approach to leadership.
Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn.
Welcome to the latest episode of Ed Influence. I'm Nick MacKenzie from Browne Jacobson and today I'm delighted to be joined by my colleagues Emma Hughes.
Emma Hughes:Hi
Nick MacKenzie:and Iain Bletherwick.
Iain Blatherwick:Hi
Nick MacKenzie:As this is the last in the series of Ed Influence, we're taking a slightly different approach to this episode. So we've had lots of great discussions with guests over the series, and today, Emma, Iain and me are going to be pulling out a few themes that struck us as we were going through the series and engaging with it. So, Iain, I think you were going to kick us off. What did you want to talk about?
Iain Blatherwick:Yeah, thanks, Nick, what I was going to lead with. There was a session that you had with Caroline and Hugh. There was a comment made about cherish the people who change your mind, which just stuck with me. And it also linked, both Caroline and Hugh and also David, in his episode, all told stories where an intervention or an interaction with someone in very different circumstances stopped them in their tracks and they had lots of different reflections on it. One was in one of those cases. The person wouldn't have even realised that you know what they said would have such a profound impact on their life. In David's case, it was his first interview when he was debating whether to go to university or to join the bank, and he asked the person that was interviewing at the end of him you know, what do you think I should do? And he said you know well, if you come and join the bank, you'll get lots of experiences that you wouldn't otherwise. And I think in each of these occasions it made me think A, how pivotal it was for those people. But B, how do you know you're always giving the right comments in those circumstances as well? You know, maybe David's parents weren't that pleased about that intervention if they had different aspirations. So I went from the comment to thinking, when you are in the position of leadership the impact of the comments you can make and making sure they're thought through. I certainly remember there are times when people have come back to me and said I remember when you said this, and I have to confess I don't always recall it you realise that the things that you say will resonate more to your audience, and it might have just been a comment you had made alongside lots of other comments during the course of the day. So that's the power of the simple comment.
Iain Blatherwick:But coming back to the opening point, cherish the people who change your mind. It's interesting, isn't it, when, in a leadership position, you need to have people around you who are part of the team and who can rely on. But you do need that diversity of thought there as well. You do need people who and I guess we can see this playing out in politics in certain parts of the world, can't we as well? But you do need people who are going to be able to challenge. You do need people who are going to be able to influence. And actually, when I think of the coaching I do, a lot of the talk I do is asking people to look at influence. Who influences meetings? Who influences conversations? How do you influence? How do you make sure that you can change a direction and therefore it comes back to me. This this is just stayed with me cherish the people who change your mind and, reflecting back on some people who you've only had a small interaction with but who've changed the direction, or people that you worked very closely with and you respect and you have a proper debate with, and then you make your decision, and that was very apparent in the relationship between Caroline and Hugh.
Iain Blatherwick:It's fascinating listening to that episode. They are very different. I think you are. You asked them about their alignment and they thought they were very aligned and then by the end of it I think they realised that maybe they weren't.
Iain Blatherwick:But actually that was the beauty of the relationship that they had and they each bring very differing aspects to it. There's - I think at one point Caroline says we decided to trust each other, or one of them says we decided to trust each other, which again I thought was an interesting comment. But actually what was very clear was more the amount of respect that they had for each other, the space they give to each other to explore their own views, but then also a massive amount of sense of humor and love for each other, I think in terms of the tolerance of when they would slightly wind each other up. So you know, clearly within that relationship there are two people who can change each other's minds. So what brought it back was that comment was actually, I think that is at the heart of the relationship that those two have. So that was one thing that stuck out for me.
Nick MacKenzie:I was so glad to be able to set that conversation up Iain because I really wanted to explore with people that I knew work closely, that that dynamic, because often when you hear about success stories and organisations, you can it can focus on the leader, but just looking at the, the team around the leader, just struck me as something quite interesting to explore. Did you have any experience when you were, because you were managing partner Browne Jacobson for over a decade. Did you have any any experience of that?
