2008 APPA Conference - Sydney

3. Dead Man Working - Dean Clifford, motivational speaker.

• The session title sums up his life. He was given no chance of living past age 5, as he was born with a very severe form of the skin condition epidermolysis bullosa, most commonly known as the "cotton wool kid" condition. He will have his 29th birthday in December 2008.
• Friends and family said that he always would succeed – they said that he was too stubborn to give in.
• But it has been a tough journey, with many risky, experimental procedures in early life. Tough times then.
• Now not on pain killers. Mentally, he has always been able to handle the pain without suffering too much and to recover quickly.
• He has to spend 3-4 hours each morning checking his skin and treating any new problem that has started. He uses ointments and other methods. That’s on a good day. On a bad day, he will have to use a scalpel to cut away any area that can’t be treated. Has to do that ritual every single day.
• It is a rare, genetic condition = 1 in 13 million. Both father and mother have to have the same genetic makeup – even then, there is a 75% chance of not getting it.
• Not something to be wished on anyone. But he is glad that he was the one. He has achieved almost everything he has wanted to do.
• But it was very tough growing up. Very tiring mentally, as he chose not to use pain killers. Greatest wish as a kid was to play like other kids. Acted as a coach, not as a player with his family and relatives.
• Learned very early that he had to adapt. Example: He had to change feet when kicking a ball in order to protect the skin.
• Was in a wheelchair for a time in late childhood. Very hard for him at that time ... needed help to be wheeled. Taabinga State School was not set up for wheelchairs. So he started to stay in the classroom the whole day. This was very hard for him – loved to be active and with other people. That was the price he had to pay.
  
• Results in class were fine – but that was not his priority. He worried more about the life and death situations that he faced – did not worry about school and tests, and he could not understand what the big deal was for the others.
  
• Did take part in 1 school athletics carnival in Year 4 – 6 months later was wheelchair bound – his skin can change that fast.
  
• Completed Year 10. Decided that was enough school.
• No one knew what and if he could achieve. Was invited to a couple of businesses in the local community, and he did a couple of hours each week. One was the local radio station  - started at 1 hour a week. Soon his computer skills were noticed – worked on their computers for 3 hours a week. Then put on as their computer person 3 days each week – first paid work.
• Soon, he was on the air, co-hosting the breakfast show. Also, he became the station's on air controller / producer. Then he did some copywriting of ads and did the production studio's sound effects. Had a great time. Big fish in a small pond.
• He was thriving on all the challenges. Other people were not fearful of him any longer. They got to know him. That was in Kingaroy, a small town. But in other places, people would “freak out” at him. Worried his family more than him. People left the shops sometimes when he entered.
• Year 2000 – he was an Olympic torch bearer. Also got his car without any modifications. Wanted to get out of the wheelchair, but no one could get him to walk, no matter what methods they used. He tried a treadmill, but his skin was damaged by it – but he persevered and managed it eventually. He had to do 650 metres with the Olympic torch. He wanted to do that on his feet, not in his wheelchair. He actually did the walk pain free – first and only time. Unbelievable day for him.
• By end of 2000, he was desperate for more challenges. Decided to move to Brisbane. Did so. Went from the highs of 2000 to the worst lows ever in 2001 – his worst year ever. Everything he tried turned to disaster. No one would employ him – for reasons such as OH&S, illness, worry about  injury. No one would take a chance on employing him.
  
• At the end of 2001, he was very low, and he was almost flat broke. His will to achieve and succeed was gone. He moved back home in October 2001, and he spent the next year at home just thinking about what went wrong.
• Started to put plans together and talked with his close friends.
• Came up with 5 keys:
  • Changed his attitude.
  • Got rid of the negativity. Got rid of the doom and gloom. Zero negativity policy.
  • Allowed himself to dream again. Wanted some small dreams that he could achieve this week and then some long term ones and then some "impossible" ones. Achieved the little ones – like finding a sport – table tennis works for him. Is very competitive.
  • Believing in himself, deep down and knowing it. Hard to do when he had been so low.
  • Surround himself with people who would be there for him and let him try things – positive people with a will to succeed. Started to implement his ideas and find employment. Local Toyota dealership agreed to take him on a trial basis in a clerical role – quickly became their business and marketing development officer. Thrived on that.
• His parents moved to Brisbane. He still needed their support. He told his boss that he needed to go. His boss set him up to work from his home in Brisbane. And he still does that work.
• Then one day told his boss about his aim to help others in difficult circumstances, like him. His boss set up his first job in that speaking role. He told his boss that he was too young. No excuses were allowed. That was in 2003. By 2005, he became a national speaker. Demand spread to a level where he is now talking with all age groups.
• He told about his work with Brad Thorne, a Brisbane Broncos rugby league player (dual international) on his strength and gym work. He has progressed greatly - now at 115kg on the bench press. Still works with Brad by speaker phone when Brad is in New Zealand.
• 2005 – Toyota became his personal sponsor. They upgraded their sponsorship in 2006.
• 2005 – inducted as the Brisbane Broncos Ambassador. Attended 6 Grand Final victories.
• He is a very humble person. But he has achieved amazing things through his determination.
• “If I can achieve all this, with all the different hats that I wear, then what is stopping everybody else. The sky’s the limit.”
• He has a life motto that he now uses in wristband form. Text reads: “Dean Clifford, Courage & Determination to Never Admit Defeat!”
• He has put everything into achieving everything that he possibly can. Squeezes the most out of every day, to the extent that there is nothing left.
• His theory = "every second is the future waiting to happen. The worst that can happen is that you learn more about yourself, as long as you let yourself learn."

• Has observed in the past few years that APPA has grown from strength to strength. On education issues re primary schools, APPA is the voice of the progression. Its voice is now listened to by Ministers.
  
