Takeaways from Andy Buck's Session

We were very lucky to have Andy Buck in school just before half term to do some training/teambuilding for our senior leaders. The training took place between 6 and 8pm on a Thursday evening at the end of a long week, so I didn't have high hopes at the outset. But Andy smashed it -  I left with much to ponder and a renewed enthusiasm for my job.

Here are some of my takeaways:

1. PITHY - The best training is PITHY (full of practical ideas that help you).

2. BINGO - To keep the interest up if you suspect people might be flagging, try setting up a game of bingo which is woven into your whole session. Whenever someone answers a question, or otherwise moves things along and shows engagement, give them a number which it's their responsibility o note down. At the end of the presentation draw some of the numbers and award prizes accordingly. You can use a tally counter app on your phone to keep track of the numbers you've given out.

3. LEADERSHIP AND TEAMWORK EXERCISES:

• Ask the group to do this (which you will tell them only once):

I will tell you this only once. Arrange yourselves in a circle of equally spaced chairs such that none of you are more than 2 meters apart from each other. Go.

• Ask the group how they think they've done and what they could do better.
• Give someone in the group a pen. Ask them to throw it to someone else in the group, and so on until everyone in the circle has caught the pen and it's back at the starting person.
• Ask them to do this again but faster.
• Ask them to do this again but in reverse order.
• Give them a new pen such that they now have two (ideally of different colours) ask them to throw one in the forward direction around the circle and one in the backward direction.
• Change the rules - ask them to pass a pen around the circle from person to person as quickly as they can.
• Doing this should be a bit of fun, but also offers opportunities for discussing team dynamics, leadership, ideas, the difference between feedback and blame, and the dangers of anchoring.

4. THREE KEY ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP

• Future - setting the strategic direction
• Engage - build and sustain relationships
• Deliver - get things done

5. TRUST - An important component of leadership is getting people to trust you. Trust arises from:

6. BALANCE, BIGGER PICTURE - Leaders can very easily get caught up in busywork (tasks) but should aim for balance as this diagram shows:

7. KEEPING IT REAL - We all require four 'energies' in order to do our jobs properly:

• Emotional
• Physical
• Intellectual
• Spiritual

But the importance of these energies varies according to the type of job you do, as below: