#TrustLeaders as change agents: shaping solutions together as we lead through challenging times – with James Plunkett, Maggie Farrar, and Sir Steve Lancashire
“I loved today. I need to sit in a dark room and have a big think, but know this is going to make a difference to our Trust and the future.”
A CEO member attending the event.
Introduction: Driving change, finding solutions, leading with hope
On 15 June 2023 we were delighted to welcome over 100 colleagues from across the country to the second annual National #TrustLeaders Symposium; once again bringing together individual members of Forum Strategy’s National CEO, COO and Education Executive Networks. The day was led by the inspirational James Plunkett, author of ‘End State: 9 ways society is broken and how we can fix it’, a former Number 10 and Cabinet Office adviser, former Executive Director for Citizens Advice, and currently Group Chief Practices Officer at Nesta.
The event was supported by Sir Steve Lancashire, Founder, and former CEO of REAch2 Academy Trust and now Chair of Forum’s National #TrustLeaders CEO Network; and expertly facilitated by Maggie Farrar, former Director for Leadership Development, and Interim Chief Executive at the National College for School Leadership. We were also delighted to welcome colleagues representing our partner organisations.
Alice Gregson, Forum’s Executive Director, opened the event by reminding colleagues of the theme for the day, considering how trust leaders can use their agency and power to keep driving change and to keep finding solutions to some of the most significant and hard-hitting challenges we are currently experiencing. Alice reflected that we live in an era of rising poverty amongst children; huge wellbeing challenges for children and staff; unprecedented recruitment and retention challenges; rampant inflation and costs squeezing budgets; and new, uncertain issues such as automation and artificial intelligence that are going to transform our economy and education systems. However, there is also cause for hope, as demonstrated by Forum’s recent research on the cost-of-living impact on trusts with our partners at The Key; with 45% of respondents acknowledging that there had been some positive outcomes from the crisis. Alice commented that the work colleagues would undertake during the day would be real system leadership – the coming together of those working within and for a system, to change and improve it from the inside out.
Maggie Farrar then set the scene for the Symposium, urging colleagues to think of the day as one of collectively exploring emergent work, rather than attempting to define absolute conclusions with set timelines – adopting a ‘beginner mind’ and becoming comfortable with not knowing all the answers. Maggie shared a quote from Jim Collins’ book ‘Good to Great’, which states that Level 5 leaders “hoover the brains of everyone they meet” and invited colleagues to spend the day doing the same! Maggie then introduced the three main themes for the day, through which colleagues would be guided by James (Plunkett):
- We have more agency than we think
- We should start with ethics not economics
- We need to rethink the organisation
