Why Great Educators Stall as Leaders — A Conversation with Greg Parry

In this episode of The Common Room, Joshua sits down with Greg Parry, founder and director of Global Services in Education — an international school development, management and advisory firm operating across more than 35 countries. Australian by background, Greg led schools as head of school and CEO before moving into the investment and development side of the sector, working with investors, developers and operators across the GCC, Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.

Together, they unpack the commercial layer that sits underneath every school — and why understanding it isn't a betrayal of the educational mission, but arguably the most important thing a school leader can do to protect it.

In this conversation, we cover:

• The ceiling most educators hit that has nothing to do with classroom ability
• Why departments get cut and good staff get lost — and how to prevent it
• What investors actually assess when they look at a school
• The financial literacy every school leader should have
• How to speak the language of investors without losing your educational values
• The colonialism problem hiding in international school expansion
• Greg's own journey from teacher to global school developer — and why impact, not position, drove every decision

Whether you're a teacher curious about how schools actually work financially, a senior leader wanting to build commercial confidence, or a head of school navigating the space between education and investment, this episode will change how you think about the business of schooling.

A huge thank you to Greg for his time, his candour, and his generosity in sharing what the other side of the table actually looks like.

The Common Room is hosted by Joshua Sussex — Deputy Head of Secondary and EdD candidate: researching leadership in international schools.

Follow along and get in touch:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joshuadarrylsussex
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

International education. The classrooms, the staff rooms, the lives built far from home. This is the Common Room. I'm Joshua Sussex. Let's talk.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Welcome, Greg, to the fourth episode of the Common Room Podcast. Thanks, Josh. Nice to connect to you. Well, let's give a bit of background of yourself. So, Greg Parry is founder and director of Global Services in Education, an international school development management and advisory firm with experience across more than 35 countries. Australian by background, he led schools as head of school and at CEO level before moving into the development and investment side of the sector. GSC operates as an education management organization, working with investors, developers, and operators across the GCC, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe. On feasibility, setup and operations. He is based between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, with regular work in Europe and here in Malaysia. From speaking with Greg before, he touches upon an area I find fascinating. Greg suggests that educators can hit a ceiling that has nothing to do with how good they are in the classroom, the point where the decisions stop being purely pedagogical and start being more commercial. Greg has sat on both sides of that line as a head of school and CEO and now on the investment and development side, working with owners, boards, and operators across more than 35 countries. Greg's argument is a direct challenge to a widely held assumption in the sector that commercial thinking sits apart from, or even against, the educational mission. In his experience, it's the opposite. Departments get cut, good staff get lost, and schools occasionally close, not because the education was weak, but because nobody in the leadership team could read a set of financial statements. This episode is for educators and school leaders who want to understand the commercial layer underneath the school. And for anyone wondering whether building that second skill set means leaving the classroom or leadership behind at all. So again, thank you very much, Craig, for your time. Very much appreciate you being here. Thank you. Yeah, great to be here. So you've sort of mentioned the ceiling most educators hit has nothing to do with how good they are in the classroom. What is it actually to do with?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

I think the key difference is that it's not so much a ceiling in ability or skills, but it's a different currency. It's a different perspective. We need to remember that when we're a teacher, we had direct personal impact over maybe 20, 25 children in a classroom and their families, and maybe some of our colleagues around us as well. But when we move into leadership, our currency is very different. It's about coaching and mentoring teachers. It's about making decisions around finances and resources, answerable to a board, et cetera. It's a very different space. And I think what the biggest challenge for educators is that they forget their true mission. They forget that they are educators at heart and they tend to get so busy and caught up in the arguably mundane or operational aspects of the school that they disconnect from what they've always believed in. They don't spend as much time in classrooms anymore. They're no longer deep in conversations with teachers about pedagogy, about blooms, about Mazzano, and all those things that they're really passionate about before. So they create this disconnect and they're no longer making decisions in a proactive way that helps educators achieve their mission, but in an operational sense to please boards and governors without understanding that at the center of everything that they should do should be students. And that's where they lose focus. So I think that's what happens with the ceiling is that they change their focus and then they lose their concept of mission.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

What would be your initial advice to somebody in that situation for the first time where they're trying to balance that commercial side, the finance side, and also the student center approach?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

It's really about reframing the questions and the conversations to make sure that they're aligned. There's often this idea that investors and educators come from a totally different paradigm, and I don't think that's necessarily true. The product of a great school is young people that go on and be successful and to do interesting and amazing things in their lives. Now, as an educator, we focus on academic achievement, pastoral care, young people being happy, families happy. If that is achieved on the academic side, on the financial and the commercial side, profitability is achieved as well. So these things are not in contradiction. They're not in contrast. It's not a dichotomy of opinion. It's about aligning values and mission together. All decisions around resourcing, about staffing, structures, facilities, should also be aligned to that same vision and mission. So it's about connecting them rather than having them in conflict. That's the key issue.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

And looking back for you, what was the first real signal that classroom skill alone wasn't going to get you past that point?

