Telling Future Promises

In 1995, Mastermind Tim Smit began dreaming up the Eden Project. He had a track record of creating beautiful (and ambitious!) green spaces, but the scale of this new idea was something previously unattempted. He needed partners and he needed funders. Friends were astounded at Smit's approach, barrelling into meetings and selling the Eden Project like it was already underway, whilst knowing that all he really had in his pockets were a few sketches and a handful of earth.

He called this 'telling future promises'.

 In the moments when I'm feeling most like a fraud, I remember this. I'm trying to create something new, and I know that it's something worth doing. But at this stage, I have no funding behind me, I'm fitting the development into my spare time, and only a handful of people and organisations know what I'm working on (to safeguard it, at this vulnerable point). So when I go to meetings, or I prepare a press release, or I write funding bids, it can sometimes feel like I'm selling a big bag of air...

So I take a breath, remember Tim Smit, and start telling my future promises, the future promises of the Oxfordshire Discovery College. And you know what? It works. People hear my conviction, they see the vision that I'm painting for them, they get excited about the idea. They start to spot the need that I keep harping on about in their day-to-day lives (people sending me newspaper articles about 'the youth mental health crisis' in sympathetic outrage). Friends and colleagues text me asking for updates on 'the college idea', 'ODC', and (inexplicably) 'DISCO'.

So now, one of the first future promises is about to become a reality; we're going to launch the college, our host partnership, and another sneaky surprise (you'll have to wait) in just a few short weeks. I'd love everything to be a little more concrete for us, but that's the nature of beginnings - they tend to be a little bit unformed. But it's going to grow into something freakin' fabulous; just you watch...

Finding our Lobster

The five potential host organisations were all very different, ranging from local community-based organisations to large health-based organisations in entirely different regions. The decision as to which one would be one of our closest partners (our 'Host'; our Lobster...) felt terrifyingly momentous.

I therefore drafted in help. I needed to draw upon some professional expertise to help me to think critically and in an unbiased way about each of the options, and to narrow down to a decision I was fully confident in. I called my parents.

Now Mumma and Pappa Laura happen to both be skilled and experienced Training Consultants and Coaches. Throughout my life they've employed their full repertoire of models, tools and theories to help me to navigate decisions and challenges. It was therefore not too strange to me (although a little unusual for my new husband) to find myself sat with them at their table in the garden surrounded flipchart, pens, and gin and tonics. Several hours and pages of scribblings later, I had my decision.

There were two pivotal realisations that enabled me to narrow my way down to one partner:

1. The host partner will not be our only partner. Just because I don't choose Organisation A as our host, it doesn't mean that we wont work together. If we're a good fit, we'll find other ways to collaborate and support one another.
2. Our host partner needs to be an asset not just now while we launch, but for the next few years. If their contribution becomes less valuable after our first few months, a different relationship with them may be more appropriate.

The name circled in green and underlined 4 times at the end of all of those scribblings?

Elmore

I had worked with the wonderful Tamsin Jewell (previous CEO) in the past, and her successor, Tom Hayes, had worked at Restore at the same time as me. Tamsin kindly introduced the subject to Tom as part of her handover to him, and Tom and I quickly scheduled in a meeting. Tucked away in a little Cowley Road cafe, with Tom offering alternately enthusiasm and strikingly perceptive questions, we began to plan how Elmore and the Oxfordshire Discovery College might work together.