Leading from the Frontier - 5th Oxford Africa Business Conference

Catching up on some blogging backlog.... back on the 18th May I attended a  day conference on Africa at the Said Business School in Oxford.  I've attended many events there over the years and this one was up to the usual high standards.

Here are a few notes and thoughts that I captured during the day.

One theme that came up a few times during the day was how we need to be careful not to think of Africa as a single entity but rather as a set of distinct countries.  One session looked at Africa as 3 distinct regions

• North Africa, seen a lot of political change in the recent years, growing stability.  
• Tropics - where most growth is currently happening and seeing emergence of significant sized middle class.  
• Southern Africa - seeing the slowest growth and also has the smaller population size.

Other sessions stressed how Africa is made up of over 50 separate countries.  This provides a great deal of variety and also a lot of challenge as separate licences, agreements are needed in each.  Especially troublesome if you are trying to provide a service across national boundaries.

There is a need for development of physical infrastructure as well as regional cooperation.

The President of Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, addressed the meeting after lunch.  He talked about changes in Rwanda, I was struck most by the number of references to the importance of investment in the people to grow their capabilities and how that then leads to growth and increased success for the country.

In a session on Sustaining Social Impact there was some interesting discussion on the roles of charities and philanthropic money in helping to support growth.  Importance of working in partnership with other organisations so that you create new markets or ideas but don't distort the existing markets.   One interesting idea was a group that provided support for early stage entrepreneurs.  They worked with the local banks so when then had someone apply for a loan but their business wasn't at the point where they could invest they would refer them on to the program.  Having received the support to help develop their business ideas the entrepreneurs would then return to the financial institution hopefully in better shape to receive and capitalise on a loan.

Liked the comment that most companies fail - question we need to ask is what value did they create while they existed - and that value could be learning gain in some form.

We were also shown the rather wonderful video for Radi-Aid  which is designed to make use reflect on our perceptions of Africa.  As they say on the site imagine if everyone in Africa saw the video and this was their only source of information on Norway - what would they think about the country?

I attended the conference because I knew little of African Business and thought this would be a good way to find out more.  Certainly feel I ended the day a little wiser.

Walking the Clarendon Way

A couple of weeks ago on 2nd June we walked the Clarendon Way as part of the annual fundraising event organised by a local children's Hospice Naomi House

The walk starts at Winchester Cathedral and ends 26 miles later at Salisbury Cathedral.  Thankfully we had some great weather that day with plenty of sunshine but also a breeze so it wasn't too hot.  Really impressed by the organisation of the whole day with plenty of marshall points offering bottles of water and a cheery word.

We'd done so training before the day but the longest walk we'd done as part of that was 18 miles so weren't sure how 26 would go.  In the event it went well, though undoubtedly a little sore and tired when we stopped at the end we suffered no major issues.   One of the biggest challenges was getting moving again after we'd spent 40 mins on the coach back to Winchester - the steps to get out are very steep when you've seized up a bit :-)

We started just after 8am so I thought I'd take a series of photos every hour to chart our progress through the day....

8am and ready for the start ....

9am Olivers Battery

10am West Wood

11am countryside

Noon and some very welcome nourishment to help us on the last few miles to Broughton 
1pm At Broughton and enjoying the delicious pre-ordered lunch.

2pm - more lovely countryside passes by

3pm Crossing fields

4pm Getting steadily closer - but I'm sure one of the marshals a few miles back said "It's downhill all the way now..."

4:30pm OK - not on the hour but an important moment as we first see the spire of Salisbury Cathedral in the not too far distance...

5pm Almost there, on the streets of Salisbury....


If you're in Hampshire/Wiltshire and looking for a challenge in aid of a good cause then I can heartily commend the Naomi House Clarendon Way to you.

Hampshire Secondary Governors' Conference

This year's conference, attended by around 100 governors from Hampshire schools, was titled "Secondary Governance and Accountability: Shaping the Future".

