Building the Culture
CEO Thought for the Week
Hi Everyone!
I hope you’ve had a great week and you’re enjoying the brighter mornings and evenings as we slowly make our way towards Spring!
It’s been a busy week so far with visits to three schools, the induction of some new Trust colleagues and the creation of some exciting plans for the next academic year. It struck me over the course of these busy days how many different people we each encounter every day. Just think about it … how many children, colleagues and families do you have contact with each week not to mention your own family and friends outside of work. Each one of these interactions represents an opportunity. An opportunity to strengthen your relationships, reinforce your shared values and to show genuine interest in each other.
To put it another way every interaction we have with pupils, families and colleagues is an opportunity to either build or break the culture that we are growing within our Trust. There is no neutral position or option in these interactions. You either walk away from them feeling invested in, engaged with, and valued or you walk away feeling the opposite. So, we all must be mindful and thoughtful about our words, our actions, and our intent. How do we make sure that each time we have an interaction we’re not taking anything for granted but genuinely thinking about how we are building each other up and in turn strengthening our culture through positive reinforcement and celebration. That doesn’t mean we can’t have challenging conversations- we absolutely must! But people need to know we’re doing it from a place of wanting the best for each other and our children and that it’s about developing practice and procedure not criticising people. In other words, challenging conversations need to “progress the practice but protect the person”. It is our shared responsibility to keep building our culture to make Infinity a positive place to work where we celebrate each other, we challenge each other to improve, and we leave people feeling better because of the positive interactions they have.
I hope you have a great second half of the week!
Best Wishes
Gavin