Iain Blatherwick:well, I I think I've probably got that. There's that danger, when you're a leader, of always wanting to be in a hurry to do things and therefore resenting people intervening or suggesting you might want to do something different because you have set off on a course and sometimes you don't feel that you want distracting from that course. And I think the longer I was in the role, the more importance I placed on making sure we got things right rather than, you know, worrying about being deep. Sometimes you do just have to get on with things. The time, the urgency, means that you need to, but later on, and particularly in a partnership, you have to take people with you and therefore, listening to other points of view, listening to other thoughts, is going to be leading you to a better decision in the end. So I guess it was a moment of reflection for me.
Iain Blatherwick:There is also that pressure when you're a new leader of thinking you have to have the answers to everything and therefore, if someone was suggesting maybe you should do something different, that might undermine some of your confidence. So there's a bit of a journey that I certainly went on there, from you know, thinking that you needed to have the answer to everything to realising it was much more powerful to make sure you come to the best decision and that you were taking a decision that that would take people with you. So, yeah, there's there's a, there's a piece there about making sure you have the patience to take people's views on board and and you know to know who you need to test things with and to know the people that you need to listen to to make sure that the course that you're setting on is right
Nick MacKenzie:ir Chris Husbands, one of the episodes. He tells a story and that really stuck with me. On a similar theme, he talks about a story when he was teaching history early on in his career and he says he was teaching a bottom set and he couldn't remember why, but they were late. Picture doing a picture in the label of a medieval monastery. And this kid sticks up his hands and says, sir, what do they do for bog paper? And he's there thinking I've got this, I've got this, I've read the history books I know so well mark, they use leaves.
Nick MacKenzie:And the next bit I think was the real punchline of the story, because the kid puts his hand back up and he goes what do they do in winter? Then, holly, and the thing Chris took out of that story was just, it was a really. And he says he goes back to it quite a lot and it is that just people see the world differently. And it was a really. And he says he goes back to it quite a lot and it is that just people see the world differently. And it was a really good reminder for him about he saw the world and he had it brought to. But this different perspective, um, from that practical point of view. Um was just a fascinating learning from him, to just remember
Iain Blatherwick:yeah, well, that's.
Iain Blatherwick:That's also the key for the, the relationship that Caroline and Hugh really have. I had to listen to theirs twice because the first time I was I take this in spirits intended was slightly confused to work out how the two of them got on there because they viewed the world so differently. On the second, listen through that amount of respect, the amount of humour, right through to you know Caroline describing how she had got a vision of everything that needed doing because she'd written it down on a single piece of paper and Hugh saying yeah, but it didn't. It didn't cover this and it didn't cover that. And they're still arguing, no, everything was, was down there.
Iain Blatherwick:I think it was just a, um, you know, a brilliant, I don't. Again, I hope they take this in spirit as intended. I don't think either of them in it were displaying what you would regard as natural leadership or not natural traditional leadership aspects that you'd read about in the book. But the power of what they brought to each other and the clarity of vision and purpose they got from that collaboration is incredibly powerful and brings to me, you know, the, the leadership attributes I suspect the three of us value a lot more than any of those books would say, and you know that power of collaboration, yeah, fantastic.
Nick MacKenzie:I think that's a really interesting point. Iain, Emma, was there something either on that or something else that you wanted to talk about?
Emma Hughes:There's something that's showing up for me as I'm listening to you both, and it's taking me back to when we were training as coaches, and one of the things that we're trained to not do is, um to try and silence your thoughts as much as possible so that when you're going into um a session with a client, that you need to be really truly listening to everything that's happening and to not come from a place of knowing that we don't have all the answers and that we know the way forward and that you know the only way that we can truly coach and get the best out of somebody is to just really deeply listen, and I guess that's what's showing up for me listening to you both is this cherish the voices that challenge you, that change your mind, that push you forward. You're less likely to do that if you're always coming from a place of knowing um. So I think, yeah, that's what's really showing up for me in some of that. Um definitely resonates with.
Emma Hughes:Some of the the stories that were shared on your episodes there, Nick just superficially, I think the story that Sara talks about, Sara Burks, where she talks about sharing radical candor" with a leadership group in Kuala lumpur. You know a very western approach to delivering feedback and leading teams and the the feedback from that group was that it clashed with local norms and it really made Sara go away and give another perspective to that and she just really cherished the challenge and and valuing that diversity and cultural difference. And again, I think if you, just if Sara was just going into that, always thinking well, no, radical candor is absolutely brilliant and this is the way I don't think she would have taken so much reflection and power from that. So, yeah, I think that's what's showing up for me there on that in particular. But Lauren also talks about how, in her work and if we think about the education sector and the collaborations that happen, be the networking and the learning from each other.
