If something is perfect from start to finish there is no suggestion of the infinite (Yanagi Soetsu)

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Recently, Seth Godin posted this and it made me reflect on the decision making process around a recent big change we've made at the Hastings' Campus for this year - swapping the purpose of the upstairs and downstairs learning spaces around to accommodate the number of students and the staffing we have.

The two choices for anyone with a new idea

“It’s simple.”

“It’s complicated.”

When you talk to someone about your new idea, they’re going to realize right away that it’s one or the other.

The trap is trying to pitch a complicated cultural shift, possibility or project as if it’s simple.

Darwin’s insight about how the world evolved is simple once you understand it, but it represents such a conceptual leap that bringing it to someone who’s looking for a simple and easy explanation is sure to fail. But if you invite someone along for a journey instead of a quick fix, you earn the right to take your time and tell your story. 

The simple/complex trap often confuses well-meaning people in politics, business and the arts. The solution isn’t to dumb down the complex. The solution is to invite the right people along on the journey.

I feel that the successful consultative/collaborative approach did just that - invited the right people along in the process.

It's not going to be perfect but we've got the right basis within which to embrace the imperfections.

Every time I thought I'd got it made It seemed the taste was not so sweet (David Bowie)

Photo by Håkon Grimstad on Unsplash

Changes, Part 3 (and final).

Mark Manson: 

The real question is...what values are we choosing to base our actions on? What metrics are we choosing to use to measure our life? And are those good choices - good values and good metrics?

The following thoughts came to me after I'd written out my list of changes in the previous post.

It struck me that the value I posited in the first of these three posts on my changes - that I choose to work in education to serve others with integrity, although it sounds good, didn't reveal enough, as, in truth, I have based my personal decisions on other values, and measured my pathway in other metrics.

To backtrack a little before 1983 (where I started my changes in the previous post), I would say that my post school metric was to prove to myself that I wasn't the failure that I'd turned out to be at school. 

That drove me onward for 6 years - through a Master's degree at Auckland University and then teacher training.

From then on it became a search to prove myself to my father and seek validation from him.

Teaching didn't rate highly as a profession with him, but if I could get promotions and eventually become a Principal - then, maybe then, he'd be proud of me and think more highly of teaching.

Pushes and pulls to and from my father were a feature of my life from 1983 (the year mum passed away) to 2009 (when dad passed away).

That's why we moved back to Auckland and away from Auckland so often.

When dad remarried in 1987, Jacky and I soon afterwards went to live in Nelson (for four years, returning eventually to Auckland). Subconsciously, I think I realised a few things in those years, but I was still searching for that validation.

Of course, none of these things were articulated between us at all. Instead, I wrote a poem in 1993 called Paternity Soot which starts off:

And so here I am,

still walking toward you.

after all these years.

An old campaign, living

your impossible expectations.

When will you allow me

that elusive

pat on the back?

Eventually I became Principal at Stratford High School and I finally had some validation; although it wasn't directly from dad. Instead, he proudly told others about his oldest son who was a headmaster and then they would tell me.

When he died in 2009, I was thrown into crisis. What do I do now? Suddenly my values were turned upside down, challenged completely and my metric needed to change, but it took a few years to grasp that idea, and it took a while before I could form a new one.

First, I needed to get away - abandon teaching in the public system in NZ, go to the Middle East as a consultant, and not think about my career for a while. The following adventure in China proved that I wasn't quite ready yet. 

That would have to wait until a few years into my time at Woodford House.

That's where it dawned on me - I can continue to offer something to school leadership, some value that exists on its own terms without having the need for my dad's approval and acceptance. I'm a slow learner.

Being a Campus Principal at OneSchool Global really suits me (the UK hiccup was a good wakeup call - you can't get it right all of the time and not everyone will like my Purdzillaness).

So, I've come full circle - back to that value expressed in bold in my first of these three posts, which now makes much more sense. 

I love the fact that I've been a teacher for most of those 38 years: serving others, offering what I can, being driven by the most important value I can think of - integrity.

Halas.

Still don't know what I was waitin' for and my time was runnin' wild (David Bowie)

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Changes, Part 2.

As I was reading Mark Manson's book (a counterintuitive approach to living a good life) it got me reflecting on why I've changed schools and locations so many times throughout my 38 year-long career in education (so far). 

Mark calls these the metrics or values involved in my decision making.

As I did this, I realised that there are different layers to the metrics/values.

So first up (deeper dive in the next post) - here's a rundown of the surface realities involved in my changes. 

New Plymouth Boys' High School to Macleans College

I'd met Jacky in 1983 (my first year of teaching), got married (yes, to Jacky) and had a son. My widowed dad lived in Auckland. We decided that's where we needed to be. So, we moved.

Macleans College to Waimea College

Two more children later and, even though I loved Macleans, the charismatic principal was moving on and I was feeling ambitious for some leadership. I couldn't see a route for that at Macleans and so we moved to Nelson when I was promoted to assistant Head of English.