• As important as the state associations are, the future of primary education is in the hands of COAG, so to have a national voice in the education debate, there must be a strong, coherent voice such as APPA’s.
• A year ago, the In the Balance report was about to be published. He hoped that it would start to change the balance in funding. But even though it provided the evidence needed by government to take primary education seriously, why did it not succeed?
• It shows that there is still more work to be done.
• "You need to form a view on what I am going to say."
• Historically,the idea of “climbing the educational ladder” came from the nineteenth century. Britain needed an educational system that allowed young people to climb from the gutter to the top by the use of the "educational ladder". Mark Latham talked about this a few years ago. Primary to secondary to tertiary education formed the ladder.
• In the early days, governments spent about 1 pound on secondary and half a pound on primary – it cost more to get teachers for matriculation classes. That formula became set in stone, and much of that is still present today. See the table on page 1 of the paper.
• “Funding formulae are a succinct way of expressing educational values. Brian Caldwell and Peter Hill described the funding model designed to support the educational reforms in Victoria during the 1990s known as Schools of the future.3 The funding formula weightings are shown in Table 1 alongside a shorthand explanation of their basis. In this model Years 2-4 receive the base level of funding. The initial two years of schooling receive a slightly higher level to accommodate the costs of smaller class sizes and specialist tutoring for students struggling with their reading. During Years 5-8 (sometimes known as the ‘middle years’), additional support is built into the model to pay for extra assessment, preparation time and smaller classes that are thought to be required by these teachers. By Year 12 the university entrance curriculum requirements drive up school costs; many schools are required to operate very small classes in key matriculation subjects.”
• Is that what schools actually need, or what is thought that should happen?
• Is it harder to teach Year 12 Chemistry than to teach Reading to Year 1?
• Table 2 in the paper is the current Victorian model for funding. “Table 2 shows the 2008 student per capita funding formula used to provide the bulk of school recurrent funding. The table shows how levels of funding are related to year levels. The Victorian guidelines explain that ‘research conducted by the University of Melbourne has allowed the differing costs associated with delivering effective educational outcomes at the various levels of learning to be recognised by differing rates’. To its credit, the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, when considered in relation to other education systems, is quite transparent in how it calculates a school’s entitlement.”
• This has led to wide gaps between funding of students in primary and secondary schools – different gaps in different systems.
• The Commonwealth has followed the same sort of thinking. Calculated on basis of how much was spent the year before + 10% extra for secondary and 8.9% for primary – no logical reason for the difference.
• Differentials were thus built into the funding models based on things that are no longer current. These have to be addressed.
• Table 4 = the complete funding table, except for pre-school.
• Internationally, the OECD's Education at a Glance report is produced each year – can get it from their website.
• How does Australia compare on the three indices:
  • Convert how much per is spent per student to US $. Australia spends about average = 14th out of 28.
  • How much is spent as a proportion of their GDP? Australia falls below average = 20th out of 28.
  • Gap between secondary and primary = 20th out of 28.
• Meaning? We don’t spend as much as other OECD countries, even though we want to be competitive with the other countries.
• 4 countries spend more on primary = Iceland, Slovak Republic, Poland, Hungary.
• The point is that we do well as a result of what we do spend, but we could do better if we spent more. But that evidence and argument has not persuaded the community that spending more would be a good investment.
• Why aren’t we giving a higher priority to primary education funding?
• Lots of reasons, but take 3.
• 1. Problem of scale – there are so many primary schools. If we increase the spending across the 7,000 schools, it would a very large figure. 1,969,000 students. To increase spending by 1% would take $150M. would cost $4-6 billion to bring primary spending into line with secondary spending. So governments introduce targeted programs, give out a little bit, and hope it makes a difference.
• 2. Lot of scepticism that spending more money would make much of a difference to outcomes. Seems to have some substance behind that argument. In 1985 there was the Karmel review on what had been the impact of the 10 years of extra funding on education in the Whitlam period = the increase doubled the % of GDP. Karmel could not see any evidence that the extra funding had improved the performance of students.
• Table 6 = Reading benchmark results = shows that not made much headway, even though the level of funding increased in primary schools. Lots of evidence that seem to show that sort of thing. Similar results from longer experience in the USA. “Data from the US spanning a much longer time period shows a more decisive picture. Eric Hanushek reports that in the US between 1960 and 2000, pupil-teacher ratios fell by almost 40 per cent and real expenditures per pupil more than tripled over the same period. Yet during 1970 -1999 reading and mathematics performance for 17 year-old Americans rose only slightly. Hanushek concludes that there is no evidence that the added resources have improved student performance over this period. It follows, according to Hanushek, that funding policies that increase inputs should show how the extra resources would be used more effectively than in the past.”
• That view, held by economists, is a problem. They believe that they can improve schools without extra funding.
• 3. So what do we know about what would work? What would make a difference? Say Julia Gillard asked APPA what the extra money should be spent on and would show improved outcomes.
• Then there were several minutes for group chat. Then got some comments from audience using microphones:
  • What area of GDP spending would be cut back to give education more?
  • What part is private spending, and what is coming from other sources, and what is coming from government to give us our GDP?
  • Seem to be basing educational gains on the results of the Year 5 test, but a lot of things in schools are intangible. Why are we falling into the trap of pandering to the economists’ view of the world? Angus = We need to be inside the tent to get to be part of the debate about funding. So we need to play their game and get inside the tent and then provide our full arguments. Use the Year 5 test because it gives consistent results. 
• In a tricky situation. If we don’t participate in the debate, even if we have no part in setting the rules, we will be ignored.
• Can’t set up a single funding program that will produce the better outcomes for all students – every student has different needs. Have to enhance the capacity of schools to work through the individual problems that they have. Every principal interviewed had answers if they had funding. So national targeted programs won’t work – every school needs a different program.
• In In The Balance, we said that we need a new narrative for primary schooling. Narrative = a simple, concentrated, compelling argument that provides direction for what the government needs to do – what we need for primary schools. Needs to be an elevator speech. Needs to be short. Very little chance for nuance or subtlety. Has to be repeated time and time again so that it sinks into people’s minds.
• What is the current primary narrative? He thinks it is as follows = “Primary schools basically do a pretty good job for most children. Of course teaching is easier in primary schools because the children are naturally eager to learn. Also, the curriculum isn’t as demanding. Just about anyone could teach it. There are, however, a small number of children who need extra help if they are to get off to a good start. Therefore governments should resource the first year or two a bit more generously than the other years. This way we can be sure that all children are well prepared for the serious work ahead of them in high school.”
• So we have to change that view of primary education with a new narrative.
• The signs of a new narrative can be found in the narrative about the early years. See Maxine McKew’s speech quoted in the paper. Such a narrative legitimises investment.
• “Nobel Prize winners back this story. It makes sense to economists. It arouses emotional feelings in regard to fairness and responsibility for children. It transcends party-political differences. Such a narrative legitimates investment. The early years narrative was not dreamed up late one night. If you examine documents of a decade ago, the same story is being told. The more often it has been repeated, and the broader the constituency of support from leading Australians the more authenticated and cogent it has become. It was only a matter of time before the Prime Minister would adopt the narrative as the Government’s own. The narrative now appears in government budget papers, policy statements and speeches.”
• They have sold that narrative to government. So the question is: what is the new narrative for primary schooling?
• 4 core ideas (pages 5 on):

1. Refer to “middle childhood”, not the middle years of schooling. It is the period that kids spend in primary schools.
2. Adopt the argument of “return on investment” that has been so successfully used by the early years proponents. See the graph on page 6. It is better to deal with a problem early on than to remediate it later.
3. Use the concept of “closing the achievement gap”. This would help reduce the “long tail” in Australia’s results, as shown by international testing programs such as PISA. He used the Figure on page 6 to show that the gap grows as kids move through their schooling.
4. Argue for “sustained intervention”. Intervention just in Year 1 does not solve a problem in the long term. See the Finland graph (Figure 3).

• So what would the narrative look like?
• Suggestion = “It is important that all Australian children acquire the academic and social foundations for success in later life. Unfortunately there are widening gaps in performance as children progress from Year 1 to Year 7. Children from low socio-economic backgrounds are especially a risk. Nobel prize winners have shown that it is better to invest in helping children failing to make satisfactory progress early in their schooling yet we concentrate our resources on the last few years of high school and seriously neglect the formative years of primary school. If our school systems are to become the best in the world then we need to restructure our pattern of investment. All the good work that is being planned for the early years of childhood will come to nothing if the effort is not sustained.”
• Note what is not in the narrative. Nothing about the past, not just about inputs, not about envy of others. It is about what needs to be done to produce the results that everyone wants for the future.
• Then he made some conclusions (as in the paper) and took some more comments.

• Two most important things in his life are his daughter (in a government primary school) and his son (starts there next year).
• Biochemist by training. 7 years at university. Drug and alcohol counsellor at Long Bay Jail for a time. Motivational speaker for last 10 years.
• Have to be proud about positions of inspirational leadership – which is what principals do every day.
• "What do you think of sceptics?" He loves them. Because when you turn one, they become evangelists. Zero tolerance for cynics who are idealists who have had their hopes crushed. "They are like poison to the rest of us – and surely they would not be in charge of our future."
• "How exciting have you been you to be around in the past 30 days? How inspiring are you?" The second can not be greater than the first = deluded if it was? "You can’t inspire others to a greater level than you are inspired."
• He wants to make sure that we exert influence over our futures. "You are future makers, not future takers. Most people are future takers."
• "Computers should not be in schools. That is just my opinion."
• Wants to teach us palm reading, as we need to be able to read the future.
• Do you have a life line (on your hand)? Amateurs look at the length of the line and think that a long one is a sign of a long life, but it is more a landmark that shows the secondary life line that is closer to the thumb.
• "Do character or integrity make a good leader?"
• Highly intelligent people = deep intelligence line.
• "But how smart you are counts for only 4% of future success. Passion wins every time – cynicism kills passion."
• "100 conferences with just 1 theme: the degree to which you light up and light up others."
• 3 behaviour principles that make you healthy"
  • Fix how you feel. Control your feelings. Anti-depressive medications have tripled in the age under 15, and doubled over that age. 30% of depressives need it – they do not make enough serotonin; the rest do not need it – they just use it because they are too lazy to control their feelings. Every feeling is driven by a chemical, so find the chemical and either replace it or fix it. Sleep, food and thought will fix how you feel.
  • Get the right mindset. Perform more, deliver more. Talk about performance is rubbish if your chemical balance is wrong.
  • Rely on others. The problem with talent is that talent is not enough. The talented think they are stars.
• Society does not give incentives to the talented ones.
• Insulin = "slow it down" (are you getting the right fuels).
  
• Melatonin = get it @ night.
  
• Cortisol = get rid of it.
  
• Serotonin = get more.
  
• Adrenalin = save it.
  
• The last two are the key drivers = need both of them to keep the body running properly.
• Adrenalin = natural occurring "rush drug". We each get 3 hours of it each day, every day, whether we need it or not. 3 molecules off cocaine. Appropriate use of adrenalin = for him, this presentation hour. Adrenalin junkies push the green button more than once at traffic lights; carry 20 grocery bags rather than make 2 trips. It renews every day, and we get only 3 hours.
• Serotonin – much harder to get. Lives in your brain. Keeps you calm under crisis. Jump out of bed refreshed in the morning. Prozac elevates serotonin over 21 days. But so does your diet and sleep – lifestyle pattern. Fix your lifestyle and stay off the Prozac.
  
• His website is www.mattchurch.com.
  • Password = inspired. Can complete the quiz online for free.
  • 3 hours presentation on this presentation – PowerPoint with mp3 file.
• Don’t sleep with a pet animal; they heat up the bed too much. Your deep internal temperature has to be low to sleep properly.
  