SPEAKER_00 4:30

When we launched our company back in about 2010, 2011, I guess we had this very optimistic view that we could do it better than others. We believed that we could launch and set up and operate schools better than other people. But at that time, to be honest, I was a pretty good educator without really understanding the commercial side. But then when I started to have conversations with investors about school emissions, I needed to reframe the conversation in a very different way because they think differently. So they're happy with the same outcomes, they're happy with the same goals, they're happy with the same strategies, but they need to hear them from the same sense. So for example, teachers are resources. They have a financial uh connection, they cost money. So when I talk to investors, I talk to them in that way. And that's not meaning to uh undermine what teachers' real focus is, but helping investors understand that teachers are a resource. For example, in an operational budget of a school, 50 to 70% of the operational budget is human resource or it's staff salaries. So when you're talking to an investor, you need to make sure that they understand how valuable the teaching resources are to the operational budget and the outcomes of the school. Of course they talk to investors in the way that they understand that teachers are people and human beings and that they're really impactful, but you have to frame it in the right way. And when they understand how valuable teachers are, both in the financial sense, in terms of expenditure, as well as the impact they're gonna have on student outcomes, then they'll understand it better. I make sure that I talk about the impact that a teacher's gonna have on individual students, not just the top end, not just the bottom end, but the students that are anonymous in the middle as well. Because those teachers are the crucial and most valuable resource in the school. They're the ones that are gonna make a difference. So everything on the outside is arguably somewhat decoration in comparison. So it's important to know how to communicate to all stakeholders, including investors, parents, and teachers, about those things that are valuable to us.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

You you've previously been ahead of school. When you were in that position and you first started to think this way about that commercial aspect and speaking to CEOs or owners and investors, how did you yourself start to learn that language? How did you start to become confident in having those conversations whilst ensuring it is still a student-centered approach, but you're speaking to people that perhaps aren't directly in education?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

It was really challenging. And to be honest, I also have worked in very multicultural environments. I started in the GCC in Dubai. I lived in China for eight years. I've now worked in 35 different countries of the world. So I've worked with people of different culture, different religion, different backgrounds. So there's another lens that sits on top of that too, that makes it complex. I think early on I made some mistakes. I I hit a lot of brick walls. I wasn't able to communicate effectively. Um, arguably, I didn't have the impact that I wanted to. So I had to reframe. I mentioned earlier about the ceiling that teachers hit, is that as educators, we believe in being lifelong learners. So when we become leaders, we should continue to do the same. The barriers I mentioned before about understanding finance and even understanding marketing and other areas that educators generally don't have a background in, we can, through a pursuit of lifelong learning. We we can learn those things. So I think I read a lot of books. As I moved more into that investment space, I was spending a lot more time with people that were commercially successful. So I understood the way that they think. I sat at a lot of boardrooms, I sat in a lot of uh investment pitches. So I started to understand the language of what things looked like. I realized that teachers were incredible human beings and very valuable, but they also sat on a balance sheet. So how we shaped up salary packages, how we shaped up their position in the budget could be looked at from a totally different perspective. So I think it was about those experiences, framing those discussions from different perspectives.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Brilliant. And and I'm just thinking from a teacher's perspective, and I can remember myself being a teacher and coming into the profession and not even considering this aspect of it at all at that time. Perhaps living in almost a little bubble where you just think things just work and money's there and you haven't got to worry about these things when you're in in the school building. So as a former head of school, do you recommend delivering that sort of message to teachers and making teachers more aware of the financial constraints or the conversations that are required with CEOs and investors?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