Waimea College to Mt. Albert Grammar School (MAGS)

Pretty quickly I was promoted to Head of English, plus we had our fourth child, but Jacky became unwell with a respiratory illness, and she was keen to retrain as a nurse. Which meant either Dunedin or Auckland. Auckland had the better climate for her, and as a MAGS old boy I'd long had an ambition of returning there as a staff member. So back to Auckland we went.

MAGS to Cambridge High School

Another promotion at MAG - this time to the senior leadership team as Head of Boarding, but the full on 24/7 life in the boarding school wasn't for me long term. By now I wanted to be a Principal, and to do that I needed the intermediate step of Deputy Principal. So, we went to Cambridge.

Cambridge High School to The King John School (Essex, UK)

I'd loved being the DP and the acting Principal for a term, but it was clear that the incumbent principal wasn't going to leave anytime soon and a trip to Edinburgh in 2003 had ignited a passion to live and work in the UK. So, that's what we did.

The King John School to Stratford High School

Family back in NZ needed us home and Jacky was keen for us to be back in Taranaki if we could. So, we left the UK.

Stratford High School to Doha, Qatar (Cognition Education)

After three years as Principal, my father died and my heart wasn't in it. I was in crisis actually. Plus, many of my colleagues signed up for lucrative positions in the Middle East. I needed to get away, out of NZ, and lick my wounds. Doha in Qatar was the perfect place.

Qatar to United Arabic Emirates (UAE) - specifically, Al Ain

We had to leave Qatar when the contract ended. After we returned to Taranaki, Cognition Education pursued me to take another contract in the UAE. I was a bit reluctant as I was keen to enroll in Massey's PhD programme. But I shelved that idea; we went back to the Middle East.

UAE to Wuxi (China)

We had bought a house in Hawke's Bay (Otane) while we were in Al Ain but when we returned, there were no jobs anywhere in Hawke's Bay that I could even apply for. A friend asked me if I'd consider going to Wuxi in China to lead an English school for prospective pilots. Of course, I said. Why not? Crazy? You bet. Just before leaving Jacky had a serious health issue to deal with which delayed us a month.

Wuxi to Woodford House

All the while, I was still pursuing a more stable job in Hawke's Bay (my Chinese employer stopped paying the staff, so we all had to find new employment anyway). I applied for the Head of English job at Woodford House. My CV by this time was looking like I moved around a lot, so I needed a secure/stable job. Woodford was perfect.

Woodford House to Westmount (now OneSchool Global NZ) - Kaipara Campus (now Maungaturoto)

After four years at Woodford, I was itching to return to a senior leadership role and getting a tad grumpy in the process. That wasn't going to happen at Woodford, so we moved to Maungaturoto and I became Campus Principal at Westmount - a private school for children of Plymouth Brethren families.  

Westmount to Focus School (now OneSchool Global UK) - Kenley/ Carshalton campuses

I felt I had unfinished business in the UK and the idea of moving within OneSchool Global's worldwide network of campuses was vastly appealing. Even though I loved the Kaipara job, the urge to go back to the UK was too strong. So, we moved to Caterham, Surrey.

Focus to OneSchool Global NZ - Hastings/Gisborne campuses

Only once in my career have I been the wrong person in the wrong place. Usually, it had been the opposite story - my timing had been uncanny and my leadership/management experiences (aside from the minor glitch of not being paid in Wuxi) uniformly brilliant. In a word, I'd become complacent - thinking that my NZ style of leadership would fit in any context. I was very wrong. The blow to my ego during this experience was a good, albeit painful, lesson to learn. We returned to NZ in time for our grandson's arrival. We clearly were meant to be close by for Jade and Asher. It was a lucky break, for all sorts of reasons, including the UK's response to Covid-19 compared to NZ's.

Those background details bring us roughly up-to-date for Jacky and me: living in Takapau, both of us commuting an hour to work in Hastings, and roughly an hour to Palmerston North where Jade and Asher live.

I notice that I haven't yet really touched on the underlying metrics, the values involved throughout this pathway up to now...

I'll get to that on the next post.

So, stay tuned!

So I turned myself to face me (David Bowie)

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

Changes - Part 1.

Having just finished Mark Manson's book that presents his counterintuitive approach to living a good life, I've been reflecting on the metrics (his word) that drive me and govern my approach to life in Wozza's world as it relates to my work (the mahi).

Here's my initial instant thought - I'll be interested to see if it holds up after my next couple of posts where I intend to test this thought/metric/value statement to the max.

It is that I choose to work in education to serve others with integrity.

Full stop.

Except that it doesn't really tell you much.

So - let me take you on a journey through the next two posts while I discuss the last 38 years of my life: the mahi and the metrics.

Next up - background details. Then after that - the crux of the biscuit.