• Your brain responds to dark. 10-12 hours sleep was the average before Edison invented the electric light. Length is not important; depth is. Or drink heaps of water before 1 pm.
• Gregorian chant = "Water at night. Makes you go to the loo. Water in the day. Helps you sleep through."
• "Every time you go to the loo at night, your core temperature drops. That’s why you shiver when you go to the loo. If you don’t drink coffee or alcohol, your wee will be cold."
• Food. "Why are vegetarians generally miserable? We did not get to the top of the food chain to eat broccoli. When you eat meat, your brain manufactures serotonin (from tryptophane)." Most in red meat, so eat it 1 time each week. Then eat fish 4 times a week. Eat sugar twice a day - 4 hours after waking up and 8 hours after waking up. 40 gm of sugar at point 1 and again at point 2. Insulin responds – pushes protein out of the blood into the brain. Need a sharp hit of sugar – 10 jelly beans, jubes, 1 King Cobra. Also banana + white bread + 1 tsp sugar.
• Eat stinky smelly fish through the week – salmon, anchovies.
• Principles of good parenting = Optimism is essential. Responsibility is yours. Gratitude is a habit. Need these sorts of kids. Can prevent depression.
• Tells his audience to write down 20 things that they are grateful for – does that before putting them on anti-depression tablets. Gets them to focus on those things.
• "Optimism is hope in the presence of adversity. Not the absence of adversity."
• Website =parentingideas.com.au
• Kids in Johannesburg are dying of HIV/AIDS because no one will touch them. They have the drugs, but they have no one to hug them. Qantas staff credit union started a program 9 years ago to go there and hug the kids. Now they have kids who are 8 eight years old. "Human beings are kept alive by being in a community and with people who care."
• Taxi driver's secret to a happy marriage = "Treat your partner like your girlfriend."
• "Never ask for sex. Always seduce. The art of giving people what they want until they give you what you want."
• "When you’ve got talent, you can sing. When you haven’t, join a choir. Enthusiasm and collaboration fixes talent."
• U2 and Bono song – One Love One Life. He and the audience sang it to finish the session.
  
• Lyrics:

• So be inspired.

• He established the first NZ program for new principals in all systems and sectors at the University of Auckland.
• "Relationships are at the core of your role as school leader."
• "What is a quality relationship? How do we know that it is? And how can that be connected to student outcomes?"
• "Never say never"
• In 2003, the Fog of War won the Academy Award for Best Movie. It was about the career of Robert McNamara, the Secretary for Defence for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. McNamara describes 11 lessons of leadership. 58,000 Americans and 3.5 million Vietnam civilians die. He believed that the Vietnam war could have been avoided. Conversations could have avoided the war. In 1995, he went to Vietnam, and met his counterpart. Talked with each other. The Vietnamese Minister said that they were fighting for their independence. The Americans had never checked the assumptions – they were actually there for the wrong reasons.
• "Have you got 'Vietnams' in your school? Crises that are escalating because one side will never give in. When you say never, you dig deep holes for yourself." Research backs up this view.
• "Lead by knowing what works – it’s inspiring to others as well."
• Viviane Robertson – writer on the best evidence synthesis project on educational leadership. She worked with Chris Argyris and Donald Schon. They pioneered research into the sorts of relationships that work best in organisations. Interpersonal effectiveness. Need to reflect on your interpersonal style – do you demonstrate good interpersonal effectiveness?
• Leadership – your leadership, your core business, not leadership in the generic sense.
• In NZ, the school reforms in the late 1980s and 1990s reforms were mainly on administration, with very little improvement in student outcomes. NZ is a high performing low equity country on the OECD measures, like Australia.
• Richard Elmore quote from 2006 – "In an institutional structure in which the governance of schools is increasingly defined by accountability for performance, leadership is the practice of instructional improvement – like it or not." Two parts to that quote – accountability (not to the system) and practice (what educational practices make the most difference to student outcomes).
• We do know what the best practices are – see the photo of the graph on dimensions of effective leadership – Viviane Robertson’s study. If over 3.5 the influence gets stronger. So No. 4 on the graph is the big winner.
• The five columns in that graph relate to:
  

1. Annual goals and strategic goals are arrived at collaboratively, and everyone works on them and understands them and works towards achieving them.
2. When you make critical decisions, you can say no to people if their goals are not aligned with the school’s annual goals.
3. Aligning teacher evaluation and appraisal and curriculum delivery to the goals. Doctoral research project found that in NZ 5% of all performance interviews talked about student outcomes – what would your level be?
4. Principal's role as being on the balcony and on the dance floor. About designing professional learning programs that are aligned to the goals and that you are actively participating with your teachers in that professional learning. Principals often don’t participate; they must, to get the best outcomes. They are then understand their challenges and can support them. Plus linked to that is your own professional reading. How can you fuel the improvement discussions if you don’t read new professional literature. “Leaders must be readers too.”
5. In classrooms and around the school, that there is a sense of an orderly supportive environment.

• "They will give you the big bang for your buck if your wrap them all up together."
• Website = www.educationcounts.govt.nz/themes/BES
• Sitting under those dimensions are the relationships that operate in your school. They are:

1. The big focus of educational leadership is pedagogical leadership. You need deep knowledge about world-class research about what is first class effective pedagogy. And talking with your teachers about them.
2. Analysing and solving complex problems. Should not leap to the conclusion before analysing the situation/problem deeply. Might need to shift the focus of your leadership team discussions.
3. Building relational trust. Gaining the trust through demonstrating that you do these things.
4. Being open to learning conversations. Inquiring into the views of others and vice versa. Openly disclosing your views. Need to be a two-way inquiry.

