CHANGE THE CULTURE AND YOU CHANGE THE WORLD!

I have spent a lot of time recently in hospitals, care homes and classrooms and it has made me realise more than ever that we must continue to work together to change the culture in our schools, hospitals, care homes and organisations. If we want excellence and world class provision we must break down the barriers which limit personalisation, curiosity and creativity, which stubbornly maintain the status quo and which limit our opportunities to make a fundamental step change in outcomes, processes and systems. We must network, learn and build on the magic, the wonder and the real excellence in the system and challenge and change the things that don't work.

If we want to build brilliant places we need to develop a culture where we welcome feedback and help everyone in the workforce to continuously update their knowledge and skills and have opportunities for good quality professional development. We must stop playing catch up and start playing world class! We need a culture which is about excellence, high expectations and high challenge. We must maintain a relentless and uncompromising focus on learning leadership, beautiful systems, intelligent accountability and what works. We must accept no excuses and work to drive up standards and improve outcomes. We must help people learn and improve and develop and spend less time testing and inspecting them. Our commitment to develop and grow our workforce needs us to share and learn from the best locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. We need to help colleagues undertake professional development and training and collaborate and co-operate with their colleagues.

We can all make a real difference and we must always remember that actions speak louder than words. Whether it is the search for excellence, concerns about provision or the most vulnerable; hard times and tough issues require bold ideas, big ideas, brilliant ideas.  But while ideas are incredibly important the thing that really matters is action, and the impact and the outcomes we can achieve if we simply roll up our sleeves and do something. So don’t just talk about your brilliant ideas.. start now.. don’t wait for permission or find an excuse.. do something, do anything, risk anything, try anything to make that difference. Of course sometimes we will make mistakes, we'll get things wrong and sometimes muck things up big time.. but we must create a culture where we learn from our efforts and our mistakes and where we are driven by a genuine and passionate desire to make a difference. And remember that if you change the culture you can change the world.