That's a really interesting question because I think it is a balance, and I'm sometimes torn over that as well. On one hand, as a head of school, I believe that my role should be to remove the obstacles so teachers can get on and do a good job. I don't want teachers to be involved in some of those messy things that distract them from their core business, teaching 20 to 25 students in a classroom. We've got to remove those obstacles so those teachers can do a good job, with Jimmy or Mary on a Monday morning at 10 o'clock, you know, helping them with Phonics or helping them with their chemistry assignment, et cetera. But on the other hand, if teachers are so disconnected from those other decisions, they can get very frustrated. Why can't we employ that other teacher? Why can't I have that resource, et cetera? And often it's because teachers are not involved enough in the processes. So take for example budgeting. I want teachers to have everything at their hands to do a really good job. But if they turn up to a brand new school year and it's September 25th and they want an item that's worth $10,000, I can't give it to them because it wasn't already in the budget. And they might get frustrated with me because they don't understand the budget process. So I think it is a balance of removing those obstacles so the teachers don't have to worry about those messy things. But on the other hand, helping them understand the process that if you want a resource, you can probably have it, but it has to be submitted into the budget proposal maybe in April or May before the next school year so that it can be planned for. Because it's just like your home budget, Josh. I mean, you know, you can't go and have a five-star dinner every single night, or you can't change your budget plan without having some forethought. So it's the same thing with a school. The budget must be planned out, it must be strategic, and you can't make radical decisions quickly without having to make sacrifices along the way. So in answer to your question, I think I do that a little bit. I think I do help teachers understand a bit more. I help them have buy-in with the budget processes. But the truth is I do try to protect teachers a little bit from that because I don't want them getting busy in those messy things that I should be able to remove for them.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

It's almost like a balancing act, isn't it? Giving a little bit of insight so that teachers are aware enough to be brought into you and understand what's happening in the school, but whilst also not feeling the pressure that it's their responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, and I think it's sometimes just spending that extra couple of minutes with a staff member. So some headmasters or head of schools can be quite disconnected from teachers and quite dismissive. The teacher comes in and complains that they don't have that resource, they don't have it ready on time, and then go, well, I'm sorry, I've done the best I can, and they just move on and don't spend that extra couple of minutes explaining. So I think being authentic and being real and saying things like, Hey, I wish I could get that for you. I'll try. If I can try and find that money for you, I'm gonna try and do that. So be sincere and genuine, but also be honest and say, look, I just couldn't do it. Because in order to get that budget item, I needed to take it away from somewhere else, and we just don't have it right now. But I'm gonna make sure we have it next year. I often say that for heads of school, it's far easier to be dismissive and disconnected. It's far easier not to answer questions because then you can just move on with your day and not be bothered with it. But you don't realize that short-term investment in relationships and be authentic and being real with teachers, helping them understand those things is gonna help them feel happier in the workplace and to trust you more, that you really are advocating for them in everything that they do.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

Brilliant. Thank you for that. So thinking as a head of school, when an owner or board looks at a school, what are they actually assessing that most school leaders never learn to read themselves?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

There's always a legacy play. Often a family that wants to invest in a school, there is a legacy play. They want to make a difference. They want to tell people that they had a school, they want it to be in their history and that those stories to tell the future. But ultimately they want profit. They want a profit margin. I work with a lot of schools that are not profit-driven, but they need to be sustainable. Even church-based schools or completely non-profit schools, they need to be sustainable. So they must make money. I think it's really important to have that balanced spreadsheet to make sure that there is a strategic plan, that there is a plan that's going to make sure that the school's not going to deteriorate financially over a couple of years. So the conversations must lean across all those areas.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

What kind of basic financial literacy would you suggest that every school leader should have?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

At the most basic level, they need to be able to understand a spreadsheet. They need to understand how to do projected budgets. They need to have some accountable systems in place as well. I've worked with some organizations where the teachers weren't involved at all in the budget submissions. They just started the school year and they kept asking for things until the principal stopped saying yes. That's not a budget process. I think it's important that where possible, a department gets a budget and they can monitor it month by month so that they know whether they're using up the resources or not. Schools even do it in simple ways like with photocopying, for example. They have notional budgets. So it's not money, but maybe teachers have an amount of copies that they can have each month and they can monitor it. And if they use too many, they might borrow a friend's password, for example. I'm okay with that. It's about monitoring resources. So I think it's important to have clear budgeting processes and heads of school need to know not only how they work, but how to monitor them and manage them as well. Depending on the school organization, they also need to understand that bigger long-term picture. They need to understand how the financial models work. Schools are very profitable, but they take time. So a brand new school startup, for example, may not make positive cash flow for until year four or year five. So the first three or four years, they're losing money until they reach that position of scale. I often say that in a school, teacher costs are relatively fixed for some time because it doesn't matter if you have five children in a classroom or 25 children in a classroom. In theory, the operational costs are relatively the same. So until you reach that position of scale, you're still going to be struggling. So I think it's important that new heads of school they understand that the school is not necessarily hurting financially, but it it's not reaching positive cash flow for some time till year four or five. Now the schools are very profitable once they get to year eight, year nine, and year ten. But you need to understand that the investor has put aside a lot of money in those first three or four years because they know they're going to lose money for those first few years. So that investment capital is sitting there in the bank. It can't be used though, because it's managing the deficit in those early years until the scale is reached, until those classrooms are full.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