• Graham Nuttall – The Hidden Lives of Learners (book). About pedagogical leadership and what is effective teaching. Research worked on in classrooms in the 1990s – filmed, audio, video, interviews. Found that focus needs to move from what teachers are doing to what is the learning process of the kids and what they had learned. Huge mismatch between the theory of the teacher and what the kids actually learned. “If we don’t understand that, and focus on the learning, we are focusing on the wrong thing.”
• We have non-discussables in many schools.
• Courage is not the absence of fear – it’s moving beyond it. Roland Barth quote – see the photo. What are the land-mines in your school, e.g. a senior teacher who is not performing – but it can’t be talked about. What are the tough issues in your schools and what stops you tackling them?
• Two dimensions to the underpinning of the non-discussables. Making progress with the issue/problem and maintaining the relationship. Usually keep the relationship rather than tackle the task. See the photo. If we have the conversation, there could be major fallout. So how do we react? Hold controlling conversations – e.g. hard control = I’ll tell them straight, and they’ll get the message. But does not work when we are dealing with relationships that matter. Soft conversations = no agreed solution – focus on the relationship, not the task. So hw do we make progress?
• Nothing is black or white. 7 steps in the problem solving conversation.
  
  • State the concern.
    
  • Explain how arrive at that concern.
    
  • Invite the other person to do the same.
    
  • Check you have understood each other’s point of view.
    
  • Detect and check important assumptions.
    
  • Establish common ground about what you both want.
    
  • Plan to get what you both want.
    
• This is an "open-to-learning" conversation. Both parties are learning during the conversation about the other’s views and beliefs and wants. Also used the ladder of inference. Makes the thinking transparent. Make inferences as part of human nature – need to clarify those inferences and describe what informs the thinking that leads to the conclusion / belief. Otherwise, always stay at the top of the ladder about what we each think the problem is, and there is no agreement at the end. (www.systems-thinking.org/loi/loi.htm - developed first by Argyris and then used in Senge)
• How to make the ladder stronger.
  
• Lead by doing right – to and for others. Randy Pausch’s last lecture - YouTube. wwwthelastlecture.com – talks about the importance of putting on your own oxygen mask before your own. Need to be clear about our own core values before evaluating others.
• So how do we do this? Do not do it by bypassing – when we don’t want to explore the other’s views / theory about what the problem is. Do it by engaging them.
• The instrument of leadership is self. 
• In Praise of Slow – book by Carl Honore.
  
• Where to from here? 2 approaches:

1. Alien Song – a 1999 video clip where the little guy gets squished. Is that you?
2. “We cannot settle for average.” Must have high expectations. At the end of the day, we are there for the young people in the school, not for the adults.

• Research can help shift practice to get improvement.

• The Health system does not do much in this area. "We leave it to others. The significance of mental health and its implications for society and schooling is not recognised fully by the health system."
• Pre-school screening announcement is a very welcome step by the Australian Government. But the possible increased need that the screening program might identify is not yet matched with increased resources. Probably will fall back onto schools to do something about it – as usual.
• Need to know a lot more in the youth mental health area.
• Graph 1 – biggest health-related disability – the biggest reason why young people can not do their best work. 27% of the health problems; but only 8% of the expenditure. We still have a physical health system, not a health care system; it is a health intervention system.
  
• Young people with mental health issues end up as people on their own as adults, incapable of working to their potential, and incapable of being fully independent.
  
• It is an investment question; it is not about the cost of doing something but about the cost of not doing something. Needs to be an economic argument to get attention. See slide 4 – 60% of young people’s health issues. The system starts spending money on the issue at about age 42.
• Still very little understanding of young people in trouble – still a blame society in this area. It is their own fault; it is the parent’s fault; it is the school’s fault; etc.
• Medicalising social problems/difficulties. Populist response is to penalise rather than treat.
• Slide 7 – report – healthier than they ever were. But that is about the physical problems, e.g. polio. Except for their mental health, which is not so good.
  
