 O why, you're so welcome, and I don't even have to introduce myself because you all know me, so that saves some time, and that is really really nice. So thank you for coming. Chloe, just a heads up, unless everybody else piles in through the door in the next ten minutes or so, we'll stay together for the session. We're not going to try and break into pairs or anything like that. Let's just all stay together and have a discussion between us, which will be really lovely. Felly, roi'n gobeithio'n gwybod, gwybod eich gwybod, o'r ffordd antycompetitifol. Ond o'r ffordd, roi'n gwybod eich twyd wedi ei gwybod ar y cwmddiadau yn y cymhwyl, yn gydig o'r cymdeithas, ac mae'n gwybod i由 i gyda'r llwy. I've got to say that book is just remarkably boring. I can't say I didn't learn lots, but partly that's why it took me four months to prepare for this, because I kept thinking it'd be something really exciting over the next page. So I'm not recommending it. I've done it, I've taken one for the team. So introduction. Yeah, and why is it so interesting and important to think about anti-competitive practice. My workers, you well know, because you're all part of it, and I'm part of yours, is bringing together communities where people can think independently together. So moving good intentions into sustainable systems and culture change. And you'll see, you'll have seen on the first slide that I'm accompanied here by my thinking companions. So the Bowerbird, I know you know, he helps me curate those gems of insight from all around me and put them to work. And he also reminds me that every curation decision I make should be grounded in my personal ethics. I'm a curator. I've learned that, you know, I am the Blue Shiny Things person. I combine them into new ways, combine old things into new ways of thinking. And then in the corner, of course, Beloved Spinoza as crocheted by Helen Osborne, the guy who back at the birth of capitalism reminded us that we are all forms of the same vital living matter. You got excommunicated for that, or we believe it's that, there's a bit of mystery. So we share a life force and we share a responsibility to one another, and my work wouldn't be my work without them. So they're going to keep popping up in the presentation. So as I said to you, I found it incredibly difficult to prepare for this presentation. I've been thinking, reading, scribbling all summer and it still took me till this very morning to put the final touches to it. I couldn't let it go. I talk about anti-competitive practice all the time. If you ever listen to the joy AM broadcast, I'm always banging on about it. But at the same time, I find the whole concept overwhelming because it's so important. It's so fundamental to deep cultural and systems change. For the past several hundred years, and only that, we've lived under an economic and political system called capitalism. And that pits us against one another in service of the market. I mean, it's what it is. It's integral. Competition is integral. When I started a couple of years ago, starting to read what other people have written about anti-competitive practice, I couldn't find anything positive said about it because within a capitalist economy, anti-competition is a bad thing. It's people having monopolies, it's not free trade. So, you know, actually in the few years since, it is finally starting to emerge in business leadership research, the big business schools in America, here in the UK, starting to talk about anti-competitive practice as a really positive thing. But we are where we are. I'm not trying to overthrow capitalism this evening. We compete for commodities and we become commodities ourselves. But this is the really big thing, really important thing. When we resist the inevitability of competition, I firmly believe that we're resisting capitalism too. This is just such an amazing fact. Did you know that most of the elements of our bodies were formed in stars over the course of billions of years? Joanie Mitchell knew that when she wrote Woodstock back in 1970 and I totally know I'm in danger of being accused of my hippie stuff when I say that. According to the National History Museum, it's possible that traces of the hydrogen in our bodies date back to the Big Bang. Now, I can't think about space for very long without it troubling my mental health and I'm like not joking. But it seems to me that composition like this is the basis for cooperation rather than competition. So we've had capitalism for what foreign judges and around the time that it really took hold. Spinoza was pointing out the folly of separating ourselves from nature and from each other. That's the post human thing, the spinos and post human thing. We share a life force and none of us are less or more than each other. But humans have been around way longer than 400 years and we would not still be here if we hadn't spent most of that time in cooperation. We can't cooperate and compete at the same time, at least not effectively. And competition is always at somebody else's expense. Is that how we want to live? I'm arguing that it is exactly how we live by default, whether we want to or not. So in this short presentation and the Baubergs really helped to curate my scattered brain, I present three traps of competitive practice and some broad suggestions for how to counter them. And then what we'll do is learn together in the discussions that follow. But first a couple of caveats. I'm not talking about sport here. I love sport. Sport is by nature competitive and I don't see any problem with that. I'm not saying competitive or not competitive. I'm on a spectrum as always, not a binary. Sport is what it is and it's competition that makes it compelling and I love a good board game. It doesn't hurt to have winners and losers in sporting games. And I'm speaking as one who lost on purpose for years because my dad was such a total toddler if he didn't win. But all fitness doesn't need to be sport and all enjoyment doesn't need to be games. Secondly, as I have learned always to say, because there are people out there who do this for a living, I'm not telling anyone how to teach. I have no doubt that many educators use elements of competition to bring some