Corporate investment in the future of our schools

There are no longer blanks on the world map.

Old atlases with areas of pink indicating uncharted land have been replaced by satellite pictures that have literally opened the eyes of the world. Only, what we now see in the form of daily news reports on climate change, religious and cultural intolerance, the spread of poverty and the impact of rapid social change causes us to respond with a mixture of bewilderment, misunderstanding, confusion and, often, a growing sense of injustice. The task of educating the next generation has always been pressing, but perhaps now more than ever.

There have been a plethora of articles recently in the world's press, outlining the future needs of companies in this 'brave' new world, as well as the need for schools to begin to redefine teaching and learning accordingly. The task of education today, it is argued, is to equip young people with a world-view by which they can succeed, thrive and, above all, make good choices in the new global economy.

Multi-national companies, which have long appreciated the value of international schools to recruit and relocate employees around the world, are now seeing these institutions as leading the way in redefining the formative learning experience of their future workforce. Many international schools have therefore gone beyond simply serving global-mobile families, to engaging them in meaningful partnerships that begin to transform what is going on inside the classroom.

As John Valeri, Vice President of Human Resources Department at UPS, remarks:

'Organizations are eager to have employees with a set of traits that enables them to succeed in complex business environments that have become the norm in the new world order. International Schools' programs provide students the impetus to open their minds to a greater set of diverse possibilities and opportunities. Students who are exposed early on to values and ideas from other cultures develop a strong sense of concern and adaptability to a host of environmental conditions that they take with them into their careers. These educational experiences equip students to better understand global conditions and how situations across geographies and different cultures can vary. Great competencies in any walk of life, these traits are very conducive for success in business – enabling individuals who possess them to thrive once they enter the work world.'

Of course, the costs of providing a world-class international educational experience are high. Increasingly, however, many companies are seeing the direct benefits of investing both intellectual and financial resources. Take, for example, the experience of Atlanta International School. Several leading organizations, such as The Coca-Cola Company, Kimberly-Clark, Bain and Co., Porsche North America, and UPS, have operations in Atlanta, Georgia and have developed strong ties with the school. Initially, they saw the school simply as a benefit to some of their employees, who needed a place for their children to go to school while they were assigned to the city. After observing the learning environment, with its emphasis upon developing tolerance, risk-taking, a broader perspective of social reality and language acquisition within a milieu of teachers and students from a myriad of countries, these businesses saw greater potential. And so new partnerships were born.

It is our belief that corporate partnerships are and will continue to be integral to the success of international schools. The nature of the partnerships may take many different forms and is not just about the 'dollars' that companies might contribute. It is much more to do with a relationship in which together, for the sake of our children, we can begin to make sense out of a complex set of economic and educational realities.

This article was written with Robert Brindley and first published in Newsweek, March 2007.

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Postcard from Brussels: Imagining a partnership full of promise

Our story begins with imagination.

Imagination is not, as some might suppose, a suspension of what is real in order to escape into fanciful, unrealistic thinking. Imagination, I would suggest, involves taking all the messiness of ordinary life and making an effort to pull it together into a bigger picture, where things seem to make more sense and where good things happen to a plan. The official name of our plan at the International School of Brussels is ISB2010. It lays out an ambitious agenda around five priorities: student learning, professional learning, the campus, the environment, and technology. Central to every part of the plan is the concept of sustainability. In other words, ISB2010 is all about building a school that can sustain a truly innovative learning environment for today’s and tomorrow’s students.

So how can sustainability be achieved? One part of the answer, we are beginning to discover, is through the building of effective networks and partnerships. Partnerships not only help us achieve our goals but also enable the school to go further than even we had imagined.

Established in 1951, the International School of Brussels is a nonprofit, coeducational day school in the capital of Europe. Today, with 1,450 students aged 30 months to 19 years who represent 70 nationalities, it remains the oldest and largest English-language international school in Belgium. Driven by the core values of inclusion, challenge, and success for all, the mission of the school is to develop independent learners and international citizens who are equipped to be happy, successful, ethical contributors to the local and global community.

ISB2010 imagines a future for our school that is a significant stretch to attain. In short, we knew where we wanted to go, even if we didn’t know how we are going to get there. However, as we began to engage in a new partnership with the European Commission’s Directorate General for Transport and Energy, some of the pieces of understanding began to fall into place. It was this partnership that allowed us to enter into new worlds of understanding, knowledge, insight, and perspective.