I attended hoping for the chance to talk with other governors and to hear some interesting talks that would help to trigger ideas that I could take back in my role as a parent governor.  I wasn't disappointed.

First up we had the Deputy Director of Education and Inclusion, John Clarke, who talked about the relative performance of children in Hampshire schools compared to national averages.  Particular focus on looking at the progression made from Key stage 2 levels through to key stage 4 attainment and how children who qualify for free school meals attain compared with those who don't.

He recommended a couple of interesting sounding books which have been added to my ever growing wish list on Amazon - the main wish being to find the time to read more of the wonderful books out there.....

Mention was made of studies that look at what actually makes a difference to helping students learn.  Up at the top is ensuring that they get useful feedback.  Issues of uniform were at the other end.  Interesting challenge of how you best meet the needs of the children whilst convincing their parents that this is what you are doing.  How to handle potential gap between what people think matters and doing what actually matters is a tricky one.

He finished with a thoughtful list of how the skills that will be needed for a "21st Century Creative Explorer" compares with those more suited to a "19th Century Clerk".  I've heard it said before that one of the challenges for education is that we are preparing students to take on jobs, many of which have yet to be conceived.  Makes it important that schools turn out children who can not only acquit themselves well in the exams they take but also are equipped to take their place in a fast changing world.

We broke for coffee before our next speaker John Dunford.  He retired from his role as General Secretary of the Association of School and College leaders a couple of years ago.  More interestingly from my perspective was his time as head teacher of Durham Johnston Comprehensive School, his tenure there having included some of my time there as a pupil.   It actually turned out that he had 2 ex pupils in the audience - by a wonderful coincidence I had unwittingly ended up sitting 2 seats away from the elder sister of one of my school friends !

His wide ranging and engaging talk stressed the importance of Values, Innovation and Partnership - with school leaders and governors collaborating to drive success in their school.

The theme of freedom popped up a few times and the difference between "freedom from" and "freedom to".  It is all too easy to focus on the things that you can't control, the edicts and regulations, and spend your energy wishing them away.  How much better to embracing the considerable autonomy that does exist.  Fundamentally, we need to take ownership of the situation we are in and focus on what can be done rather than what can't.

I particularly liked his "warp and weft" model where as well as looking at the knowledge being gained you also consider the dimensions of skills & personal qualities.  How is the method being used to grow the knowledge also assisting in the development of skills and personal qualities.  Something I can take back to work as well as my governor role.

Lunch was good if a slightly odd combination of salad, sandwiches and hot food.  It was followed by a tasty fruit fool dessert whose description as "seasonal" did leave me wondering what would be in it given it was February.  Lunch also provided the opportunity to catch up with another governor at the event who also happens to be the person I replaced as Chair of the Andover Deanery Finance Committee last year.

Our final speaker was Sue Hackman, Chief Advisor on School Standards.    She also picked up on the theme of pupil progress and the gap in attainment between those getting free school meals and those who aren't.  Most of her time though was given over to a lively, anecdote rich, tour of various ideas that have been tried in schools and shown to work.  It was a talk delivered with real passion and rich with ideas.  I particularly liked her discussion on "tracking and tacking" stressing as it did not only the importance of knowing what progress individual pupils are making but the willingness to do something about it.  It's no good doing lots of data analysis to identify an underperforming group of students if you aren't prepared to do the "tacking" as well to change approach and try something else and hopefully make things better.

Overall it was a day filled with lots of thoughts and ideas and well worth the time invested to attend.  If I had to summarise it down to one theme it would be the importance of aspiration and the toxic effect of preconceived notions of what someone can achieve.  In the midst of all the data on "expected levels of progress" we need to take care that this doesn't become a limiting view on what heights a student could actually reach.

Now the challenge of working with my fellow governors to see what ideas we can take and apply to our own context begins....

My day with the BT call centre

It all started innocently enough, or so it seemed at the time, with a call to my broadband provider last Friday to ask them to move us onto an unlimited broadband plan instead of the capped one we were currently on.

Didn't seem like a request that would cause any problems and indeed the lady I spoke to was happy to take the request and entered the order onto their system to effect the change.

The problems started when I spotted late that night that the order didn't seem to quite reflect what I had asked for.  I was registered as a user of the "Infinity" broadband service which offers faster download rates than the base offering.  I was hence expecting to remain as an Infinity customer but simply move onto unlimited broadband.  The order however seemed to be moving me off the faster service and onto an unlimited service based on the slower broadband.

A call to their call centre on Saturday thus took place and I was told that there did indeed seem to be a mistake on the order and that it needed to be cancelled and I would have to phone back today to get it resubmitted.

Well that got us to today and a series of phone calls that burnt through a good sized chunk of my day.

Bottom line seems to be that I have now been moved onto an unlimited broadband package but not on the super fast broadband service - because it is not available yet in my area!!  Given that my bills for the last 8 months have stated that I was buying their faster Infinity service it is safe to say this explanation did come as something of a surprise to me.   I does though explain the events of the last few days.   It's all been referred on to another department to take a look into what has happened and sort it all out - so I can no doubt look forward to some more calls in the coming days.

All very strange but hopefully all will become clearer when they do the investigation.

On the plus side I should note that all of the people I have dealt with on the various calls about this to the helpline have come across as competent and pleasant to talk with - no small achievement I suspect given the problems I'm sure they get to deal with every day.

On the less positive side a call to the technical helpline regarding a problem accessing the internet security software that should come with the broadband service led to a 30 min phone call where they were unable to diagnose what was causing the issue.  They have helpfully escalated it to the next level of support to take a look at but sadly they operate on a model of calling the user at a time of their convenience which in my case it seems won't be until next Friday !  Not what I'd call a timely response.

Not wanting to finish on a negative I'll just add that the various calls ended with enough daylight left for me to head out into the darkening countryside and find the last of the goecaches in my 2012 challenge to find all of the ones within 5 miles of my house.  There are a couple where I have had to log "did not find" records but in both cases I am in good company with others similarly logging problems so I suspect they are no longer to be found and that's good enough for me to claim success on my challenge - and all done with a whole day to spare before the year is out.   Time to start thinking what to aim for in 2013.

 

Honesty - the next virtue from the good project

Last month I wrote a blog post for "The Good Project" on the virtue of Hope.  Reflecting on the experience I noted how knowing that I was going to write a blog post on the topic had given me a focus for thinking about the virtue as the month progressed and how it would be good to do the same in subsequent months.

Well, here we are in October and this month's virtue is "Honesty".  Once again there is an impressive range of contributions from a diverse set of writers. Well worth a few minutes of your time to get over to the University of Winchester Blog and look at the October entries.

Reading Kay Plante's blog earlier this week I came across a post on Creating an Authentic Brand that included this comment :-

"Leaderhip gurus Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner surveyed a diverse cross-section of people around the globe to identify leadership attributes that induce others to follow. They discovered that the first question that potential followers ask themselves when deciding whether or not to follow a “leader” is “Is this person honest, i.e., do I trust this person to be true to his word?
The same test holds true of company messages – “Do I trust what this company wants to tell me?” If companies do not back their promises with actions that deliver on those promises, trust is broken."

So I think we would all agree that honesty is an important attribute and something that we look for in others.  But what does it take to be "honest" is it simply a question of not telling a lie?

Whilst not telling lies is part of the story I think we quickly realise that this isn't all there is to honesty.  Some of the blog posts that have been posted this month address this and start to explore the wider question of what it takes to demonstrate honesty.  Sometimes honesty will require us to speak up and correct an untruth (irrespective of whether we told it).  Sometimes it will be about not allowing a mistaken view to prevail.

