Someone asked me what kind of skills you need to work at Common Purpose. I think you need an ability to juggle priorities or keep the plates spinning, whichever metaphor you prefer. When recruiting new staff it was one of the key skills I looked for. Moving into an internal service providing role (from delivering our courses in London to supporting course delivery teams across the world as Curriculum Director) has highlighted this for me. We have to walk a fine balance between providing a swift and prompt service and working on long-term projects. I recently got married and had to juggle all the ‘wedmin’ with having a life which included non-related, wedding activities such as trying to get fit and work. Everything is a constant juggle.

I’m wondering what impact all this juggling has on our ability to concentrate and be at our best for everything we do. Is it an innate human condition? Or is it a symptom of the modern age? What say you?

Business coach Dave Crenshaw in his book, ‘The Myth of Multitasking’, argues that when we think we are being productive and multitasking, we aren’t. This is because on average we get interrupted every three minutes either by email, phones, texts, people, other thoughts etc. It then takes us a minute or two to get back to where we were, before a minute later getting interrupted again.

Crenshaw believes multitasking slows you down, because as you switch between tasks you spend your time retracing your steps rather than being productive. So in fact we just refresh our memory on each task and where we are with it before moving on, making multitasking a myth (or so the argument goes). Technology doesn’t help as we now have to deal with such a mountain of information and stimulus – our brains simply haven’t evolved to deal with this at the same rate at which technology has evolved!

I find this fascinating, although I don’t buy into it 100 per cent. We clearly do more than refresh our memory on tasks – we complete things, work on multiple projects and so on – but I also know when I’m bouncing from one thing to the next, that I am not at my most effective (as just proved by getting a text which stopped me – I read it, lost my train of thought and had to refocus!). So this leads me to ask – how effective are you at juggling, what conditions do you need to be effective at it, and when do you struggle with it?

This post was written by Andy Coxall, Curriculum Director, Common Purpose.

Jim O

And then there are Steve and Apple: a leader and a company not afraid to take the long view, patiently building the way to the future envisioned for the company. Not afraid to invent the future and to be wrong. And almost always willing to do one small thing — cannibalize itself. Under Steve, Apple was happy to see the iPhone kill the iPod and iPad kill the MacBook. He understands that you don’t walk into the future by looking back. If you do, you trip over yourself and break your nose. Just look at Hewlett-Packard, and you know what I am talking about

Extract of article taken from: Gigaom.

Common Purpose

Common Purpose gives leaders the inspiration, the knowledge and the connections they need to produce real change. Through our unique leadership development courses, a growing number of people around the world are making a difference in the industries and places where they work, in the communities where they live and in wider society.

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Tariq Jahan is an ordinary decent man, not a community spokesman or a ‘professional TV man’ but a father in mourning for his son. But what he has demonstrated is that leadership is not always exemplified by your position or the brass plaque on your door; no number of street walks by politicians could have quelled the violence as  he did. Tariq Jahan exemplified the greatest universal characterisitcs of leadership of integrity, dignity and moral courage. In his darkest hour he truly led beyond authority showing to us our common humanity as a beacon of hope. In so doing he became an unlikely hero and showed the very best of Britain as a credit to his community and his faith.

This guest post was written by Wakkas Khan, Council Member of the General Dental Council.

Common Purpose

Common Purpose gives leaders the inspiration, the knowledge and the connections they need to produce real change. Through our unique leadership development courses, a growing number of people around the world are making a difference in the industries and places where they work, in the communities where they live and in wider society.

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As I have been exploring some of the issues around carbon reduction, it is clear that there are a great many initiatives aimed at individuals to get them to reduce carbon dependencies here and there. Some seem simple – creating better insulated houses, reducing the amount of energy required to heat and cool them, boiling only enough water as is needed, walking not driving, changing to low energy light-bulbs, putting on a jumper instead of turning up the heating. All require some level of behaviour change – starting to think about how you live and making adjustments accordingly. Many make good economic sense.