Or does it become very similar across the board?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

I think in many aspects it's fairly similar. It's probably just a little bit different in terms of how things are structured. I mean, schools we describe school investments as being Propco and Opco, meaning there's the Propco property company, there's the investment in the land and the facility, and there's the opco, the investment in the operational company. So those two things are separate. In some countries, such as Asia, the investor will own everything, the land, the building, and the operational company. In other parts of the world, for example, the Middle East and others, they might may not want to invest in the facilities, the land and the building, because it's incredibly capital expensive. So they don't want to invest in that. They would rather invest only in the operational company and then pay a lease on a month-to-month basis, which becomes a challenge when the school's not profitable in those early years to pay an incredibly high lease for a very expensive facility. But I think the mindset is generally the same. One of the challenges we face as people that do school startups is helping an investor understand the school business. Because they're often coming from a real estate perspective or a hospitality perspective or another industry, and they don't really understand how education works. So they don't understand the key levers to pull, what matters the most, what's important. If it's in a developing country, they don't understand expatriates. Like they might think it's funny that an expatriate's concerned about cold water on a Tuesday morning when they're trying to have a shower or the fact they're having trouble purchasing basic items that they're missing from home. But those things are really crucial and important. We spend a lot of time coaching investors and helping them understand the industry. We are often arguably described as the bridge between both education and investment because we understand both. I was a teacher once who became a head of school who then worked, who now moves and works in the business space. So I understand the difference between those two parts, and I'm somewhat at the bridge. So we do spend a lot of time helping coaching both sides to understand each other so that it's smooth. And in most countries of the world, that is the biggest priority is developing and creating strong trust with the investors so that they trust us, and then coaching and mentoring them so that they know how schools actually work, so that a school's not operated like a hotel or a real estate business or a jewelry um manufacturer or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 16:45

Really interesting. Think of myself. I came from a state education school in in the UK, and I went into this international sort of market for want of a better term. Um the transition for me has been relatively smooth because it's felt very much British education just in an international environment. Um I wasn't necessarily exposed to that until I moved to China, where it was slightly different approach. Again, you've got experience in China. Where do you see the countries moving forward the most in terms of bringing that British international or international in general schools opening over the next five years?

SPEAKER_00 17:18

I think the focus in the past has always been, as you describe, on expatriates, you know, expatriate teachers meeting the needs of expatriate families in foreign countries. And I think that's changing. Most of these countries, and China's a good example, but now areas of Southeast Asia and of course the Gulf as well, you have a rise in middle class. You have local people that want a high quality standard of education. So I think that, and I've all I've said for some time now, even pre-COVID, that the largest area of growth in international schools is what we call tier two. It's that group of schools and families and stakeholders that sit underneath that premium area. It's not just expatriate families, it's the rising middle class of local families that want a high quality education that's internationalized. And I think, you know, you bring up a good point about being British and being international. And I find it quite interesting. We are we we all still use the same language. We call a school international just because it uses a foreign curriculum. But is that what makes it international? Or I mean, arguably, you can have a British school in Vietnam, but is it a British school? Is it a Vietnamese school or is it an international school? I think it depends on how it's run, because the curriculum is arguably just a vehicle we're driving. It's the material that we're following. But what makes the school international tends to be a whole lot of other things. It's that concept of being global and international minded as well. But the the fastest growing area of international schools worldwide is that sector of the middle to upper middle class in those countries. It's many more local students and many more local teachers that are improving the quality of their teaching to provide a high quality standard for local families.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