Emma Hughes:Um, are we truly listening? Um, Lauren says that actually some of the most digitally mature trusts are the smaller ones, the ones that are more agile. Um, perhaps easier to be more innovative. Um, but just lovely that she's out there seeking and looking for the voices to challenge her. In some ways, I guess um seeking it out rather than just stumbling upon them.
Nick MacKenzie:One of the things that comes up a few times through the series Emma is just the challenge of communicating, and listening is obviously a key part of communicating because you can't begin to communicate effectively if you haven't really listened.
Nick MacKenzie:But that comes up for a lot of people, um, given I suppose I I thought it was really, really interesting. On the communication piece there was a story again it was Chris Husband's where he he talks about he got it was on a training course with some senior exec from one of the big oil companies and I think he recounts a story where he was saying, as a leader, don't worry about communicating to your direct reports or their direct reports, because the communication will be pretty much intact when it gets down to them. You need to get out and below that level and you know, I think the same analogy would be you need to listen to them and see their world point as well so that you can communicate effectively. But that really stuck with me as something quite interesting, because often you can think of communication and organisation as linear, the idea of no, as a leader, break that cycle and go down a few levels to make sure that it's not like Chinese whispers or getting lost in translation.
Iain Blatherwick:One of the things that fascinated me from the session with Cathie I mean, this goes beyond listening, um was that in her role she will still sometimes take school assemblies, but she will get there early and she says she will learn so much just by observing how people come into the room, whether it's the children or whether it's the teachers she can sense, and then, as she describes it, you could picture it as to how it would come across.
Iain Blatherwick:You know, you can imagine kids sort of running into assembly, chatting all excited or looking a bit subdued, or you could you know you can see teachers coming in, and that that, for me, is going beyond listening. You could you know you can see teachers coming in, and that that, for me, is it's going beyond listening, isn't it? It's just that awareness. And she talks a lot. Um, we may be throwing into other themes here, but that bit about making sure that she's connected, but for her that observing and making sure she was there early enough to see all of that happen and to see what she would be picking up, I found that fascinating
Emma Hughes:I, I was just going to say that.
Emma Hughes:That really makes me think about a quote that Leora uh, that I'd like to quote Leora for Leora said you must hold your quiet center where you do what only you can do. It's about being anchored, and for me that really shows up there, Iain, because, um, that's that sounds like that's Cathie's quiet center. You know where she has. She's got her space and her time and her pause where she's anchored and she's taking everything in and she's listening at you know, the highest level that we can be, so that she's informed and ready and prepared and best able to communicate and deliver the message.
Emma Hughes:And I think what we often see and you've just said it yourself, actually where you've reflected on your own leadership experiences, where you know we're driving towards things, we're rushing, almost sometimes we're on this path, that old sort of hero leader, um, that we see where we actually need to come away from being the hero leader, where we're carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders and we have to know all the answers and we don't give ourselves time to just pause, stop, think, really listen. Yeah, I just wanted to share that.
Iain Blatherwick:I think the start and finish of Cathie's session was fascinating because her opening point was about knowing yourself, you know, knowing what your triggers are, knowing where you get your energy from, and it's clearly she gives that a lot of thought. I mean, it's sometimes a question I ask myself. I'm sure we all like to think we're self-aware, but how do we really know that we're self-aware? But she clearly has spent a lot of time making sure she understands herself. But then you lead to her concluding comment, which it's not about you, which I think is fascinating. So you do need to know yourself because of the influence and the energy.
