The Same Thing, Said Differently — A Solo Reflection

In this solo episode of The Common Room, host Joshua Sussex steps away from the interview format to reflect on the first nine conversations of the show — what he's learned, what's changed since launch, and what comes next.

Joshua revisits the moments that stayed with him most: Matt Allio on how cultural differences when it comes to business , Dr. Howard Stribbell on transparency versus clarity, a trailing spouse's story on identity and sacrifice, Izyan on holding trust between staff and school, and Chris Hoare on adapting the same leadership instinct across three continents. 

Each is read back through Culturally Mediated Leadership (CML) — the framework Joshua is developing through his doctoral research at the University of Bath — showing cultural reflexivity, symbolic sensitivity, stakeholder interpretation, strategic mediation, and adaptive bridging quietly present in every conversation, whether the guest had heard of CML or not.

Joshua also shares an honest update on the podcast's first month — over 350 downloads and 5,000+ direct interactions in four weeks with zero paid promotion — and announces The Common Room's move to a weekly release, every Tuesday, 5pm Malaysia time.

Next episode: Joshua is joined by Gavin McCormack — Montessori Australia Ambassador, founder of nine schools and three teacher training centres in Nepal, and bestselling author of "The Potential in Every Child" — for the show's widest-reach conversation yet, on what actually makes a lesson, or a life, stick.

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

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 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. Month ago, I recorded the very first episode of this podcast with no idea if anyone would listen. Nine episodes later, here's what I've heard. A head of school who grew a campus from 300 students to 1400. Matt Alio comparing classrooms in California to classrooms in Chengdu. Izzyn telling me belonging starts the moment a contract is signed, months before a family even leaves home or even considers booking a flight. Dean six months into loneliness before he even noticed it himself. A mother who fed her daughter the way the local woman did in Papua New Guinea. A pastoral leader in Dubai, told early on that the students and parents aren't just students and parents, they're customers. Chris Haw, still leading by three words his father gave him visibility, accessibility, and credibility. Dr. Howard Strabel, some nights alone in his office with only a mouse for company. And Greg Parry, who stopped mid-ancer, visibly emotional, telling me he just wants to keep having impact on people. Nine completely different lives, and underneath every one of them, I kept hearing the same thing, just in a different accent. This is the common room, I'm Joshua Sussex. Let's talk. Today's a bit different. No guest, just me, reflecting properly for the first time on where this show has actually been. I published nine episodes in July, deliberately. It was the summer holidays. I had more time than I'll have going forward, and I use it to find the shape of this thing, what it sounds like, what I'm actually good at asking, and what people want to hear. And I want to be clear about something while I'm at it. This show was never built just for heads of school or senior leaders. It's for anyone in this profession, a form tutor in their first year, a HR director, a teaching assistant, a training spouse, figuring out a new country alongside their partner's job. If you work in or around international education, this is for you. And that's not changing. But a quick bit of honesty. I didn't start this because I had something to say, and it's certainly out of my comfort zone. I started it because of a moment I've mentioned before. Sitting in a staff room in China, watching a decision I confidently thought was good, land four completely different ways with four completely different groups, all in the same building, all working towards the same thing. Parents heard one thing, local staff heard another, the bureau liaison heard a third, expat colleagues heard a fourth. Nobody was wrong. Everybody was just standing somewhere I hadn't stood. And then there's the conversations I've been having outside of work, with colleagues, with friends, from all around the world, from working in various places, and sharing stories of visa runs, of money transfers, of travelling, missing flights, challenges of different weathers, different languages, cultures, food. And it's those experiences that created a question that has now become my doctoral research at Bath. And it became the framework I introduced in episode two, culturally mediated leadership. I thought I'd be applying that framework to these conversations. What actually happened is these conversations kept applying it to me. Matt Aliel flew into Chengdu, believing he was there to help set up a school, and only realized after several visits that he was actually the entertainment for a property sales pitch. He wasn't wrong to feel used, he wasn't right to feel deceived either. It was just a completely different way of doing business. One his own frame of reference hadn't prepared him to recognise. That's cultural reflexivity in its purest form, recognizing your own lens before it costs you something.

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Dr.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Howard Strabel told me his teams didn't actually want transparency. They didn't want thirteen budget variables explained to them. They wanted clarity. That's symbolic sensitivity, understanding that what you say carries weight beyond its content. One of the guests watched her husband step back from managing two hundred people to running a household in a country where the role isn't seen as valuable in the wider society. The exact same move, landing completely differently depending on who's living it. That's stakeholder interpretation. Izzy Anne holds trust with both staff and school, without fully belonging to either. That's strategic mediation. And Chris Haw took the exact same leadership instinct across the UK, the Middle East and Latin America, and watched it land differently every single time. That's adaptive bridging. Building something that actually works in the room you're in rather than importing what works somewhere else. None of them had heard of CML before I asked them onto the podcast. Every one of them was living some part of it. That tells me this framework was never really about China or British branded schools specifically, which is where the research began. It's about what happens any time you're leading, teaching, or working alongside people reading the same moment through a different lens than you are, which in this profession is most of us, most of the time. And that realization is part of why I'm about to tell you what comes next. Here's something I wanted to say plainly. In four weeks, with zero pay promotion, this show passed 350 downloads and more than 5,000 direct interactions across social media. That's not a humble brag, it's a fact I'm proud of, and it's part of why I'm confident enough to commit to what comes next. So here's what changes. The common room moves to one episode a week, every Tuesday, 5 p.m. Malaysia time, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Each week brings you one of two things a conversation with someone in international education, whatever seat they sit in, whatever stage throughout their career, or a solo episode like this one. This coming Tuesday is the widest reached conversation this show has had so far. My guests have spent over 25 years inside classrooms across multiple countries, from mainstream teaching into Montessori and never looking back. In 2022, he was named the Montessori Australian Ambassador. He has personally built nine schools, several libraries, three teacher training centers in Nepal, from nothing, on the ground, brick by brick. He ran his own school for five years with zero exams, zero grades, zero schools, and made the front page of an Australian newspaper for it. He's the co-founder of two platforms reshaping how children learn, up school and educational influence. He's a best-selling author, his book, The Potential in Every Child, on shelves worldwide, alongside a series of children's books on life skills. He's delivered a TED talk watched by audiences across the globe. He's been named one of the top ten most influential educators on earth four years running. And in 2018 he was nominated for Australian of the Year. But here's the one fact that stuck with me since we spoke. He told me your brain deletes almost everything you learn in a day, unless it involved an emotion, a risk, a choice, or something you actually touch with your own hands. Everything else gets pruned away overnight, and by the next morning it's gone. His name is Gavin McCormack, and this conversation will change how you think about what actually makes a lesson or a life stick. That's Tuesday, 5 p.m. Malaysia Time on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Nine conversations, nine different accents saying the same thing. And if there's one thing I want this show to be, it's exactly what Greg Parro's still chasing, all these years in. A little bit of impact on a lot of people for a long time. If one of today's moments landed for you the way it landed for me, I'd love to hear which one. Find me on LinkedIn or wherever you're listening. I'm Joshua Sussex. Thanks for being with me in the comment room.