It's a really interesting point. You mentioned there about identity of what the school's identity is. Have you ever experienced an investor who comes in, they've got an idea, they want to purchase a certain land in an area or build a school here in this particular area, and they tell you what they want their identity to be. Have you ever had a language where an investor is very clear and direct on what it is they want?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, and that's often one of our earliest battles. I guess I've been doing this long enough now that I push back pretty hard on some of those battles. Early on, I said yes to everything, and these days I'm I'm much tougher on it. But if you talk to architects, we still come across investors who have contacted an architect and said they want to build a school. And the architect says, Well, what kind of school and who's the operator? And they go, Don't worry, just build the school. So they'll build the school and then they'll try to figure out who's going to operate it and how it's going to operate. I had some firm discussions with an investor just recently who basically said, Well, can't you just operate the school after I've built it? Not realizing that the whole design process requires an educator and an operator to be involved in that process. In China in the early days, we used to joke about the fact that they wanted a Harry Potter school. They would show you a picture of the Harry Potter school, and that's what they wanted, without really understanding what that was. And they wanted to decorate it with foreigners, not realizing that it wasn't just those faces that looked a particular way that were going to make the school great. It's the quality of teaching. It didn't matter of the skin colour, it didn't matter the nationality or the culture. You know, good quality education happens because a great teacher is making a difference in the classroom. So it's one of our earliest battles, often with an investor who have very fixed minds. We are fairly non-negotiable now about a few things. We require a market research and feasibility study and a 10-year financial model before we proceed with a project. Because we want to be sure that should it be British, American, and IB? I don't know, until we've studied the market, until we've understood what the families in that community need. And then the same with the financial model. A school can reach positive cash flow year two, three, five, or seven. It depends arguably not only on the market, but the way the whole school is structured, how fast you grow the school. So we push back pretty hard these days with investors that come with quite fixed mindsets. Not because we're trying to change their mind, we're trying to either test their assumptions to be sure they're right, or make sure that they're making good decisions for the future. So again, should it be American, British, Canadian, Australian, IB curriculum? All those curriculums are great. But which one should be chosen for that environment, that cultural context, that's an analysis and conversation that needs to take place. And it shouldn't be preemptive.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

I find that that's really fascinating. Actually, something I've I've never considered myself. I wondered during that process of you starting out in that lane, did you you come across challenges that you you didn't expect or perhaps even made mistakes in that particular area of identity?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Arguably, I think one of the advantages for me has been that I'm Australian. So the curriculums are predominantly British American or IB. So I come with a a fairly independent perspective anyway. My wife Shanna's American, and most of our schools in the early years were British. So we weren't particularly loyal to a curriculum. We were very focused on you know, I use the analogy of a vehicle. I can drive any vehicle in any country. It just looks different. The gears and levers are in different places, but it's still just a vehicle. It comes back to good teaching pedagogy. I keep thinking the early days I made mistakes. When I didn't listen enough or I didn't push back enough at the right times. I've had investors convince me to ramp up the school faster than it should have been. They wanted to grow the school too quickly, and arguably that increased operational costs faster than they should have been, but maybe I didn't understand enough about the dynamics of the financial model in those early days, or maybe I wasn't as confident as I am today. Well now we're much tougher on that. We have certain gateways that we won't move forward unless certain criteria are met. So those things are really important to me because I often say I'm not selling a used car. I'm not chasing advisory fees for a three-month project and I'm going to run out the door. I want to set up an operator school for 20 years. So I'm in it. I need to be a part of that and stay in that game. So I think I'm much tougher in the process because I'm going to stay in the game. And so I think I'm much more confident on seeing the signals. If I'm spending too much time arguing with an investor about how things should be in the early days, that's a red flag to me because in those early days of negotiating with an investor for a brand new school, we're testing each other. We're understanding each other in our relationships. I'm getting a sense of whether we can work together. I've never worked with an investor who I haven't had some kind of argument with professionally. It's the same way for all of us as professional colleagues. But is that one where we're going to listen into and respect each other? Because it's not about power and position. It's about having the right people in the room to make the right decision. Ultimately, if I'm going to make a decision about a good design of a science lab, I want some science people in that room. I might be the ultimate decision maker, but not in terms of a science lab design, because the science teacher knows better than I do about that space. So they're the boss of that portfolio. And it's the same thing with an investor. They're more qualified than me around government relations, about local cultural contexts, but I know education and I know how to set up and operate the school. I don't go to my doctor and tell them what medication should be prescribed. I have a role to play, but ultimately I want the key decision makers in the room that can make the best decision.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Brilliant. And you mentioned about being involved at the end, but also afterward. Do you still keep in touch with a lot of the schools that you have been part of and see their success and you still have that relationship with the schools?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah, I do. I mean, I think it's a it becomes a fairly small network when you've been involved in the industry as long as we have. So some a number of those schools have been sold and gone on to other owners or investors. Some projects we do were in for short term, some for a long time. We spent a lot of time in Asia in the early days. Now our portfolio is focused a lot more on Middle Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and now Europe and parts of Africa. So we've moved, not in always intentionally, but somewhat strategically, and that's where the energy has been. So yeah, we do stay connected. Uh very fond days of China. We loved our time in China, but also it was hard work. It was the early pioneering days, and we've drawn parallels. So, for example, in China we saw an environment where arguably back in 2010, 2011, people didn't need to be very good. They just needed to be okay, and they did pretty well. But that market became more sophisticated over time, and those schools that weren't very good have failed. It's the same thing on the GCC plate. We're doing a lot of work in Saudi Arabia right now. And in the early days, schools can be okay and do all right. But the long game is that you need to be really, really good because what will happen is the poor operators will fall out, and the ones that will succeed are the ones that have strength and a long strategic plan.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Well, you mentioned about being really, really good from from the beginning. What would be the top three things that you would say are non-negotiable to be really good from the beginning?