Iain Blatherwick:Um, I think she describes herself, Nick, doesn't? She's the chief energy officer, so she is aware of all of those things. But her conclusion is and I absolutely agree with her it's not about you, which also chimes in with, I think David's concluding comment was don't take yourself too seriously. These are all attributes of leadership I absolutely buy into and again, probably not what your traditional leadership books were. But it is that part of taking people with you, but being human as you do it with you, but being human as you as you do it, um, but yeah, I think the way that that Cathie's session was bookended with that know yourself and it's not about you was was fascinating
Nick MacKenzie:yeah, one of the things I took out of that discussion about the assembly, Iain, is you'd have to listen to the episode to understand why, where it was relevant. Because he starts off with a story about assemblies from when she was a child. Um, but just her instinctively knowing the power of that moment in terms of to really communicate effectively with both and she talks about communicating with the teachers, the early career teachers as well as the children but in one conversation as well, which just it was really intentional, but she instinctively understood the power that could come from that moment of everyone in the school together in a room in an assembly. I just, yeah, it really struck me as something quite impactful from listening to her.
Iain Blatherwick:here, and you commented, didn't you? You'd been reading something about the power of gathering, and not a book that I'm familiar with. But it did resonate with me again that sometimes we do get everyone together, but again we've got an agenda to rush through things and we need to get everything done, and so on, and I've really worked out what the benefit of getting so many different people in the room is and what's the best use of of that time. Um, I was recently working with uh, so I do some work with family businesses, but, um, which can trigger off all kinds of random tensions and so on.
Iain Blatherwick:Um, and there was a, a family meeting. We were getting together and again, I think that the plan was was let's manage this from start to finish, by being very clear what's happening when, and then hopefully everyone can get out without falling out with each other. But actually I said, no, we're all together, let's give this meeting the time it needs so that we can understand better everyone's perspective. And it was a bit of a gamble, because who knows what might've happened, but I think people know when they're being processed for a meeting and controlled and managed, don't they? And those are the kinds of behaviours that could tend to trigger flare-ups and so on.
Iain Blatherwick:And actually thinking about the meeting, thinking about the purpose of meeting, thinking about the pace at which you want to run a meeting, is probably stuff that we don't give enough thought to. We've got a day we start to fill out an agenda, we work out who we want to speak and, before you know it, you're down a route, aren't you, of planning all of the segments but stepping back and working out what is the most important thing that we can get out of this time where we've got all of these people together and who are the best people that we're going to want to speak and often they aren't the most obvious people that you'd want to get on the platform. But I certainly remember that relief of oh great, I've got an agenda that's got the day sorted and probably haven't invested enough time as to you know, the power of one of those sessions landing and landing really well
Nick MacKenzie:well, the book's called "the art of gathering by Priya Parker, and uh, it was thanks to Emma flagged it to me.
Nick MacKenzie:Um, either she'd seen something on linkedin or something and I'd signed up to the mailing list and saw it and then got
Iain Blatherwick:maybe she'd been to a meeting one of us had run and thought we could do better
Nick MacKenzie:probably, but there's real world example about how that can change a whole meeting or a gathering. We we had someone that was changing roles a few years ago and we had I just I was basically in charge of we're having a meal. I was in charge of making sure it went well and, having read the book, what we did was, as I told everybody but the person it was for beforehand, that what we're going to do is through the meal. We were going to give a toast and the toast had to be bearing in mind. Leadership is about leading people in a team. The toast was to a wonderful team, so not directly to the person themselves, but to what they had led, and that the uh, the rub was, if you left it till last, you had to either do it in song or poetry, so there was an incentive to get on with it, and I forget exactly how many of us were there. It was about 12 or 15 people there and typically, if you're having a meal with 12 or 15 people, you will break up into separate conversations, each heart's twos or threes or fours, and the whole evening basically, basically was a whole table discussion and it was just the group telling stories and there was a mixture of the formal toast bits triggering it, but that just set the tone.
Nick MacKenzie:As I said, it was just three or four hours, ultimately, of just telling stories, and I think if you listen to the episodes, you will see another thing that comes out a lot is the power of storytelling, and that really is one that. Going back to what you said earlier, Emma, about communications and discussion we are having there, you know the way you tell the stories and the way you react to them. You can really demonstrate proper listening, can't you? And that you see people where they're at and what you value. So, yeah, I definitely recommend anyone to engage and think a bit more. I'm sure there's other books that do similar, but it is. It was a really good book recommendation, Emma, so thank you.