This saving of money is sometimes a double edged sword when it comes to the environment. People often see a saving in one area as a good reason to spend money elsewhere. So a saving in energy bills as a result of a better insulated home and more journeys cycled instead of driven may be rewarded by a weekend trip flying to Barcelona, or other rebound behaviours, such as becoming more acclimatised to a warmer home, so notching up the thermostat a degree or two as it becomes slightly colder outside.

So as we set the second Dishaa group the challenge of accelerating and multiplying the many small and innovative things that are happening locally in the UK and India, perhaps the biggest part of the challenge is not around technologies, or initiatives, or rewards, but about changing the way people view their quality of life? Rather than relying on technologies, is the answer in behaviour change? To really tackle climate change do we need to move away from having new things, holidays and disposable consumables as a measures of success? Do we need to find a new way of living,  aspiring to a lifestyle that really won’t cost the earth?

This post is written by Amy Ritman, Senior Course Director at Common Purpose. Amy currently works on Ventures.

Common Purpose Ventures connect future leaders, across the world, to tackle challenges which are common and compelling, and big (enough to be worth the effort) and small (enough to be grasped).

Ventures encourage participants to work in new directions to develop innovative approaches to new (and old) problems, which is why the names of all our Ventures mean “direction” in different languages. Participants will present their findings to many different audiences over the year following the Venture.

Common Purpose

Common Purpose gives leaders the inspiration, the knowledge and the connections they need to produce real change. Through our unique leadership development courses, a growing number of people around the world are making a difference in the industries and places where they work, in the communities where they live and in wider society.

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This was Saturday, 2nd July, when people came together to do a smartmob to raise awareness of poverty in Hamburg. The event was organised by Leah, Isabel and Mattes, three Your Turn graduates from the 2011 course in April. With the help of very engaged 19 year old Sami Hamed, who is currently doing an ecological year at the Hamburg environmental authorities and did a speech in the Your Turn programme, they even approached the PR manager of the local street magazine Hinz & Kunzt, that is sold mostly by homeless people. The pupils set up a Facebook group and invited people to sit and “smartmob” with them.

It is still raining after 15 minutes of sitting in the rain. But nobody complains, because they know that there are many people in Hamburg who don’t have a roof over their heads. They are outside no matter how cold and rainy it is.

Photo above: Leah, Isabel, Mattes, Nina-Kristin Lederer (Common Purpose Course Manager, Hamburg), Sami.

“My vision” – that was the title of the third Your Turn day. The vision of Leah, Isabel and Mattes was that people would realise how cruel it is that in our society people don’t have homes. Imagine how they will keep on standing up against grievances like these. Common Purpose Hamburg is very proud of them!

This post is written by Nina-Kristin Lederer, Course Manager, Hamburg, Common Purpose Germany.

Common Purpose

Common Purpose gives leaders the inspiration, the knowledge and the connections they need to produce real change. Through our unique leadership development courses, a growing number of people around the world are making a difference in the industries and places where they work, in the communities where they live and in wider society.

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One young man came to tell me about a conference he had been to recently. To quote him directly, “there were so many rules on access that there remained almost nothing left to be accessed.”

They asked me masses of questions. Good ones, real ones, which you could not answer with one sound bite. In fact every answer I gave was untidy, especially the ones about prejudice. But I hope they were real answers that reflect real leadership, which is such a balancing act with very few absolutes.

This post is written by Julia Middleton, Founder and Chief Executive of Common Purpose. This post is also available on her blog: http://juliamiddleton.net

Julia Middleton

The response to our Young Million campaign has been staggering at every level. We have six courses ready to go,  Bolton (18, 20 & 27 July 2011), Manchester (21, 26 & 28 July 2011), London (3, 11 & 16 August 2011), Tees (9, 18 & 23 August 2011), Cumbria (10, 11 & 17 August 2011) and Newcastle (14,15 & 20 September 2011) and we have funding for more. This can give some of our young unemployed people in the UK the chance to get the leadership development that potential employers are looking for.