SPEAKER_00 25:20

I think the first thing is it's management. It's leadership and management. Because ultimately we can wax lyrically around the table over a cup of coffee about the most important person in the school, and we can say it's teachers because they're the ones that make a difference for the students in the classroom, but it's not. It's the leader. It's the head of school. Because I've seen great teachers perform badly under a poor leadership. So you've got to have strong leadership on the ground. You've got to have a head of school or a strong management team that can be really effective at implementing so the staff can do the job that they're employed to do, so they can do a really good job. So I think that's the first key. I think the second one is probably that long-term strategic planning, an investor who understands that this is a long game, that they're looking at their overall budget over a 10-year period and not just a two-year period. They're not trying to squeeze profit into year one and year two, which is just not realistic. And I think the third one I would say is a deep, authentic connection to all stakeholders, including family. One of the things I'm hearing strongly around Saudi Arabia, where we do a lot of work right now, is there are many families that have joined premium international schools that are not happy with the quality of education that's been provided because there's been a disconnect with their local culture and heritage. They might have been attracted to that fancy brand or that premium prestige that comes with an overseas product or brand, but they care a lot about their history and culture and heritage, just as you do, Josh, and so do I of my own country. So we've sometimes people forget that. You know, I have a concern about what I call colonialism. How dare a British, American, or Australian go to Saudi Arabia, China, or anywhere in the world and say, excuse me, step aside, we're about to bring you international education that's far better than what you've ever experienced. Confucius was around several hundred years ago and he he had some stuff that we're now returning to. So I think we need to be careful about our arrogance, about colonialism, about misunderstanding what local families really need. We need to listen really clearly. We need to have high standards. Don't get me wrong, we need to have very high standards, but we need to make sure that we are designing a curriculum model and designing schools for local cultural context. I do work with a number of famous school brands in different countries of the world. And the first thing I try to help them realize is that this is not McDonald's. You're not going to copy yourself in that other new cultural context. You have to adapt. I mean, take the most famous school in the world, Eaton College. It's a school designed for very wealthy, affluent boys. It's very selective. Now, there's a reason why Eton College doesn't exist in other parts of the world because you can't duplicate it. A school in Vietnam or China is 80% ESL. So these things must be understood.

SPEAKER_03 27:45

I think that's a really key message there. It's it's about uh respecting and appreciating the brand and acknowledging and potentially celebrating that parents of different countries want that brand and want that experience. But at the same time, it's that negotiation, mediation of the cultural piece that I think we have to be respectful for in those countries where we're bringing that brand, whichever brand that may be.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah, absolutely. Because parents have have often signed on for a particular experience, but they don't realize what it is. One of the things I found interesting in China is that in those early days, they signed on for an elite, prestigious British brand. So, okay, off we go. And then at week week three or week four, the parents are saying, um, how come my child doesn't have four hours homework every night? How come you don't have tests taken on a Saturday? I want my child to be stressed. Now we sell international education as being holistic and highly academic and a whole range of other things. But parents' perceptions of education quality is from their own experience. And when they were at school, they had four or five hours homework every night, they had weekend tests taken, they had a whole lot of things. They judge quality from that experience as parents. So on one hand, they sign up for international education and they go to the marketing events and they read the brootions and go, yeah, that's what I want. But in truth, they're judging it from their own frame of reference. And that can be a real challenge.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

For an educator who wants to build genuine commercial literacy without leaving education or perhaps even leaving their current role, where do they actually start?

