The etiquette of resigning, or how not to look like a twonk.

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DON’T start slagging your current employer off before you’ve left – no matter how much you may want to. You’re still employed, these people are still paying you and it makes you look like a petulant child.

DO turn up to work. You’ve given notice, ok, but you’re still bound by the Contract of Employment…that shiny document you signed when you were a bright-eyed hopeful new recruit. It still counts.

DON’T start throwing sickies. Think of your team mates, think of your colleagues. Yes, you’re leaving, but until you’re replaced you’re still letting the team down. And they’ll hate you for it.

DO remember that it is a “small world”. You never know who might know whom, when you might need a favour, or when you might end up face to face with one of these people again.

DON’T start talking about how you’re too “big for the job”. Nobody wants to hear it….and nobody believes it. The job is as big as you make it…you just gave up trying.

DO expect to work your notice. Unless you’re truly lucky you’re going to be held to the entire period that YOU signed up to. Make that your expectation…. anything else is a bonus.

DON’T try and turn your co-workers against the company to give you the confidence to justify your decision. They have to schlep in and out of work every day regardless of your decision. Leave them be to live their lives.

DO put as much effort in on the last day as you put in on the first day. It’s called personal dignity.

DON’T expect everyone/anyone to miss you. They’re moving on, just like you.

Bacc-ward thinking

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Yesterday’s announcement about the proposed new English Baccalaureate Certificate (EBaccs) fell with a thud of doom across my heart. The familiar reprise of raising standards, ringing in my ears.  I’ve written about education before and I’ll keep doing so. For those of us in the world of work need to pay attention to the world of education with a keen eye. This is our supply chain and we should be as interested and as vocal about it as we can be about any other aspect of work.

The proposed replacement of the often criticised GCSE exams has been long coming, but where there was an opportunity to really consider reform of the pre 16 education system, instead we have remained focussed on an outdated and depressingly archaic view of performance and attainment firmly shifting the dial from education to teaching.

Those that complain that the current system is about monkeys being taught tricks have merely changed the tricks.

Two years ago I was visiting prospective secondary schools with my son. In one, highly regarded, rather grand establishment we were treated to the Headmaster strutting from side to side on the stage telling us how they intended to “turn your young men into leaders” and the value they placed on “academic attainment”. In another the Headmaster explained that they “don’t place targets on the grades they expect to get and position in league tables, but instead on ensuring that every child fulfils their potential”.

In this, we highlight the difference the former is teaching, the latter is educating. And as UK plc we need to be educating our children, not teaching them to tick boxes.

In the same way that you don’t drive a performance culture by changing the competency rating system, you don’t drive educational performance by changing the exam system. Much is broken within our education system, teachers and head teachers are demoralised to the point that recruiting head teachers is becoming harder and harder and existing heads are being asked to take on more than one school. OFSTED is once again positioning itself as the Pythonesque Spanish Inquisition and the funding of individual schools is becoming increasingly complex and yet fragile in equal measure.

Educational reform should be focussed on ensuring that EVERY child fulfils their potential, that there is an educational offering that is engaging and exciting whatever your aptitude and interest. Educational reform should be focussed on ensuring that the very best talents are drawn into the profession and that we are entrusting the future success of our children and of the country as a whole with the most able people. Educational reform should be focussed education, on developing independent learners, not on teaching the performance of tricks – however hard those tricks are.

The EBacc is not the future for progressive education in the UK. The EBacc is not new thinking, is not radical, nor – in the long run – will it be effective in raising educational standards in comparison to other countries. A radical rethink would have seen the consideration of aptitude and interest assessments at say 14 and formal exams only at 18 (the end of compulsory education), a focus on both tailored vocational and academic learning, on teachers terms and conditions and on the structure of educational establishments.

With a resonance of depressing familiarity to the HR profession, these proposals try to change the culture and performance by tinkering with the shiny controllables at the end of the process, not the really hard, thorny issues that sit in the slightly grey opaque middle but that really make a difference. We’ve missed the latest opportunity to really rethink education and we will be poorer as a country and as individual businesses for it.

PS. if you want to know, my son goes to the second school. And the thing the Headmaster went on to explain, was that their focus on individual learning and performance was the reason that they were top of the exam tables for the county…..well ahead of the other school.

Permission to speak, Sir?

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Some conversation just “feel” harder to have than others. We all have one or two conversations that we need to have hanging around in our brains. We know we need to have them, but we don’t. We know we would be better for having them, but we have so many more important things to do.

Right?

I know, I have them too. Those issues that need to be tackled, those situations that need to be challenged, those problems that are….well problems, that you can’t quite face, but can’t quite live with. We’re walking around with a host of these things banging around in the dark recesses of our brains day in, day out.

Our lives our full, our days are jam-packed with situations that we deal with. But our quiet moments, our dreams, our nightmares are full of situations that we don’t deal with. Such is the complexity and intricacy of this existence that we call life. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t the whole package, but it is everything that we have and all that we will ever have.

The thing that makes these conversations tougher than the others, the thing that makes us hesitate, the thing that makes us put this back to another day, is permission.

Permission.

The conversations that we have are easy.

The conversations that we don’t have are hard.

That sounds simple, but in many cases it isn’t anything to do with the actual content there is something darker going on in the back of our little minds. There is something that stops us and it is the concept of permission. We don’t feel that we are able, we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, we don’t want to take the risk.

Yet we all know, that when we find the courage to speak out, when we find the focus to tackle these issues, when we manage to put our fears aside and open our mouths, well then things become a whole lot simpler.

Permission is a nonsense, permission is the crutch of inaction, permission is the excuse that stops you from starting your life. Permission is the kindling of the fire that will make you the person that you can and should be.

Set fire to permission, go ask the questions, go challenge the status quo. Go take a weight off your mind.

You know you’re worth it….and you know things will be better if you do.

“It’s not fair”

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The Olympics are only a few days away. For some this will induce a sigh of despair, for others a sense of excitement. For the many, many competitors this is their moment to compete on the world’s biggest stage and potentially to shine.  And for those that perform above and beyond anyone else, the ultimate prize, the medal, the media spotlight and the adulation of the watching crowds.

People like to see people win at sport.

People hate to see people win in life.

When we see a sportsman or woman stand on the podium, taking the ultimate prize, we talk about the hours of commitment, the sacrifices, the hard work and the talent. Yet when we see someone doing well in life, we talk about the fact that they must have got there by screwing others, the injustice, the fact that they are a “fat cat”.

I know life isn’t a level playing field. But neither is sport.

I can’t win the 100 meters final at the Olympics, I’m not going to score the winning goal in the FA cup final, and I’m not even going to get around the park in as quick a time as many. Does that make it unfair?

Is it unfair that Usain Bolt can run faster than me and therefore gets a goal medal and millions of dollars worth of endorsements?

Is it unfair that Didier Drogba scored in the final of both the FA Cup and the Champions League and secured a big money move to a club in China?

Is it unfair that you can run around the park quicker than me and therefore get to the pub first?

Next time you’re thinking about the guy with a bigger house, the girl who got the promotion ahead of you, or reading the reports about somebody else’s bonus, remember this: it isn’t unfair, they’re just doing better than you.

Work hard, do your best, fulfil your potential and your talent and stop looking on with envy at others. Whatever rewards that brings, if you’ve done your best that is all that matters. Respect the success of others, be gracious and, for the love of God, stop bleating on.