At least by getting the young person I met in Edinburgh onto a Young Million course she can move on with her leadership development, ready for when that much wanted first job comes along. The course can also provide her with some inspiration as to how she can be a more active leader in society as well as creating a support group of other young people who are in the same position. Despite the staggering numbers of unemployed it is easy to feel isolated and that you have to keep a positive approach – so it’s good to meet others that you can share your frustrations with but also that you can be inspired by.

We have applications beginning to come in for the 50 places on each course – please pass the message on to any young person, between 18 and 25 who is unemployed and not in full time education because we are eager to run as many courses as we have funding, applications and Common Purpose alumni offering their time and support for.

Our contributors have offered their time for this course because they want to ensure that we don’t suffer from the mistakes of previous recessions where we have “lost” a generation. If you would like to contribute in any way to our campaign please visit our website http://youngmillion.commonpurpose.org.uk or email us at youngmillion@commonpurpose.org.uk.

This post is written by Caroline Duckworth, Managing Director, Common Purpose UK.

Common Purpose

Common Purpose gives leaders the inspiration, the knowledge and the connections they need to produce real change. Through our unique leadership development courses, a growing number of people around the world are making a difference in the industries and places where they work, in the communities where they live and in wider society.

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A Brit was complaining yesterday and telling me that they were hard words to pronounce. I think I lost a sale because all I could say is “get over it”. In fact, his starting point pins down the exact reason why many Brits need to wake up and book onto a Venture fast before we disappear into irrelevance (whilst muttering gently in English!).

Julia Middleton

I just came across what looks like a fab new initiative via Twitter, run by PwC with chef Simon Boyle and his Beyond Food Foundation, De Vere Venues and the School for Social Entrepreneurs. The three-way partnership between the private, public and third sectors will help disadvantaged individuals develop skills and find work through a new restaurant and cookery school in Tooley Street.

The 1879 former fire station on Tooley Street will house a social enterprise bistro, wine bar, private dining and event business (including a training and demonstration kitchen); a social enterprise business centre and office space for training 40 social enterprise students every year.

The project will be called ‘Brigade’ and will be managed by De Vere Venues, supported by the Beyond Food Foundation’s Freshlife Training and Apprenticeship scheme.

It will provide a location for individuals who have experienced homelessness, and other vulnerable groups to participate in a catering training and an apprenticeship programme.

The redevelopment of the Fire Station is funded by PwC, the Beyond Food Foundation (through a grant from the Homes and Communities Agency’s Place of Change Programme) and De Vere Venues, with support from Big Issue Invest

“We want to create a centre for social enterprise innovation, combining private, public and third sector expertise, and a flagship for business and social enterprise partnering,” says PwC managing partner Richard Collier Keywood.

“The parties we’ve brought together bring that to life.

“Like any business, social enterprises need to build the capacity to operate at scale if they are to be able to compete for the opportunities that are now on the table.

“Ours is an ambitious approach and it only works because all three of the public, private and third sectors have come together. No-one would have achieved this alone.”

Simon Boyle added: “This is a project we’re all incredibly passionate about, it gives us all a chance to build a fantastic business that supports the underprivileged by giving them a career in one of the most exciting industries around.

“The standards we set at the fire station will be exceptional, we’re not just nurturing cooks here, we’re creating brilliant chefs.”

What a fantastic idea! Some of us will definitely be making a trip down there when it opens!

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Last night, Panorma on BBC1 ran an episode on the difficulties of finding work. It featured a fab little social enterprise to help unemployed people in Rhyl, North Wales.

Have you heard of any other social enterprises that have a similar aim? I personally know of the Hoxton Apprentice, The Canteen and Waterhouse Conference Centre.

Isabella Betkowski

People who stand up and don’t grovel. Whether they are swanky or not. Whether they change the world or just their streets. People who take a step forward rather than back when faced with a challenge.

Who inspires you? What do you see in people that makes you want to learn a new skill, strive to achieve, reach your goals?

Common Purpose

Common Purpose gives leaders the inspiration, the knowledge and the connections they need to produce real change. Through our unique leadership development courses, a growing number of people around the world are making a difference in the industries and places where they work, in the communities where they live and in wider society.

Website - Twitter - More Posts