In 2005, the European Union launched a major campaign—“Sustainable Energy Europe”—that was designed to raise awareness and change the landscape of energy both in terms of sustainable energy production and energy efficiency (see www.sustenergy.org). Because ISB had the reputation of being able to model good practice for other schools, we were invited by the commission for become the first school “Campaign Associate.” The school welcomed this formal acknowledgment, since it gave the institution increased visibility. But it also had another, unexpected, and immediate impact: It challenged us to go further than we had gone before.

One of the most tangible expressions of this partnership was an environmental and energy day, set in the context of the European Sustainable Energy Week 2007. The day, called Reducing Our Impact, consisted of a series of plenary sessions and hands-on learning activities designed to help students realize how they can respond to today’s global energy and environment issues while mitigating their own environmental footprint.

In total, the event involved more than 400 high school students and faculty members, as well as a number of external experts on the subjects of environmental impact and sustainable development. European Commission representatives were present, as well as other key external stakeholders from ExxonMobil,World Wildlife Fund, Unilever, Toyota, and the Brussels Institute for the Management of the Environment.

Reflecting on the impact of this day, high school student Rachel Chapman writes: “A day like this certainly makes you sit up and think! By measuring the size of our ecological footprint we realized it was time to begin to act.What is important now is to change what we do in the future and to believe we can truly make a difference.”

This collaborative venture among students, faculty, and external partners is now an annual event at the school. Other schools in the area are keen to participate, and students are involved in the planning. This year we look forward to welcoming a number of UN agencies as well as representatives from Brussels-based NGOs, local environmental agencies, and multinational companies. Beyond ISB, the “Sustainable Energy Europe” campaign is proving extremely successful. Originally foreseen to last four years (2005-2008), organizers have announced that they intend to prolong the campaign for a second four-year term, extending it until 2012. This will mean greater reach to citizens across Europe and undoubtedly an emphasis on the role of schools.

As the first school Campaign Associate in this initiative, much of our focus with the European Commission has been to think through how to involve other schools. We have also pushed the message of the campaign out to new audiences via a number of joint communication initiatives, including joint advertising, publications, and conference presentations.

From our perspective, however, the most important impact of this partnership is absolutely clear: by building a bridge to the European Commission, we discovered an opportunity for recognition and a powerful catalyst for change that is now affecting all aspects of the school and its development. At ISB, we are no longer content to engage in token environmental initiatives that are here today and gone tomorrow. Rather, we are committed to establishing coherence across all aspects of the school, connecting what the students are learning in the classroom with the way we manage the campus—in the buildings we build, the partnerships we establish, and the many student and parent initiatives around the school.

So where are we going next? Today, teams of teachers across the school are working on a major curriculum initiative on global issues. This year’s annual giving program is soliciting funds for a “Forest School Project” designed to ensure—via the building of outdoor wireless networks, an outdoor classroom, observation platforms, and signage—that the forest is preserved and yet is also a place where students can gain a deep understanding and respect for the outstanding natural beauty surrounding them. New energy-smart buildings and mobility solutions are also being planned to promote and ensure that at every level and in every way we really do practice what we preach and begin to reduce a carbon footprint that for too long has remained too large.

And this really is just the beginning. As we move forward with ISB2010 we remain deeply committed to becoming a school in which lasting, creative partnerships between students, parents, our local community, and “vision partners,” who share our core values, take us further than we can go alone.

Imagining the future of international education is certainly not an easy task. It requires courage and a constant willingness to dig deep into the complexity of the educational task and discover new patterns, configurations, and opportunities. Looking back, much of what we have discovered now seems so obvious. But maybe that’s the point: Only in retrospect is it possible to judge the imaginings that began in our mind’s eye. For ISB, we’ve seen what is possible.

This article was first published in CASE CURRENTS magazine, March 2008.

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Building Partnerships for the Future of International Education

Great places of learning are like great companies or organizations in that they are built upon a small number of fundamental principles: vision, people, discipline and sustainability.

Of course, each principle impacts upon the other. After all, there is no point in having a clear and bright vision for the future of a learning institution if you don’t have the people, discipline and other resources needed to sustain your ideas over an extended period of time.

In his recent work, Leadership and Sustainability: Systems Thinkers in Action, Michael Fullan (Corwin Press, 2005) adds another perspective to this now common debate: ‘lateral capacity building’. Simply, Fullan argues that effective, sustainable schools have often learned the art of interdependence and purposeful exchange with other schools, organisations and networks.