SPEAKER_00 29:06

Good question. It's really hard because for the reasons I mentioned earlier, teachers are often quite disconnected from the budgets and the finances because, and they should be, because we want, we don't want them distracted. But ultimately, you need to get a bit more connected, and I guess you need to look at a budget. There's a lot of things that teachers don't understand about how a budget works. So let me take, for example, teacher salary. So you, you know, let's say a teacher's salary is $40,000 a year. So teachers in their mind say, okay, 10 teachers is $400,000. That's not true. A teacher's salary is $40,000, plus there's the salary package, the housing package, which might be $8,000 to $10,000 per year. There's professional development costs, a whole range of other things. So a teacher's salary that looks like $40,000 might actually be $50,000, $52,000 per year. So in the whole budget, it it's it's a much bigger or different kind of item. And we have the same conversations with investors. Investor, I I've had conversations before where investors will say, well, look, instead of giving teachers $40,000 plus maybe $5,000 housing allowance, can't I just give them $45,000 and be done? And I'll say, no, you can't do that. Why? It's the same cost to me. Because an investor just doesn't care. They just want to know what's the bottom line, what's it going to cost them. But in the mindset of a teacher, if they're getting $40,000 plus $5,000 housing allowance, they're comparing that to their friends. If you give them $45,000, in one or two years' time, they're getting $45,000 and no housing allowance. Don't go to that school because you don't get a housing allowance. So there's a lot of psychology in the way that you structure financial packages for teachers. I think there's some work that schools can do in helping teachers manage, I don't mean interfering with people's finances, but helping them understand financial literacy of themselves as well. I think it's just a mindset. Teachers need to participate in the budget processes. That's a way to learn. It's important for an English head of department or a head of early years to submit a budget and be a part of that decision-making processes. Some schools will allow teachers to participate in the discriminating processes.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

And what about from a head of schools perspective? My understanding is that there's sometimes KPI is related to budgets and perhaps saving more money than anticipated could be seen as a positive thing from a head of school perspective. But at the same time, heads of schools will always be thinking, well, I want to make the school better and teaching better and give as much money as I can. How does a head of school find that balancing act?

SPEAKER_00 31:17

It is really tough and it depends on the governance processes that exist. I was having a conversation with a colleague just a couple of days ago about accreditation, and they were trying to understand how accreditation works because the investor I was speaking to just had sort of assumed that if they want international accreditation, they sign up, pay an amount of money, have an inspection, and then they get that stamp on the website. And I was helping them understand that no, the way accreditation works, good premium accreditation, is you run the school in a particularly effective manner, and then you invite the accreditation team in to see and check and prove that you are operating the way you had a spouse to do so. And I think it's the same thing with these budget processes and KPIs, that a really effective head of school will have these KPIs in their mind every single day of the year. They're not trying to manufacture an accreditation process where people come to inspect or when the governors are coming to check the budget. It will be a consistent process throughout the year. So if they have good processes in place where the teacher heads a department, head of school is monitoring the budget process on a daily, weekly basis and receiving feedback are monitoring along the way, it's much easier to do along the way. So KPIs are easier to be held accountable to. It's really tough when no one talks about it, then once every six months someone quickly looks up the budget sheet and goes, oh wow, I'm over budget. Or gee, I haven't met my KPIs. So you don't want a model where someone's coming to check KPIs twice a year. You want a system where the KPIs are driving decision making all throughout. In our organization, we call it vision and mission integrity, and we also call it signature experiences. The signature experiences of the school must reflect the vision and mission of the school. Otherwise, you've got a complete integrity issue and a disconnect. It's the same way as Starbucks, Sheraton, Grand Hyde, some of the largest brands in the world. If you go into any of those organizations any day of the week, you'll see signature experiences that reflect daily behaviors of their vision and mission. And that's what's important. And I think that's what makes it easier for a head of school to follow KPIs if those signature experiences are aligned, rather than that external inspectorial model that checks them once or twice a year.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Guess really, it's the same approach as a teacher like myself. We follow our vision and mission values of the school every day. It's the same process. That's interesting. I never even considered that.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah, and I think I think the difference too with a teacher is you get immediate feedback on a daily basis. So you have an interaction with a 12-year-old in your classroom, you get immediate impact that comes back pretty quick, whether you manage the situation well or not. Or you get a phone call from the parent the next day. It's fairly immediate. But as a head of school, it's not so immediate. You might make a decision now, but you won't see the consequences of that maybe for several weeks or even months. And that's one of the other key differences. You know, we started our conversation today to talk about how different things are as a head of school versus teacher. The feedback loop is very, very different. It's much more disconnected. It's slower. So you have to be much more proactive and more aware. The heads of school that are more disconnected from the classrooms are even further away from that feedback loop.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

