How Common Purpose helped the Director of a body
representing primary school principals in Ireland improve his
business planning and budgeting, and broadened his contacts book
beyond the education sector
Sean Cottrell is the Director of the Irish Primary Principals'
Network, an independent professional body that supports and
represent the professional needs of 3,400 primary school
principals. His role is to lead and manage the organisation on
behalf of the Executive Committee and to ensure that the
organisation's policies and plans are implemented.
He says that his Common Purpose experience has made him a better
leader at work:
"I gained deeper insights into the way other organisations
and businesses deal with change and use change as an opportunity
rather than a challenge. I also learned a lot about the operation
of private sector organisations of which I had no prior experience.
This was particularly useful in relation to business planning and
budgeting.
The Common Purpose experience highlights the limitations of
training and development in most organisations where groups tend to
be made up of homogenous roles. The opportunity to work with
leaders across such a varied selection of organisations is very
stimulating and enriching. As a consequence of this one inevitably
reflects on one's own role and organisation differently."
