‘Why partnerships are like start-ups: Four lessons from developing RGC Online’

Over the past four years, I’ve been working with a core group of colleagues at Robert Gordon’s College to develop RGC Online. This is a platform that offers live-taught Higher courses in computing science and maths to all pupils across Scotland, with a diploma programme of tech modules that focus on cutting-edge future learning (such as quantum computing). 

We piloted this with our own pupils and have had two very successful national cohorts; we are currently on our third. We have plans to significantly expand the service in the coming years and have learned a huge amount. Reflecting on the process, I realised that it’s much more like running a start-up, and this is not familiar territory for most school leaders. So for this blog, I thought I’d share some of the learning that will hopefully steel you for your own attempt at launching a partnership.

Lesson #1 - leverage your current partners to create new partnerships

We didn’t just develop RGC Online and then go in search of partners. The first thing we did was lean heavily on our existing partnerships to discover the art of the possible. After all, start-ups don’t begin in isolation - they emerge from pre-existing networks. We have an incredible global alumni network, so we used this to bring in tech firms that helped us stress-test our ideas. One great example is the Scottish Tech Army, and this collaboration has flourished into a brilliant mutual relationship where we support one another in our work. We also have very strong university partnerships. In developing the diploma programme, we worked with Robert Gordon University, MIT, and a PhD candidate from Brown University. Essentially, we asked ourselves how we could leverage our existing partnerships to benefit the national education system. It’s amazing the kinds of conversations you can have with people if you start with that. 

Lesson #2 - chase every lead

Start-ups involve a great deal of perseverance. In the first year, we had a lot of meetings which were full of energy and positivity, but did not always lead to tangible outcomes. You need to factor this in, because ultimately developing a partnership requires a lot of leadership time, and that’s a precious resource. You also need to persevere, because it’s usually the case that you are the one offering to start the relationship; I think most partnerships are kickstarted by the independent school with a big idea, rather than another partner coming to the school asking for help. This means you need to have a lot of conversations, pester people for meetings, and these in turn generate leads that will eventually pay off if you chase them all. It’s not easy, but it is worth it. 

Lesson #3 - over-communication works

What’s the big idea? Why are we doing this? What’s the purpose? You will need to explain this multiple times, often to the same groups of people. Over-communication is actually one of the hardest leadership arts to master, because you have a natural disinclination to bore people through repetition. People in start-ups know the value of the elevator pitch and the marketing plan. Relentlessly hammering home your messaging works, and it helps keep up the wider awareness of your partnership. Over-communication is essential for brand awareness, so get on board with it.

Lesson #4 - have an entrepreneurial mindset

In education, we like routine and repetition. We like timetables. We like annual events. We like regularity. A partnership is very unlikely to have a blueprint, a clear timeline, or a manual. In a start-up, you have a rough idea of where you want to get to, but don’t always know how you are going to get there. One of our most important advisers for RGC Online works in tech start-ups, and from the very beginning he used the analogy of travelling to Mexico. One way to do it is to craft a meticulous plan on how to make the journey, book all the tickets and develop an itinerary (very much the teacher's approach to a school trip). Or, if you’re an entrepreneur, you just ask, “Which direction is Mexico in?” and then start moving. This is more like the beginning of partnership work - where you need to be comfortable with the total lack of comfort that comes from having very little certainty. So just like our tech entrepreneur would say, “Keep heading in the general direction of Mexico and you’ll get there.”

In summary, start-ups can be like partnership work because they are not an exact science. You will spend a lot of time fearing failure. However, I firmly believe that independent schools can, through partnership work, be leaders in systems-wide improvement, and that end goal is worth the effort. We can also be brilliant incubators of new ideas, which we can share with our colleagues in the state sector. We are not islands of isolation; we are integral parts of the educational ecosystem. We can also handle a reasonable degree of risk, because we are independent and so have greater scope to think big, be ambitious and act. This is why our sector is such a fantastic place to work.