Stephen Mitchell, director, Keystone Knowledge, on finding new and creative ways to approach the challenges SBLs may face
Read the full article below or on page 22 in our February magazine
‘If you don’t like change, you’ll like irrelevance even less.’
So goes a quote I read several years ago which became one of those screenshots that I keep on my ‘phone. Brutal, but true – and as school business management continues its inexorable curve of seemingly getting ever harder, it’s also ever more important that we can find creative ways of approaching the challenges in front of us.
We talk a lot at Keystone about embracing the ‘art of the possible’; it’s not just a glib marketing slogan but a key cultural attitude.
It’s a shortcut for focusing the mind on looking at what can be achieved, not just the easy or common route. It means going beyond how things are done now and pushing towards what is possible – exploring and questioning how things can, and should, be better. It helps the schools and trusts we work with develop a clear sense of their aspirations and develops an ethos of going beyond in the way they think about how they manage their schools and trusts to provide better outcomes for pupils.
It’s a powerful approach. So, what does this really mean in practice, and how can we practice creative thinking in roles in schools.
Two schools of thought
There are two schools of thought (no pun intended) about creativity; both have their merits; which one works for you?
Schumpeter puts forward a theory of creative destruction. Simply put, significant progress occurs when we do something differently and this is likely to mean that something we currently do has to stop. You can’t make an omelette without first breaking some eggs. Right? Often, we get concerned about protecting the status quo, and this can significantly limit the creative thinking we can do.
Children entering reception this year will still be in classrooms in 2036 if they stay on to age 18. A lot will change in 13 years, and you can bet the last pennies in your tight budgets that the way we teach in 2036 will be significantly different to how it is in 2023. Therefore, don’t we owe it to the children to be thinking creatively about what needs to change and start engaging in that process now?
The other model is known as the Austrian model, but it has pretty much zero to do with the country in the way it’s practiced. This theory talks about ‘iterative development’, consciously putting a focus on continual improvement. It requires a mindset of recognising that nothing is quite the finished article, and we can always build on what we have.
Too often, we set out on a project with an end point in mind – this model of creative thinking recognises the journey, and that the horizon moves as you get closer to it. This gives you a broader perspective of your position in the grand timeline of your school and what may come down the road.
I’ve personally found tools such as fishbone diagrams really useful for understanding the core issue of a problem – this opens the possibilities of true creative thinking and then allows you to explore the art of the possible.
They start with the problem you’re trying to solve – this could be something like ‘our payroll process isn’t efficient’ and this is the problem that goes at the ‘head’ of the fish skeleton diagram. Draw a spine horizontally and then six or so ‘bones’ going off at angles. Give each of these the title of a broad relevant area, such as ‘staff, software, regulation, budget, processes’. Along the bones of these areas, you can then list the reasons that contribute to your problem, and so on.
There’s more on our blog about how these tools work in practice, along with some real-life school examples (keystoneknowledge.com/blog)
Be the first to comment