And just a little bit about yourself. You mentioned you started out as a teacher and you went through and you became a head of school and obviously moved into the position that you're in now. Let me just ask you why.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

I guess like anything that happened by accident and opportunity, maybe if I could tell a short story. I was arguably a successful teacher and a successful principal in Australia, and I was doing fairly well. And I remember a mentor, coach of mine back in those days said to me, Greg, where do you see yourself in five to ten years' time? And I've described myself as being head of the largest school in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, who was going to be successful and it was going to be gigantic and it was going to be amazing. And she said, Stop. What is it about that role or position that you want in 10 years' time? And I answered it again. I said, Oh, I want to be head of this school in Brisbane and I'll be influential and I'll have great reputation. She said, Stop. And I couldn't answer the question. And she came back to me about a month later and she asked me again, and I replied much more effectively because I thought about it. And that is that I wanted to be in charge of a large organization that was complex, a large number of people, and have positive impact over large numbers of people that was going to be long-lasting. So I get choked up even thinking about this because it just means a lot to me. Like I want to have impact over a large number of people that's gonna leave a legacy, that's gonna make a difference. Now that could happen in a range of different contexts, but for me it's education. So I was a teacher who became a head of school who now sets up and operates schools in many different parts of the world. It excites me. It's so incredible. I've worked in Palestine, I now work in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, parts of Africa. What an incredible gift or opportunity I have to impact education quality around the world. What an incredible opportunity we have to help young people become informed citizens, to make better decisions about the future. Like it's incredibly powerful missions. So I guess that's what's important to me. I want to have impact, I want to make a difference, and I want it to be a legacy that goes on far beyond the short-term influence that I might have. As educators and leaders of schools, we have a far greater impact than people realise on the future of our world and of international citizenship.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Amazing. And thank you for for sharing that story. I really appreciate it and can just see and feel the sort of passion and motivation you have for the role. And it's it's it's amazing, it's amazing to see and hear. Um what what would be your advice for somebody listening to this who may be a teacher or a senior leader or perhaps even a head of school and gets really motivated and interested by what you're saying and wants to take that journey and wants to take that step, what would be your advice to those individuals?

SPEAKER_00 36:37

I think where you need to start is you need to be really clear about who you are and where you want to be. I'm not suggesting people should necessarily practice that elevator pitch, but it is almost that question. If someone was asking you what your mission in life should be, you should be able to answer it. My wife and I were having this conversation this morning over a walk, and we were talking about racism and we're talking about inequitable practices around the world, and we were saying that no longer are we going to walk by. I mean, to walk by and let it go is to almost concede that it's okay and to let it be. And that's not gonna happen on our watch. I want people at my table that are gonna have the same mindset that I have. And I think the what people need to decide as a teacher or a leader is who they are and who they want to be. And every step you take from tomorrow onwards should be towards you achieving that goal. If you think about what legacy you're gonna leave in this world, if on your deathbed someone said, please describe your life, you need to be able to describe it now. And when you describe it now, what steps are you taking between now and then to help to achieve those goals? Backward map it. What skills are you gonna require? What values and experiences are gonna help you achieve that? I became a principal because I developed the skills and aptitudes and I proved my worth over a period of time. Then when I became a principal, my next goal was about forward planning to what the next step was gonna be and backward map the skills, knowledge, and experiences that were gonna help me achieve that. So what I say to anybody is is I think that's that's important to me, and I hope it's important to you as well. We're only on this world for a short time, and we're only gonna have so much impact, small or large, and it's important that we understand what that goal is gonna be personally and how you're gonna achieve that.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Okay, thank you so much for it. Thanks, Josh. It's been great uh talking to you. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

I appreciate it.