Set against this context, at the International School of Brussels (ISB), we have begun to learn a valuable lesson. By looking beyond our own resources to other organisations, companies and individuals, who share our core values, we have seen a tangible and significant impact. In short, by actively searching out would-be travelling companions or ‘vision partners’ as we call them, we have discovered that we can go much further than we otherwise could on our own.

A ‘Benelux’ example will illustrate the point.

While an international education offers a wonderful, enriching experience, there is always the concern that students may lose their strong sense of personal, cultural identity. Similar to many international schools, ISB believes it is vital to appreciate one's own culture if one is to appreciate the cultures of others. We also know that a strong mother-tongue is extremely important in helping students acquire other languages. 

For these reasons we offer a range of mother-tongue programmes, now including Dutch. It was about three years ago that the school first identified the opportunity for a new kind of collaboration between the school, a group of parents, the Dutch embassy to Belgium and the Foundation for Dutch Education Abroad (Stichting NOB).

At the time, the school was home to about 50 students from the Netherlands. Today, there are nearly 120, most of whom are part of De Kattenberg, the ISB Dutch School. The Foundation for Dutch Education Abroad supports the initiative and the programme is regularly assessed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Throughout the year, students of all ages are engaged in a range of curricular and extra-curricular activities, including several field trips and the not-to-be-missed annual sintfeest celebration.

The ISB Dutch School project, of course, is not unique. It simply illustrates a simple point: learning gets better when schools look outside themselves and find like-minded individuals, organizations and companies who share their values. Certainly, in this case at least, the partnerships we built took us further than we could have gone on our own.

This article was first published in Newsweek in March 2008.

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Branding your school (Part 2)

The purpose of this article is simply to catch a glimpse across the fence at what others are saying about brand management in other industries and to think about what this might mean for the future of international schools.

Now whatever you think about branding, marketing and all those off-the-shelf business books, I urge you to read on because here lessons 6-10 that you and your school really can’t afford to ignore. Read them in any order, one at a time or all at once. They are all connected and all point to a very different and exciting future.

Lesson 6: Tell me your story

So what do you do exactly? I am often asking this question and sometimes ask it of myself. The best line I have come up with so far is this: “My job is to tell the story of ISB and help others find their place in their story.” And, you know what? I really believe it in the sense that stories are able to ‘bottle’ the experience in a unique way.

Take the recent ‘Let it Out’ campaign by Kleenex. It you think back over the past few years, we have seen a massive shift in the way companies such as Kleenex sell their products, which, after all, is only a piece of paper on which to blow your nose! We used to see statements and claims about tenacity, softness, fragrance. All of this propositional-style marketing is now gone, replaced by a campaign that is rooted in the concept of story.

It is such a simple idea: everyone has a story to tell. So place a couch on a busy street. Place a therapist on the couch, who invites people to sit and tell their stories of love, life, joy and pain. Inevitably, tears begin to flow as people ‘let out what has been bottled up inside’. And, of course, Kleenex is there – this is such great tv! – playing a small but vital part of the drama unfolding right in front of our eyes. The simple tissue has become an existential accessory.

Or so the advert would suggest.

The point is this: storytelling in today’s world is key to brand development. And, as international schools, perhaps our greatest challenge is the fact that one story quickly leads to 1000 ways of telling it. And every time the tale is told, the story changes, improves, evolves.

It is time to learn the art of storytelling.

And this absolutely does not mean we become skilled in the art of ‘spin’, with all the negative connotations that can bring up in people’s mind. On the contrary, ours is truly an ethical responsibility ruthlessly to ‘seek out and pass on’ the truth that lies hidden in the experiences of the children, faculty, parents all around us.

Lesson 7: Monitor you brand

It is never long before someone asks, so what? How do you know, anyway, whether your brand development is making a difference. After all, there are plenty of examples out there of big-name companies who now rank in the all-time list of brand failures. Take the notorious American Airlines campaign that sought to secure impact in the Mexican market with the slogan ‘Fly in Leather’, only to realize that ‘Vuelo en Cuero’ to the average Mexican meant ‘Fly naked’!

Metrics is not a term commonly used by many international schools. Right now, however, our focus at ISB is more than ever before, looking closely at methods for more effective data collection, improvements in our data analysis and systems for effective data reporting. All for one simple reason: we have to know what people are saying, thinking and feeling about us. We have to catch early trends and be seen to be a school that listens and makes effective change. We have to report efficiently on the success of the brand against clear indicators and targets in enrolment, fundraising and teacher recruitment. Otherwise, what’s the point?