Emma Hughes:I know, I think, I think the it's about planning for the experience and the feeling, nick, you and I have spoken about that, haven't we?
Emma Hughes:That what's the feeling that we want people to have when they go away? Um, and when you start with that objective in mind, that really sets the course for how you're going to communicate, what you're going to say, uh, what you're going to do, um, and and I I think that is so important um, but again, it, you are coming from a place of knowing, in some ways, when you're planning these sorts of things, because you're not giving yourself the chance to kind of sit in the get there early, as Kathy said, and watch people arrive and then adjust. Sometimes we have to come to meetings at the time we arrive and we have to, um, hope for the best, but I guess, still being able to dance in the moment to a certain extent and being able to read the room and still do that deep listening, so that we're communicating with people, so they still leave with a good sense of feeling that we wanted well, I think, Emma.
Nick MacKenzie:That's why I think sometimes, even though you could facilitate or host a meeting yourself, sometimes it's seriously worth getting someone else out there so that you, the whole group, can be in that meeting, experiencing it with everybody else, and someone else is looking after the group dynamic and making sure the conversation happens.
Nick MacKenzie:Um, I wanted to to move us on to um another story, I suppose, and it's it's picking up um storytelling, because it was a theme through my discussion with chris husbands and he he talks about on storytelling, just keep thinking what's the story here, what's the point of the issue, and he suggests that's something really interesting to hang on.
Nick MacKenzie:And then he goes and gives an example of a story he uses sometimes to help with this. And he, he said one of his major leadership advice sources is watching endless repeats of the West Wing and he recounts an episode where President Bartlett the centerpiece of the series going to the funeral of a former president and obviously, because of former president, other former presidents are there, so you've got the current president and lots of other former presidents and they um, they all start telling stories about the problem um in their presidency, and so the episode is called the stormy present, um, and they talk about the problems they were having to deal with when they were running the united states. But the point of the episode is that everyone thinks their present is stormy, but actually everyone's just got different challenges and we have to find ways of overcoming them, and I thought that was a really interesting story that stood out to me.
Iain Blatherwick:Yeah, I mean, obviously it's the kickoff for each of your sessions, but I'm not going to tell anyone Cathy's story because I think people ought to listen to the episode and it's quite a distressing lesson really, really about going back to a school assembly, aren't we, um? But the way she tells it and the way it clearly still brings back emotions and a reaction to her, and how it has led her to her approach um, both with children but also members of staff. You know she talks about making sure that in leadership, you know, make it personal. And she asks everyone to deal with everyone as though they were your nearest and dearest. You know whoever you're dealing with, whoever you're speaking to. Imagine it was someone speaking to your nearest and dearest and how would you want them to be treated. And I think that that theme that resonates all the way through, from the the initial story she tells to how she deals with people, is very powerful yeah johnny searle is the um.
Nick MacKenzie:The most recent episode he he starts off with a really interesting story in on a similar vein where um so johnny was was a very successful rower. He was in the gb, won a gold medal with gb in the the 90s and um he still does a bit of coaching. He describes a story where he was taking a training camp. Um, I must confess I'm not into the detail of Rory but he describes what was a fairly challenging training session. He'd set out for them of back to back 20 minute rows. I mean, if you go to the gym and an ergo five minutes seems like endless. So God only knows what 20 minutes at full steam back to back is.
Nick MacKenzie:But he says he was in the launch watching them and they finished and they just collapsed across the oars in a way that he and even in telling the story he was said he was getting goosebumps and it was. It was clearly a strong emotion for him and he describes that thinking of the type of leader he thinks he is and then seeing what's happened in front of him. But I think the key point he he took out of it was the reflection that people will follow you because you're the leader, so that responsibility to set the right pace for your team and to be cognizant of that was a very powerful sort of the impact, um, I think of. Yeah, his reaction there like really stood out to me it shows up in different ways as well.
