Category: Wisdom Digest
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Hidden Potential, by Adam Grant
I love Adam Grant’s work. An organisational psychologist by trade, Grant explores motivation, teams, and potential, among many other things. In his book Think Again (blog here), he discusses how we tend to retreat to a bunker with our views and defend them till the end. He explores how we should think more objectively, seek…
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Thriving Teams #7: Team Conflict
A study from the University of South Wales, quoted in Daniel Coyle’s The Culture Code, revealed the startling impact that a ‘bad apple’ can have on a group. In a team activity, someone was planted, unknown to the rest of the group, with the mission of disrupting the team. The plant would undermine people’s ideas,…
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Thriving Teams #6: The FA/UEFA Pro Licence and High-Performing Teams
‘Andy, I’m a big palace fan, well done mate’. I’d just arrived at St George’s Park, and got out of my small Hyundai alongside the Range Rover of Andy Johnson, a Crystal Palace legend and one of my all-time favourite players. He politely said ‘Thanks, mate’ in return, got in the car, and left my…
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Thriving Teams #5: Team Communication
Mother Theresa once said “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.”, and there is a lot to unpack there, both on relational and spiritual levels. The ideal model for a team is just that: doing great things together, and being more than a sum…
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Stepping Into The Map
In the summer of 2008 I interrailed around Europe over the course of four weeks, covering many countries and even more cities. It was a wonderful way to travel and has supplied me with some entertaining anecdotes, ranging from how a burley Australian firefighter’s presence rescued me from being mugged on an overnight train between…
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Thriving Teams #4: Team Debriefs
Watching footage of post-game team talks by football managers always fascinated me, on the rare occasions when the cameras were allowed into the changing room. Sometimes it was dominated by cheering and roaring champagne as a team progressed to the next round of a cup; other times, a Neil Warnock-esque manager would be snarling and…
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Thriving Teams #3: Psychological Safety
It can be difficult to define what makes someone feel confident or at ease within their team. Some argue that a happy team is a productive team, while others say the opposite is true. In my years’ long pursuit of staff wellbeing and satisfaction, I’ve often leant towards autonomy, trust, and opportunities to collaborate as…
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Thriving Teams #2: Purpose and Goals
Every organisation has a purpose: a sense of why it exists and what it serves through that existence. For schools, this is perhaps obvious. The school exists to serve its children: to keep them safe, to help them to learn, to gain the best qualifications possible, and to prepare them for the world (add others…
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Thriving Teams #1: What is a team?
Each of us belongs to a number of teams, depending on your definition. A family. A sports team. A volunteer group. And, at work, you could be a member of several teams. Each team has its own purpose, dynamic, and tasks; each team’s success may be measured differently. Some of our teams may be healthy,…
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6 ways to start your coaching journey
In 2019-20, I lead a staff wellbeing research project, which aimed to explore evidence-based approaches to wellbeing in schools. This culminated in the Biscuits at Breaktime blog, an article in Impact, and, unfortunately, some cancelled primary research when COVID hit. My colleague, Rachel, and I read a lot about Self Determination Theory (SDT), a psychological…
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Leading assemblies: nostalgia and lessons
Today, as I drove down to East Wittering for my half term break, I kept getting visual flashes of standing in front of a room, leading a community of students and staff in an assembly. One of my favourite aspects of the job. Actually, my favourite. Perhaps I miss being a Head of Sixth Form,…
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ResearchEd Surrey 2021 – reflection
Dan Cable writes in Alive at Work, that a powerful method to build relatedness and belonging within a team is to ask each person when they are at their best. Which circumstances bring out the best version of themselves? It’s a fascinating question. The rationale is, that by sharing this self-reflection, your shared vulnerability helps…
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Wednesday’s Wisdom #7: Two Ears, One Mouth – the Art of Listening
‘No, that’s not really what I meant’. The fatal knell of a speaker’s response, once you’ve neglected your duties as a listener with a blundered question or comment. You can probably salvage the visage of the conversation itself, but it sounds like the speaker doubts your understanding. The trust you built may have been undermined.…
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Wednesday’s Wisdom #4: Words create worlds, and the joy of coaching
‘Without autonomy, you leave your brain at home’, Dr Kulvarn Atwal told me at his school in 2019, when explaining how all staff have a coach and use the process to improve their sense of autonomy, and to be solution-focused in the way they approach challenges at work. That sounded powerful. But coaching… isn’t that…
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Wednesday’s Wisdom #3: Building Belonging
You never quite know where your values and traits originate, or how they evolve over time. Nature vs nurture. Life experiences. Social norms. It seems impossible to attribute our sense of self with clarity. I was adopted as a baby, and welcomed into a loving home, but I’ve always wondered about the possible effects: how…
Sam Crome 