• So can there be good health without good mental health? No.
• Slide 8 – mental issues are the main cause of death in young people.
• When do the problems start? 2 key points:
  • At birth. Some kids are born with major health problems, e.g. autism (can use eye tests), physical disabilities. Lot of stuff develops at close to birth. Old science = we have all the nerves when we are born that we will ever have. New science = new cells form all through life, with new connections being formed all the time. Sociology has a major impact. Primary school is the best place to be – better than wholly with parents. Lots of behaviourial problems settle down when they get to school – because of cognitive stimuli, interaction with others, etc. That time is also a great opportunity for intervention. That would help them get the maximum benefit from their schooling. But that does not usually happen – leave it to the teachers.
  • When they leave school. All the social problems of drugs, violence, etc.
• No simplistic nature here – e.g. nature vs nurture. It is a complex issue. Slide 10. Complexity means that there are many opportunities for intervention, even though it makes it hard to give simple answers. The challenge is the timing and sort of intervention.
• The biology is not fixed. It changes all the time, and it can be changed. Experiments re using a nasal spray that gets autistic kids to look their parents in the eye.
• Brain development is not over in youth; it is not over at adolescence. The brain is still growing. Adults have a mature brain. Adolescents make more words, but the adult's argument is more considered. Whole process is dynamic and active. Simple bits of the brain mature earlier; the thinking bits take longer. Lots can happen along the way that makes it good or bad. Education, lots of people – all are good. Home schooling is bad. Need enrichment, challenging environment. Plus the basic needs of food, water, etc. It is a continuous process that can be enhanced or damaged by what happens.
• Great chunks of what we learned years ago were either wrong or misguided.
• 2 critical phases after birth:
  • See slide 13 – synaptic development. Pre-school and school time of development. Interaction with the world determines the development of the young person.
  • Adolescence. Brain starts to put things in order – rationalisation. Loss of some synaptic connections. Some things now happen automatically – after repetition in younger years. The things that keep the connections going are work and education. See the graph in later life.
• Preventing is also changing now. Some key factors why more mental health problems:
  • Most important – kids spend less time in the company of other functioning adults. We are now paying the price of that. Has to happen throughout life. Slide 15.
  • Need role models, including male role models, in schools and families. Need maximum exposure in safe ways to the different ways of doing things. Need diversity. Not happening in wider society, so demand that schools do it – and they are not.
• Have to have good mental health to perform well at school and with others.
• System can only deal with the worst cases. But large amounts of disability come on early and quickly. By the time they get into the health system, they are in a bad condition. And the health system is not a health care system – it wants to have the least time with the person.
• Need a system to pick up issues earlier and deal with them. Might forestall major problems.
• Programs that talk about getting good advice (e.g. Triple P – Matt Saunders) – most are aimed at parents. Also need to be aimed at teachers and family doctors. Need to find out what is good to do and spread that information widely. One problem is anxiety (boys in primary school) – usual response is to be a helicopter parent and protect them more – wrong (makes them more anxious) – should help them explore their world and help them through it. The world is making more bogey men – e.g. men travelling alone might be pedophiles. Letting kids get out of public speaking because they are anxious about it is wrong. Protecting them is perpetuating the anxious behaviour in other situations.
• Problem of who can touch kids. Can the kids decide?
• Risk aversion vs risk management. Doing anything is a risk.
• Slide 23 – only a third access services. But there are no more services than there were 10 years ago. The least well-served is childhood. So the problems are worse when they get to adulthood. The health system is wary about intervening too early, because kids develop at different rates – what should they be able to do at what age is impossible to be firm about. So we wait until it is too late.
• Slide 27 – things are being done. Have a good idea about what we should do. Should work with other groups in the area.
• Slide 29 – suicide attempts before and after treatment. Once the health sector gets engaged, they can do things that work.
• Know a lot more about what happens with depression. Slide 31.
• Slide 32 – treatment of ADHD. Lots of change in recent times. This one in the past week only.
• Slide 33 – another very recent study.
• Now have sets of longitude intervention studies. Significant early intervention produces long-term good outcomes.
• Slide 35 – using ICT with young people to help them in appropriate social environments. Lots online now, even for young kids, that can be used with good supervision.
• Knowing more about these things is critical. Getting them out there in accessible ways – e.g. Women’s Weekly publication.
• Conclusions:
• See slide 39. Increasing awareness by governments that action in this area will have good outcomes. Educational environment is the place where these will probably be delivered because society is struggling to do it.
• Q&A:
• When does adolescence start? At onset of puberty. Can be from 9 to 15. So can’t set up social systems (physical, cognitive, emotional) like schools to be the same for all kids. Currently work from average ages.
• Autism is a growth industry. Gets mixed messages from doctors. What are good resources to help us work with kids? It is not a rare disorder; it is a large spectrum disorder. What interventions are good are hotly contestable and poorly studied. Can range from doing nothing (bad) to XXXXXX. It is not clear what should be done with any particular child. Get good early description of the level of the disorder that the child has. Not a lot of consensus. Still at phase of awareness of the problem and sorting out what is best to do. Most of what can be done with certainty is to maximize their socialisation – an inclusive system. Evidence is stronger for inclusiveness than for any specific program. Should be clearer in 2-5 years time. Anything that is expensive and goes on for a long time and makes very strong claims is probably not good. The value of the pre-school evaluation scheme should be very high. High intervention at pre-school years might have good outcomes – more controlled environment than at school.
  

• From the time he left school, he wanted to go overseas. Did so when he was 22 in 1962. Ended up in Istanbul, Turkey with no money. Got to London and stayed at a cheap B&B. Planned to work for a while and go to Europe. Had enough money to take a weekend bus tour to Paris. Was blown away by Paris. Could not wait to get back. Had only GBP 25, but he had an idea.
  
• Everyone has ideas. The secret is to make them happen. Figured that he could do see Europe with a few people, and do it cheaply. Worked out a 12-week itinerary. Found a 12-seater minibus with a roof rack. Worked out the costs for everyone and divided by 11. Went to the Overseas Visitors Club and put up a notice about the tour. Filled the bus in the next week. Had a couple of people left over, so he decided to do a second one – and filled that one. 29 April 1962 – set off. He never doubted that he could do it successfully. Had never even driven in Europe before that.
• The second one had 11 girls. Also for 12 weeks to the day.
• All through his life, he took risks. But he always had a fallback position. If you want to achieve exceptional results, you must be prepared to take risks. Give things a go. If you don’t try, you’ll never know. Might fall over many times, but learn the lessons from that, and try again.
• Learned about word-of-mouth advertising. The people from the first two talked to others. Put up his notice again – filled the two trips for the next year. So he got another vehicle and filled that. His best friend (also from Wellington) was also John. Had trouble getting him to help out – then told him about the number of girls. He flew to London.
• The brand is the company’s biggest asset.
• Had 28 competitors within a few years. His drivers and passengers left him and started their own tours like his.
• Your health is your other great asset.
• His first business plan was to "Contiki-ise" the world. He had put down a blueprint.
  • What are your long term objectives?
  • What are your personal objectives this year.
  • What are your business objectives for this year.
  • What are your business objectives for next year?
  • How am I going to get there?
• Then started with bigger buses – saved on drivers.
• There is no substitute for quality and excellence. Sold the poor-quality Bedford buses and the minibuses and bought his first Mercedes coach. Went the quality route. Passengers and drivers loved them. From then on, always used the best coaches, best drivers, best buses, best legal advice, etc etc. Constantly innovated – new types of tours, etc etc. Everything he did, others copied, except they did not go the quality route. But that did not get rid of them – he just helped grow the market.
• So he decided to make it unique – the point of difference.
• He planned to set up 20 pyramid tent villages around Europe. The knockers came out of the woodwork and told him why that could not be done. Talked it through. They liked the idea but not the practice. He believed so strongly in it that others in the company started to believe it too. Then they decided to give it a go.
• Then changed from I to WE in the business. Had great support from his wife of now 39 years. Plus the team that he was building around him.
• Had got permission from the 20 cities by the start of the next year. Manufactured 2000 tents in France. Set them up. The passengers did not have to ever put up a tent.
• When you set out together to achieve an objective that everyone thought could not be done, it does great things to the culture of the organisation. More than doubled their passenger numbers that year.
• Always be a leader, never a follower. So kept coming up with new ideas for tours.
• 2 things that made them a success – believed in the product that they were creating, and in the brand and themselves.
• When you negotiate for something, always put yourself in the other party's shoes. If you can satisfy their needs first, then there is a good chance that you’ll get what you want.
• Give your staff a challenge far greater than you think that they can achieve. You will be blown away by what they can do. Give them opportunity to prove that they have more in them. And they like to be recognised for what they have done.
• Moved into America. Could not find a coach to their standard. Had it built in Belgium and shipped over. Ended up selling coaches to the Americans.
• Young people love to experience things together.
• Have built the operation in 25 years to a fully global 24/7 business.
• You don’t have a business unless you can sell your product at a profit. Did a lot of research.
• School’s customers are the parents. Need to get down deep and find out what they really think about your school. Used to put a mystery (mole) passenger on their tours to find out that information.
• Also got uni students to go on the tours and interview the Australians and New Zealanders incognito.
• You need to know what is happening on the coal face.
• They interviewed other tours’ passengers and field staff.
• Then they made sure that the Contiki products were always better than the competitors’ product.
• Got rid of all but three competitors. Bought 2 and left 1. That 1 is the only one still there – now called Top Deck Travel – their point of difference was double-decker buses. The owner sold it and went off and started Flight Centre (Graham Turner).