I think there is yet another dimension to it and Juliet Hancock talks in her blog post about the "willingness to admit weakness and to admit we don't have all the answers".  Here we have the idea that it's also about being honest with myself.  This is a theme that was also picked up by Hector Sants at the recent "Resetting the Business Agenda" symposium held at the Said Business school in Oxford.  As part of a panel discussion on "Regulation and Trust in Financial Markets" he talked about the need for honesty.  He elaborated that this wasn't just about not telling lies but also about avoiding self delusion.

Returning to the core issue of truthfulness I'll close with the question of the "white lie" - can there be such a thing?  is it ever right to lie?

Chambers defines white lie as "a minor falsehood, esp one uttered for reasons of tact". I'd like to propose that a lie is a lie is a lie.  To try and classify lies as "minor" begs the question on what basis should we evaluate them.  On the verge of uttering an untruth how can we possibly seek to assess the longer term impact of what we are about to say. One of my colleagues pointed me at a quote from Iain King in his book "How to make good decisions and be right all the time : solving the riddle of right and wrong".  He says "Deceive only if you can change behaviour in a way worth more than the trust you would loose, were the deception discovered (whether the deception actually is exposed or not)" Short term we may avoid some awkwardness through the "white" lie but longer term what is the cost?   No, I think the term "white lie" is actually a lie to ourselves (one no doubt we would argue as also falling in the "white" category) that we aren't actually doing something wrong.  We know that it's wrong to lie, we know we aren't a bad person, and hence it must follow that what I'm about to say can't be a real lie ... it must be something else... hence the mythical "white lie".

I'm with Martin Palethorpe and his exhortation that we strive to be well intentioned and what he calls "honest,  honest level 1".  It may not be easy, and we will often fall short, but it does seem to me to be the best course.

Geocaching milestone - it's another 3

From my geocaching account I can look back at my "Geocaching Milestones" - see below.

I'm sure there are some who would argue the 25th cache find is really no different from the 24th or the 26th but if you're going to pick some then why not these ones.

I'd spotted that coincidentally my 50th, 75th and 100th caches had all been the third in a series.  Respectively Barns 3 part of a circuit in the countryside north of Littleton, Ed's circuit 3 from a lovely walk round Compton. and Roman Road 3 from a decidedly more linear series of caches along one of the Roman roads heading out of Winchester.

As my 200th cache approached it seemed only fitting to try to arrange for that one to also be a 3.   I attempted to get there with a walk around part of the Hursley Circular trail but a failure to find one of the others in the series meant that  Hursley Circular 3 came in as my 199th find :-(

A trip to Little Up Somborne Wood and Clarendon 2-3 Bert 3 however came to my rescue and maintained the pattern.

Having kept it going for 4 milestones I suspect I may have created some pressure for myself in the coming months when we get to 300.....

Anyhow... that's probably sufficient text to ensure that the picture doesn't overlay the information on the right so here is the view of my milestone caches:

Some thoughts on the virtue of "Hope"

I was invited to write a guest blog post for "The Good Project" on the virtue of Hope and you can read what I wrote - here

So what's all this about I hear you ask...  well, The Good Project is a 1 year long initiative from the Hoare Centre for Responsible Leadership at the Winchester Business School.

For the next 12 months we will be invited to consider a series of different virtues.  Each month kicks off with a blog post from Karen, the project leader, to introduce that month's virtue.  For the next 3 weeks (or of course possibly 4 depending on exactly how the weeks split across the months) guest bloggers will pen their thoughts, providing a range of insights and hopefully leading to discussion.

I was invited to sign up for a couple of virtues and Hope was my first contribution.   You'll have to wait until March 2013 for my next formal contribution.

I've really enjoyed the process of reflecting on this month's virtue and am considering adding some thoughts on each of the virtues on this blog as the months go by - we'll see how that goes.

If you want to get involved then please do join the community and contribute to the discussion on Facebook, LinkedIn or via Twitter.