This document outlines the goals and activities of a project to develop a leadership framework for the education and training sector in the UK. The project aims to establish a knowledge base to help the Education & Training Foundation create a professional career framework for leadership. Key activities include interviews with sector leaders, feedback on leadership development, establishing an international advisory group, and implementing a virtual brainstorming process to engage a diversity of thinkers in developing signals about the future of leadership in this sector. The virtual brainstorming allows anonymous contributions at a large scale to gain wisdom from crowds.

1. Aim ?
To establish a knowledge base from
which the Education & Training
Foundation can develop a professional
and career framework for leadership
and management in the education and
training sector
The Leadership
Conversation

2. 5 members of project management
team (157, NIACE, AELP, IfL, Gazelle)
+ Additional 10 members on Steering
Group
Sector-based partnership

3. 1. Develop a Leadership Framework
2. Identify gaps in leadership
development opportunities and
recommend how to address these
3. Stimulate engagement in the
Leadership Conversation
Objectives

4. • Undertake interviews with education and
training sector leaders
• Seek additional contributions from sector
practitioners, stakeholders and employers
• Seek feedback on leadership
development; work with Sector Task
Group
Key Activities

5. • Establish International Academic Advisory
Group
• Develop leadership think-piece videos
• Implement a virtual brainstorming process

6. Virtual Brainstorming
Slides courtesy of the Shoshin Partnership

7. Wisdom of Crowds
Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few,
no matter how brilliant - better at solving problems,
fostering innovation, contributing to wise decisions,
and even scoping possible futures.

8. A conventional ‘futures thinking process’ means that you:
Decide focus of ideas collection
Conduct interviews
Analyse interview transcripts
‘Manually’ cluster ideas and develop ‘signals’
The Virtual Process is designed to address issues of:
Numbers Time Resources + Organisational Identity
Very time-consuming
and costly to engage
large numbers of
participants

10. Engages a diversity of thinking (‘wisdom of crowds’) through the innovative
communications technology.
Applies a rigorous process with freedom of input - it allows individuals to be
free from organisational identity and ‘political correctness’ in their anonymous
contribution of ideas and responses.
Combines participants’ ideas and analysis on a scale unachievable by
conventional means - the process can be used in contexts involving many
thousands of people.
Provides a wide range of reporting systems that filter, prioritise and present
perspectives on collected ideas using sophisticated data-mining techniques.
Retains unique data sets that can be then inform various future development
paths and investigate possible outcomes that may otherwise be overlooked.
The Benefits of the Method

11. https://www.strategysignals.com/36273-29446-
11@leadership&conversation

12. Thank you
Kate.green@157group.co.uk
http://www.157group.co.uk/practice/ leadership-
conversation
brainstorming@leadershipconversation.info