1. Identify a target market.
2. Need to give the target market what they wanted – whether they know what they want or not.
3. The brand is the biggest asset. Not the people – they are almost the biggest asset  - the people move on, but the brand lives on. You need to protect your brand totally.The other brand is your name. it is your second biggest asset, after your health – it is about honesty, credibility, reputation. Protect it and enhance it.
4. Tell the customer that the product exists. Word-of-mouth. Promote in a quality way.
5. Deliver more than you promise.
6. Hold on to your customer; it is hard to get them in the first place. Now on to 3 generations of families who have gone on Contiki tours.

• You can’t choose your customers – get all types. So had to train the staff to handle the issues that might arise. Gave them the resources to do that.
• It all starts from the top. Strong leadership = strong company.
• What did field staff learn from being at Contiki?
  • Leadership;
    
  • To make decisions 24/7;
    
  • To take responsibility;
    
  • To have confidence to do the job they were trained for;
    
  • And the most important - they started to learn to communicate and get on with people.
• Achieve something worthwhile with your life.
• 2 million passengers so far. See the world in the company of other young people from all parts of the world.
• Went from 25 GBP to 160 Mercedes and Volvo coaches. 22 passengers in first year to 100,000+ each year. $6000 turnover in the first year to $400 million turnover each year now. Went from a basement London flat to a high rise in Hong Kong.

• The title is about the business model that he used in his business – started back in 1965. It is about the way of leading an organisation.
• He spent 20 years of his early life in USA. Was drafted into the US Army. Joined the paratroopers. Learned about leadership and discipline. Played American football and learned about team building, teamwork and leadership. Back in Australia at age 30. Keen to get into transport. Moved into rental cars – the only transport field that his father was not in. It was then a sunrise industry – not many people rented vehicles in those days. Reason – prices = so much per day + so much per mile. Saw an opportunity to change the industry by having a flat rate. Developed a strategic plan. Less than 3% of the population had rented a car in the 1960s.
  
• His goal was to be the market leader and set the standards and build an admired, respected brand with a personality. Virgin is about the only one today that has done that.
• At that time, there was a very unionised workforce – had a very strong "them and us" attitudes. Had to break that down. Strategy was risk taking – not the case in Australia, which was very conservative at that time.
• Bought 20 cars and worked from a building in Melbourne and set out to hire his first employee. Australia had full employment at that time – only a total of 1200 people on the dole at that time across Australia, so it was very challenging to get staff.
• But at that time, you could run an advertisement that said exactly the sort of person you wanted for the job. So he asked for a  vivacious young lady 21-25. There were two applicants – both fitted the description. One agreed to join the company. She set out the roles: "she would rent the cars, and I would wash the cars."
  
• He talked about goal setting – modest goals that could be achieved in a short period of time, followed by a celebration. First goal was to get all 20 cars rented at the same time. After 3 weeks, it was achieved – much faster than they both thought.
• Wanted cheerful, optimistic people – got that with her.
• Identified a characteristic that everyone has. It is the "superiority factor" = we like to be able to feel good about saying no, after being nice to people all day. Feel good because we are in charge. But could not have that if our goal was service excellence. "Can do" became the motto = respond to the customer’s needs no matter what.
• That motto was tested one Friday when they had no cars to hire, but a customer wanted one. Had 20 minutes to get a car. So he rented an Avis car. The customer arrived, and he told the customer what they had done. That made the customer the focus of the service.
• Found ways to get into the media – good story about going extra mile to service their customers. Avis then shut them out, but he then used other companies’ cars.Even had deals with used car dealers and family vehicles so that they did not have to say no to any customer. Especially during Expo 1988 in Brisbane.
• 4 key aspects of his business model:
  • Differentiation – from others in the field. Building a brand with a personality and delivered service excellence.
  • Innovation – constant for the future. Business had to be capable of changing and introducing new things on a regular basis. Every 6 months in his case. If we have constant change, it is easier than occasional change.
  • Creative marketing – if no one knows about your business and the brand, it is no use. He was Marketing Director for 20 of the 25 years that he was in the business – the primary market for him was the employees. Attitude was at the top of the list for his employees, not skills, as you can always train people. But it is very hard to change attitudes, so need to get the right people in the first place. Needed an environment in which people wanted to work every day – that was a problem back in the 1960s – encouraged them to measure their performance over the day (e.g. number of cars washed during the day). Also had to recognise the performance of the people – doing extraordinarily well consistently – good in a service industry. But noticed that the managers were taking an authoritarian role. So started the policy that everyone in the company would look for someone doing something very well and compliments them on it – to start the day.
  • Teamwork – identified the number of customer contacts for each sale. Found that 10 contacts happened for each sale. Every one of those had to be a triumph, otherwise the whole thing failed. These 10 included the image of the company (e.g. in an ad); telephone call (with a human at the end of the call); product knowledge; first impressions; clean doors and windows; good office layout and clear graphics, smiling welcome; clean car; end-of-rental procedures.
• Teamwork was essential to all of the happening well for the customer. Clear roles.  let the team down, it was fixed by the team.
• Customer service is the process. The objective is customer satisfaction. The benefit is retention. Costs 5-7 times more to get a new customer than to keep a current one.
• Saw that every employee should be looked on as part of an extended family. That was the filter for any changes. Mutual obligations – asked a lot and had to give back other benefits than a good wage. Used cards on birthdays, etc, then hampers, then in the 1970s set up a health insurance scheme for the employees (one of the very early ones), then set up authorised fitness programs (initially paid 50% of the costs of the employees’ participation in the program) – that reduced the health insurance scheme premiums. Then set up a scheme where the local football team ran physical exercise programs – great for teamwork, as everyone hated the trainers. Then got a dietician to work out some basic menus for the young people (in those day they were keen to leave home, unlike today) to eat better.
• The energy levels in the company increased greatly. Especially noticeable later in the day. Also the cheerfulness of the people in the company.
• Knew that communication was vital to success. Marketed the business to the employees – sent a letter each month to the home address of the employee – whether the month’s objectives had been achieved; what the next month’s goals would be; about competitors; top 12 performers nominated by managers; motivational final paragraph. Did that for 25 years. The employees loved it. Was a great discipline – forced him to think about the business as well. Encouraged everyone to work as a team.
• Saw a recession as an opportunity to re-focus on the basics of the business – innovation, employment policies, etc. Also a time to get more of the market share. Did the opposite of what his competitors were doing at that time.
• Relationships are critical.
  