And just in case there are skeptics out there who still think that none of this affects your financial bottom line, let me assure you that our experience is quite the contrary. The impact of brand development at ISB has had a very tangible effect, not only on our enrolment, but equally upon our fundraising and development efforts and teacher recruitment.

Lesson 8: Understand why brands fail

Of course, integrally related to the need to monitor your brand is the ability to understand why brands fail. In his book, Brand Failures: The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time (2005), Matt Haig refers to the seven deadly sins of branding:

• Brand amnesia
• Brand ego
• Brand megalomania
• Brand deception
• Brand fatigue
• Brand paranoia
• Brand irrelevance

Reading through this list, I am left with a number of questions about international schools and the brands we have created:

• Do we know what we stand for?
• Do we think of ourselves too highly?
• Do we think we can be best at everything?
• Does our product match our description of it?
• Have we simply run out of ideas?
• How we lost a sense of self in constant reinvention or obsession with the competition?
• Do we have a product that anyone wants anymore?

These are the hard questions that all organizations, from time to time, have to face. If you have difficultly in answering any of the above positively, it is probably time to go back to the drawing board for a while.

Lesson 9: Diagnose the pain

Back to the Kleenex campaign. The art of selling tissues is identifying with a universal human ‘pain’ – in this instance, an emotional need that runs (excuse the pun!) far deeper than simply have a good nasal clear out: the need to talk.

And if you want to find more examples of this kind of advertising, look no further than the campaigns of Alaska Airlines. Any search of YouTube will provide some great examples of a company that has managed to capture the ‘pain’ of airline travel and, in doing so, deliver relevant, effective solutions.

By contrast, international schools often seem to miss a trick when pushing their brand out into the marketplace. The ‘pain’ of any globally-mobile family arriving at your school – with all those hopes, fears, concerns and expectations – is just so glaringly obvious. And yet so often we ignore it and fail to capture the opportunity.

It is time to show our families that we truly understand what it is like to step off a plane, arrive somewhere completely new, faced with the seemingly impossible task of finding the right school.

In thinking hard and diagnosing exactly what this ‘pain’ is, looks like, feels like, we will stand a far better chance of delivering effective, meaningful solutions to our customers.

Lesson 10: Build alliances

The final lesson is really about the maths and hardly needs explanation. However, it is arguably the most important lesson in terms of the future development of international schools.

Here goes:

Apple is a great brand. Nike is a great brand.

Apple plus Nike, working together under the banner of Tune Your Run is an awesome combination.

In a similar way, Michael Fullan in his book Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action (2004), writes about eight elements of sustainability. Number 3 is as follows:

Lateral capacity-building through networks.

The same principle is at work here: building alliances and partnerships with individuals, companies and organizations which share your core values will always taking you further than you can go on your own.

The branded world of the future – including the world inhabited by international schools and their associated networks – is all about social-networking on an organizational level.

So who will you be working with, building alliances with and in partnership with tomorrow?

And in the end...

At the beginning of this article, I said it was all about looking over the fence at other companies. Well, in some ways, this is only half true. I could equally have said that this article is the story of one school and its beginning attempts at trying to understand itself, its role as an international school serving families in Brussels, and it possible future.

As part of a team committed to thinking through this future, absolutely love what I do. So please don’t leave this article feeling overwhelmed, anxious or offended. It’s all just about having a conversation and thinking together about what the future might hold.

And before I sign off, here is the mantra that keeps me sane when it perhaps does all feel too much:

Find simplicity in the complexity
Stay learning focused
Take risks.
Encourage innovation.
Embrace change.
Accept change.
Enjoy.

 ******************************

References

Collins, J. (2001) Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Other Don’t. Random House Books

Collins, J. (2006) “Good to Great” and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany “Good to Great”. Random House Business Books

Fullen, M. (2004) Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action. Corwin Press

Haig, M. (2005) Brand Failures: The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Failures of All Time. Kogan Page Ltd.

Locke, C. et al (2000) The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. London: FT Com.

Michelli, J. (2006) The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary. McGraw-Hill Professional.

Ridderstrǻle, K. and Nordström, J. (2007) Funky Business Forever: How to Enjoy Capitalism. 3^rd Edition. Financial Times/ Prentice Hall

Salzman, M. and Matathia, I. (2007) The Next Now: Trends for the Future. Palgrave Macmillan.

This article was first published in The International Schools Journal (ECIS), November 2008.

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