fun and jeopardy to the classroom. There's no problem with that if it's not happening all the time. All I'd ask you is, are you sure that everybody is as up for it as you are? Are you seeing the same winners and losers all the time? So it's the time I truly believe and business analysts, certainly in the West, absolutely believe that it's the time for pro social practice. I've told you about no contest and I can always share these with references. One woman's boring book is another woman's great entertainment. I know that, but it has got tiny print. And then the other book is a real old favourite. It's by Richard Sennett. You might be familiar with his book, The Craftsman, and it's called Together. And it's an absolute must read for anyone making a case for cooperation. OK, so. Here we are just a little nod to something that I've heard and I've just started to read that I think brings together such a lot of the thinking around this when we're in a thinking environment, don't we say, roll rank an ego, leave it at the door roll and rank that's easy. Honestly, by the time you've seen people try and stop rolling their eyes the first time you say where you are in the hierarchy, you're not going to do it again. Ego's hard, because we've all got ego. This book is Brene Brown's latest two-part podcast on Dare to Lead, The Prepared Leader, emerged from any crisis more resilient than before, and it's by Erika James and Lynn Perry-Wutton, and I've got it on Kindle, I'm about halfway through, and it's brilliant. It's so simple, I can really recommend it. And they talk about being humble enough to allow others to take the lead as the situation dictates. And this brings us to the first trap. OK, so the first trap is the ego trap. In everyday life we see the ego trap everywhere. And most commonly is the Tommy Toppett. So we all know one. Whatever you say, they've done one better, immediately turning the conversation round to them. I am absolutely certain that someone is coming to mind for you right now. Most recently I heard a Tommy Toppett close down a story about someone waiting four hours for an ambulance. And then the tale was that he knew somebody was waiting nine. Where can you go with that? It's impossible to figure out if it's even true. It's impossible to figure out if it's even true. You can't have a conversation. You know, they've just shut you down. And what's happening, of course, is that everything has triggered their ego. So when we are breathing the air of competition, why would it not? And it's not just Tommy Toppett. We all struggle with our egos. Keeping it in check is the work we have to do on ourselves in order to do the work of our lives. Sometimes our ego speaks for us before we even engage our brain. I've seen it happen. And I've had plenty of messages from people who have sort of done it and then got me in touch afterwards and said, oh my God, I feel really guilty. I feel really ashamed. You know, what did I do that for? There's no shame in the fact that we absorb those messages society gives us about the hustle. We all do it, but there's deep joy in working on that ego, resisting it and getting where we need to be anyway, where. I'm not saying I'm not got an ego. I'm not saying my ego don't come into the room before me sometimes. But I've been working on it for years now and I don't think it's stopped me getting anywhere just because I've stopped it with the sharp elbows. So that's trap number one. Trap number two is the rivals trap. So this is the thing. For every winner, there's a loser or a whole host of losers like somebody losers. The system pits us against one another and we barely even notice. You're here. You're part of the FV tapestry as Chloe calls it. People who put energy into working with others rather than against them. So you're sold on collaborative working. It's intentional with you. Any practice can forget its good intentions though and it's under pressure from the waters we swim in. Our culture of rivalry. And it's super easy to start thinking of individuals as rivals maybe because to behave competitively with us and other organisations literally a market rivals because that's how the system works. We compete for students. I always think about 2008 actually in Oxford. I did a shout out to colleagues to reach out to their local adult and community learning service and never heard that ever happened anywhere. And I kept asking, you know. So when there's partnership working, there's always a boss organisation, isn't there? So that rivalry stays there even within and perhaps particularly within formal partnership working. And of course, worse place for this, social media. FE socials pretty decent compared to the tanker sharks which is schools Twitter. LinkedIn is becoming ridiculous. I had someone on the phone in tears to me today about how, you know, something that happened on LinkedIn, people just diving on. I'm not referring even just to the snidey stuff but it's the hustling. Somebody asked a genuinely open question and 10 people straight in there hustling their published work which is tangential at best. It doesn't answer the question but all of this only reflects the culture of our workplaces back to us. The truth is our words betray us despite our good intentions which leads me to trap three. Sound like I'm at the Greyhound racing, don't I? The systems trap. Excuse me. So the systems trap is where it all plays out. Anti-competitive practice is exhausting because it's literally swimming against the stream. Competition is built into our system not least in the language we use and I include emojis in that. Whose posts do you take time to like? Whose posts don't you bother to comment on? I'm going to say something now and I know this is really challenging but even on the broadcast in the morning I noticed that somebody says that I don't know it's the birthday or the pulley or something. I noticed some people get more like hearts or hugs than other people and they're the people who are sort of known in that community. It's not okay. How do we draw people in? Really notice that stuff. On social media as well I notice the guys praising the guys, the white people praising the white people, creating filter bubbles and