Group Chief Education Officer, Dr Simon Camby, recently spent some time with our Cognita Latin America education leaders in Chile. In this short reflection, Simon shares his experience connecting with diverse minds in our global system, demonstrating that ultimately, we are stronger together. 

I have just spent two days in Santiago Chile with the Cognita education leaders from Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. We have 33 schools in Latin America and they are wonderful places that buzz with energy. The purpose of our time together was to connect, share and further strengthen our commitment to our global purpose. We are clear in our purpose. We exist to enable our students to ‘Thrive in a rapidly evolving world’.

My colleagues are all system leaders. These are leaders that work across boundaries and across multiple schools. We invested time in deeply reflecting on what it means to be a system leader and what it means to work in and build a high-performing system. This is part of our ongoing work to re-shape our community from being a global group to an intentional global system.

As always happens to me, I left this meeting and left Chile a different person. This is because I work with smart people, people who reflect, who question and who genuinely want to make a difference. Above all, I spent two days with eleven colleagues who are seriously ‘low ego’. The deep humility in the room impacted on two things:

  1. It built trust – this trust allowed for questioning without any sense of judgment. We had conversations where nothing was off-limits.
  2. We built a shared coherence – we left with a shared understanding and also shared actions and systems that bring our work to life.

Above all this was a real experience of collective efficacy. Together we are stronger.