Emma Hughes:You think about the power of stories, um, and I and I think about the story that Sarah shared and it kind of made me think about my own childhood my own story, I suppose, in some ways, where she talks about how she had a school report described her as a born leader, but a leader who leads people in the wrong direction, and that it all stemmed from Sarah basically organising a bit of a protest during netball and she says how she didn't really understand what leadership meant she was just a child, but that she realises that that was probably quite a a formative moment and she says it was the first time she realised that leadership was even a thing. And then she reflects by saying that interesting that she then ended up making a career out of it, which made me smile. I guess when you, when you hear Sarah talk about her story, a lot of it is she talks about being a disruptor as well. So, and it just made me think about children today and how we can have children, not just children, adults, colleagues, people we work with.
Emma Hughes:That goes back to what you were saying in. You know you're on this course of action, we've got this plan and you've got these people that are coming along and disrupting us and saying what are you doing that for? I think we should do this and we certainly see it. I see it with my children, you know, trying to disrupt what we're trying to do as a family and there's some kernels of leadership there and it should be listened to and heard, not silenced. I wonder how often we do that as leaders seek to silence or shrink the disruption in favour of the goal.
Nick MacKenzie:A story comes to mind from that episode.
Nick MacKenzie:You were talking about disruption, which I could see it coming naturally to her when it came up in the school report.
Nick MacKenzie:She talks about a situation when she was on a board when she was relatively young, and she talks about offering away day with the board and most of the I think she was the only female on the board, so all the men go and play around the golf, and then she went off to the hotel spa, health club area and then over dinner they would talk about the decisions they'd made on the golf course. And her response, I just thought, demonstrated a lot where the second time that happened, she's like I've got to break this cycle, this is not healthy, this can't go on. And so she pipes up at the second time I think it was and says, well, I've made some decisions too. And then she listed off the decisions that she'd made and it clearly disrupted and was important to her as a story. But that taking the power and the responsibility to change the dynamic and her being the source of the disruption and taking the control of that was for me it was a really powerful story.
Emma Hughes:Totally Using it as a force for good although actually decision making is fascinating, isn't it?
Iain Blatherwick:at what? At what point in the trajectory of something that's being decided, does it get decided? Because there will be any number, and I agree. Clearly, just a group of people deciding on the workforce is not right. But there will be lots of discussions and iterations of things, won't there? As a? You know, a proposal works its way through. I always think it's quite fascinating and whether, as a leader, you, you, you probably don't ever analyze that process and whether you've run it past the right people to make sure you've got to the right answer, but you know at what point? At what point is the? Is the trajectory set, interesting?
Nick MacKenzie:I think that is really interesting, because you could moan about people not feeding into the discussion, but you know, humans are quite good at intuiting and going what's going on, so you just get. Well, the decisions will be taken. There's no point me speaking up in this meeting, because it's clear whatever I say isn't going to change anything. So and then you're there as a leader well, no one's contributing and thinking well, you've made it clear you'd already made the decision, so why should they?
Emma Hughes:yeah, the power of psychological safety. I guess here because that doesn't sound psychologically safe. It just sounds a bit group think, a bit like oh well, the to complete the decisions made. It's not really inclusive leadership, is it? If we're operating like that certainly not healthy. I love that story from Sarah as well. I really did. I think it's an important lesson actually for any young leader that's coming up not just any young leader, I think, any leader to challenge the status quo and be use it as a force for good.
Nick MacKenzie:That disruption is a good thing um, we haven't got too much longer left. I I wanted to um to mention a story that Chris Fusburns shared with me. Well, it's probably more a reflection of his. So he talked in his episode about having a little black box, which I firstly loved from this idea of it was his sort of magpie wear, so he got it black as well, but his magpie wear. He'd scribble down ideas and insights that he'd come across over the years. Some were his own reflections, others were borrowing other other people's um ideas, and then he had them in this, this box. It indexed and the different themes etc. So I invited him to give me a bit of. I was curious, so I invited him to give me an example of one, and he was particularly excited about one which he called Purpose, people, performance, and he referred to it as this sort of three ring model of leadership.
Nick MacKenzie:And so the idea of purpose what are we doing? People, who are the people that we're going to do it with? And performance how are we going to assess performance? And his proposition was if you think about taking away any of those things and you end up with dysfunctional behaviour, so if you have a, have a team where you've got purpose and performance. Well, you probably then got authoritarianism. If you've got a team with purpose and people, you might not have that cutting edge performance focus. And if you get people and performance, then you're perhaps left with cynicism and game playing. And that's what is. A really interesting observation of someone that's led a number of organisations. Here's reflections of sort of three circles, three-ring model of leadership. Does that resonate with either of you? Would you make it a fourth ring?