deepening inequalities tweet by tweet. Don't get me started on people who steal other people's work and don't reference them. The opportunity to give somebody credit for an idea that's inspired you. I think that's an amazing thing to be able to do and we all stand on the shoulders of giants. But even when we talk about best or better than, even in relation to ourselves we are encouraging competition. When we publish league tables, when we norm reference exam results like GCSEs so that even if everyone does brilliantly the same proportion still lose out, when we operate under a system which expects us all to be outstanding and yet the gradient spiral rarely feels encouraging. I haven't got the latest figures but a few years ago it was on its way down. Less outstanding colleges. Is norm referencing happening with Ofsted? Nobody will admit it. When we set up competitions in class and I mean not just a bit of fun, right? I'm not trying to stop anybody's fun. But competitions sometimes relate to this person's always the hard worker. This person is always the high achiever. In FE, oh my goodness. Sometimes this person's got the most astonishing tragic life story. We do that. When we have staff or student at the year awards when we roll out the same students as the usual suspects to governors we're buying into competition without hard work rather than achievement. How does it feel not to win year after year and particularly staff awards where people sort of stick around for longer obviously. I still resent being told a company head girl 40 years ago despite winning the student vote. So do you see the same people, staff or students getting the kudos? Favouritism. Brene Brown says that when you see favouritism you know you've got termites in the walls. The incredible hierarchies we have. The tussles over job descriptions. Whether you can be called a manager or not really. Is this the work of our lives? No. Spinoza reminds me that all this noise is a way of making us forget that we are stardust. So what's the antidote? Well obviously the answer is community. You know nobody's going to be very surprised at that. Of course it is. But specifically tonight I'd like us to think about three pro-social practices which build trust. A great way to make the ego seem ridiculous. It's such a relief when you don't have to hustle anymore. So in our thinking space but altogether really love us to think about attention, apology and acknowledgement. I'm just going to briefly introduce all three of these. Attention of course there's a whole literature around it really recommend. Amishi Jar's book. I'm just looking peak mind. That's it. I've forgotten the title. Which is around the neuroscience of attention. Of course it's one of the components of a thinking environment. Everywhere you look now. Thinking about that podcast with Erica and Lynn on Dare to Lead. This week and last people are talking about paying attention particularly in a digital age. In the Unlocking Us podcast Brunay is talking with the Gottmans, John and Julie and they're talking about their latest work which is around turning toward people. Not turning away or turning against them. Paying attention and how small acts of attention really build trust. This includes citation. It includes remembering who to credit. Particularly if they're from a group that gets overlooked. Who you notice who you don't. Who you don't. Who you don't. Those are the context and the word. Those are the context and the word. They are the context and the word. They don't termites in the walls and all of that. Apology is something we absolutely don't do enough because it's in many of our working environments it's not okay to make mistakes. So, we hide them. It's so hard to apologise for messing up. roedd gael ei geyrtio gweithio'r rhaglenethaf ceroedol, ond fydd gweithio ddechrau'r gweithio, gan y peth gen i roi ddigonol i'r boeligau ac yna hynny o'r cyfan hynny'n gweithio i'r boelig ac i'w'n hefyd. Rydyn ni'n doech i'n boelig mor bêl. I beth bydd hynny i gael pobl fel cael analoutingu. Rydyn ni'n gweithio pob ddim yn',u boeligiau, yn cofniadwch. Yn hynny sîm gallwch chi'n gweithio'n Mynd i'n ddigonolio'r boeligiau a'r boeligiau. Croes hyn. Goel ei wneud ond gan gweithio'r pwn i yn gweithio'r pwn newid, i wneud eich plwn i'r cymdeithasol. Felly fe wneud yma, dyma, arddur nhw'n gweithio'r llyfr i fi ddiwrnod i'r cynnwys, mae'r ad Lordiwn yn ysgrifun hwn, rydyn ni'n gallu ei wneud yna'r ffyn further studio, rydyn ni'n mwy'n gallu gwenddoedd, yn gynyddiad peirio'n cysylltiadol ac yn dweud yna, Da. Fe wneud ar dweud sydd o holl yn llawer o rawr, ffordd gyda'r unig am y cyfly luiwch i'r cwmaint, cael ei sefydliwch i'n mynd i dyn nhw'n ceisio. Ac rwy'n ca articles i'r rwyf ar wrthyn ni'n gweithio ar y gallwn i'r niw'r infawr i chi'r ymddangas i'r eich pleidioedd i ni. Fy enw'r gwael, ac mae'n edrych ar ystod a'r gweithio'r gwaith i yw'r favain lliggau pa hynny, a'r gwaith ar gyfer ymdyn nhw wedi ddod yn oed yn ei du? mewn posts. One of those. And I use this term rather than cooperation or collaboration. It's not like me to use a sort of negative term. But that's because I want to get past good intentions. If I asked you whether you worked collaboratively, you would support the word shift to. You would think of a statement like you said. The other is that the average of people who live in the UK a co-operatively with students, colleagues. You'd probably say yes, but in practice, even with the most genuine intentions, you'll find your work hampered on a daily basis by the demands of competition because they're inscribed into our systems, cultures, processes and hierarchies. Some people out there will say they do it and they bloody well know that they don't. So I use the words endemic about competition. When something is endemic, we barely even notice it anymore. So that's really the only place in my work that negative creeps in just for people to wake up and really know what I'm talking about here. I think that's probably it. Let me just check us through another slide. Oh, yeah. Just to get in touch slide, but you know, you all know how to get in touch with me on my various spaces anyway. So I think, yeah, that's it. I'm going to stop sharing.