  • Between him and the employees – called them team mates.
    
  • Between the company and the external customers.
    
  • Between the business and the suppliers to the business – sent them a version of the same monthly letter – invited to the annual conference of the business – gave them a special empathy with the business over the competitors.
    
  • Between the business and the local community, even though had 400 locations in Australia – encouraged to be active locally – to build respect for the brand - personalisation.
• Leadership factors:
  • Take responsibility for whatever they do. The buck stops with the leader. The way that the people with you behave is a reflection of your personality and leadership. Example: Churchill and the British people during the war – his bulldog personality. Compare Eisenhower (conservative, consultative, teamwork) and Macarthur (the opposite to Eisenhower).
  • Good, effective communicator. Make sure that your message is clear and right.
  • Energise self and others.
  • Be a bit self-deprecating and with a sense of humour.
    
  • Lead by example.
• Coolidge (at the time of the 1929 Crash): “Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

• She used humour to illustrate and reinforce the points that she made. Most of the humour is omitted from these notes. But the main points are still present.
  
• Can other people actually change the way we think about things?
• Running a school is like running a business. Have to achieve productivity targets.
• No free lunches.
• Yes they can change the way we think about things.
• Our job is to teach children to do the tough bits.
• We are sales people as well.
  
• Need to build trust. Best way to build it is through empathy = understanding; living in their shoes.
• CEO does not mean GOD.
• Difference between knowing what empathy is and doing it.
• The fish rots from the head down. The Principal is the head of the fish.
• Have you ever worked with an energy sucker?
• People follow what we do, not what we say.
• Sympathy is where you buy into their situation or problem – they are upset, so you are upset. It is a mirroring of the other person’s state. She calls that place The Pit of Misery. People also have Pit Posture.
• People like quality feedback. Don’t like negative feedback.
• "There are no failures in life; you just get feedback."
• Came up with the idea of Pit Man.
• "You are so far behind that you probably think you are out in front."
• Adolescents lose their reasoning power while their brains are getting rewired. Melatonin levels drop – that's why they can’t wake up in the morning.
• Professional Pit People – 1% of her audience hates her. They are not just Pit People; they brought in furniture; serious ones even build a basement. Might even have a dog = a Pit Bull.
• You can get some good learnings down in the Pit if you are paying attention.
• It’s not that easy to let go. You must be holding on too tight!
• The faster she can get you to laugh, the faster you relax, and the trust level goes up 60-70%.
• Your staff have to look at you every day if you are a Pit Person.
• Sympathy = when you buy in. But you can’t rescue them when they are down in the Pit.
• You can’t really get rid of Pit Man, but you can shrink him. Need a superhero to shrink him = Stick Man!
• Stick Man = everything that she has learned about human behaviour in the past 25 years.
• Smile when you are getting feedback; it plays havoc with their brain.
• We don’t allow ourselves to know the stuff that we don’t know.
• I’d much rather see one of your fake smiles than one of your genuine frowns. From her father. Fake it ‘till you make it.
• Just find out what the other person wants, and give it to them. That one sentence will give you great relationships with everyone. But most people give others what they want to give them or what they think that they need.
• She has a passion for learning and then to share that learning. Celebrate the learning process. You should be getting off on learning.
• Every day you eat, make sure that you read.
• From Pit Man to Stick Man = heaps of things + stick your chest out.
• You get a smile; you don’t do a smile. It is the product of doing other things.
• "Are you happy working here? Well, tell your face!"
• Neurons that fire together wire together. That’s how you get a new habit. Neuroplasticity. You are born with 20% wiring from your parents; the other 80% can be changed.
• Language – "Gee, I’m tired" = unconscious mind sends a message and it happens.
• See it, say it, feel it, do it. Need the four processes to make something work.
• If you say, "Don’t spill the milk", they have to get a picture of spilling the milk, so they do. Don’t say don’t.
• It’s about the part of us that allows Pit Man to come through us into others and pollutes them.
• Need to get the endorphins flowing.
• Passion is the number one thing that you need to have.
• "The enemy of our best is our good." (Stephen Covey).
• Take responsibility for ourselves. Our past does not hurt us; it is the meaning that we place on our past that hurts us.
• It’s all about attitude.