Iain Blatherwick:I don't know. Analysing the various moving parts in what are needed for an organisation can be quite tough, can't it? Breaking it down? You can't always work out, you know, sometimes working out why some things have worked and why other things haven't worked and what's the bit that's gone awry within all of that and even within that, you talk about a single organisation, but any organisations you've got different team leads, different line line managers, all kind of things over the way that that mean any of those different aspects are probably being played at slightly different paces. So, yeah, I think it's an interesting analysis. Yeah, it's making me stop and think when you were leading Iain, what?
Nick MacKenzie:how did you assess whether the organisation was healthy? What are the things you looked at to go whether it was going the right, the right direction. With the complexity you described off, you know you're a team of many different things.
Iain Blatherwick:Yeah, it's interesting. My take were actually this might come around around to to one of david beatty's comments which I think I ought to pick up but I would tend to look at things like you know which clients are we doing work for which clients are we winning? What's the calibre and the quality of the work that we're doing? You know, were we generally moving up the food chain? Are we losing people that we really wanted to keep? So for me it was clearly the numbers are important, but for me, success was never measured on you know how much turnover had grown every year, because you know there were times that there was some turnover that we probably needed to lose. So for me it was you know the quality of work that we were doing, the clients that we were doing it for, the people that we were attaining. And then coming back to David's final point, you know the people that we were attracting.
Iain Blatherwick:David made a comment make brilliant appointments.
Iain Blatherwick:But it wasn't just the way he said make brilliant appointments.
Iain Blatherwick:He was looking at it from the perspective of the candidate, because he would regard it If you made the wrong appointment, you were not doing right by the candidate either, because the chances of that appointment succeeding were not good.
Iain Blatherwick:No one ever likes to be in a position where they're regarded as not succeeding. You're into all of those things like performance management. So it wasn't just the fact that it was made brilliant appointments, it was the fact that he was seeing it from the perspective of the candidate and and I think it is a point really well made because because I still see people making appointments where they've sort of settled oh well, we haven't found the ideal candidate, but we'll go with this person and you know, I think often holding out for the right candidate is the better thing to do. I'll look to Emma there as the HR person on this call as well, but I think that make brilliant appointments and looking at it from everyone's perspective is is a key message for people to to listen to you just have to keep learning um and I I think the phrase nick.
Emma Hughes:You'll tell me where you got this from, but first act in learning um, yeah, that was um julian hartley.
Nick MacKenzie:You're making me go back. That was the series before this one about fail. Yeah, the first act in learning, yeah, and we do.
Emma Hughes:We do so, we make a bad appointment and we just you're that.
Emma Hughes:I think it's absolutely right. It's bad, it's bad for everybody, but I think what tends to happen is, oh blimey, we don't want to upset anybody, we don't want that difficult situation, we'll just carry on with it and it just actually ends up being a lot worse than it could be. But yeah, I mean the point of purpose I found across um, absolutely through Leora um, and and just I think the thing that came through for me was where she was talking about the times of Covid, you know, times where there is adversity and there's crisis that leaders can find connection, and she talks about how she was really innovative actually in her role and what she did with her organisation to deliver on her purpose and provide a space and community for school trusts, and and she talks about how she led to her purpose. She talks about servant leadership, um, and I just thought that was a really beautiful story that really evoked that servant leadership and that true purpose that shapes. It's almost her North Star and everything she does.
Iain Blatherwick:Interesting. Cathy also talked a lot about her North Star. It was interesting, you know, for some people, clearly, having that thing that you are all working towards I think in her case it was make every school a great school, wasn't it? But having that thing that you're all driving towards was really important- so we're nearly um at our our time's up.
Nick MacKenzie:I don't know whether there is it's easy if you had one, one other thing, that your reflections, that you wanted to, to make sure you got in before we left I was going to ask you a question, nick. Oh, I'm not going to escape without answering the question.
Emma Hughes:I thought I nearly got there, Emma yeah, so which moment or quote from your episodes in this series say to do the longest, and why?
Nick MacKenzie:oh, it's a difficult one. I'm not sure whether it's necessarily one moment, Emma, the thing of going on, my biggest reflection that I stay is an accumulation of them, and what I find is is that, because I can still remember things from the beginning of the series, before this series, and what I've realised is is that having a story either the story of me recording the episode and that discussion I'm having with the person, or the power of the story they tell me enables me to access really quickly and remember that that learning really quickly and remember that that learning Kathy Payne's one about seeing that showing up was one that, um, I've recounted a few times. Um, but there's another one as well. That's not cheating slightly. It's not this series, but Fiona Forbes.
Nick MacKenzie:So I must have recorded this over two years ago now and I still find it really impactful because she describes a story of, in Australia, fiona's in her 70s now. So I'll give you a sense of how long ago, when she was a 12 year old girl in a working class family in Australia, when her mother had a huge stroke and she went off to hospital for about nine months and she talked about a couple of things. One of them was learning. She became the matriarch of the house while her mum was at hospital and then she had to allow her and welcome her mum back in to be the matriarch again, even though her mum still um, she was disabled around one side and couldn't speak. But the thing that really blew my mind was when she talked about her mum being a wonderful communicator even though she couldn't speak. And then Fiona has gone on and has gone on to be a career leader, school in special educational needs and loads of stuff internationally in it. And at one moment she turns around to me and she goes Nick, look for the gaps. There's often more in the gaps than there's said and done, and through the whole of this series and last series I've got loads of little stories that I find the thing that stays with me is the story.
Nick MacKenzie:I've got a little collection of them and the thing I've learned I'm a bit like Chris Husband's a hoarder of a black box. I use OneNote for it, but I've got a. I hoard these things but having the story to attach it to means my brain, my filing system, can find it quicker and it makes it accessible to me, whereas if it was just something in a long list of things. It's hard, but having the story attached to it and a powerful story that's, I find I can access the insight a lot quicker. So yeah, I've got an aggregate of all those of those things, Emma yeah, the gaps.
Emma Hughes:I think that absolutely chimes with some of the things we've been talking, talking about today. I'm just thinking about that story you shared in about Kathy coming to that assembly. She always gets there early, she's looking for the gaps.
Iain Blatherwick:Yeah, there was also Edward Peck. It's not quite the same. Edward Peck said doing doing nothing is doing something as well. You know they're not the same but they are linked and I think sometimes that pressure as a leader always to be seen to be active and so on, I think there is that stepping back, whether it's observing, whether it's seeing the gaps is, I think, fascinating.
Emma Hughes:I think there's so much of that in education in particular. Leaders are often on a burning platform, often firefighting. Lots of plates are spinning, resource shine. I guess it's a moment of reflection to see actually, is there enough space and time for you to look for the gaps and really get those valuable experiences if you're constantly firefighting and and on that burning platform?
Nick MacKenzie:yeah, that, that ability. I you'll know about this, Emma.
Nick MacKenzie:I'd recently read a book, or turn this into a book club, but the thing, things you can only see when you slow down, and there was a piece of learning in there from from buddhists, about dealing with busyness and basically the the punch, the punch line of the little piece they have in there is that if you're feeling overwhelmed and busy and you're just going from one thing to the next, just remembering that you're not powerless and and the line being when your mind rests, the world rests, and it is very easy to jump on and you've given. In that situation, if someone sends you an email and you feel like you've got to give an immediate answer, you're almost giving. See if it's a frustrating one, you're almost giving power to the person the other side to decide that you must react now and and give them a reply. So, um, that edward peck one resonated with me and brilliant, so let's all go off and do nothing.
Iain Blatherwick:I think we've all agreed I think we have.
Nick MacKenzie:Well, I think I think that's a a good note then to um to start start to wrap it up. Thank you, Iain and Emma, so much for for joining me today. I've I've thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and hopefully it's been a useful way for our listeners to. We couldn't cover everything from loads of the great content from our guests this series, but hopefully we've picked out a few things that will be of interest to people. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
