Principal's Message

Student Leadership at Marian

On 24 February the College staff and student body gathered for our annual Investiture Assembly where we acknowledged all those students who were presented with a leadership position. 

In my Principal's Address I focused on the quality of teams that support the vision of a community. I include it for you below.

There is a hospital in London where in the 1990’s they specialised in very difficult surgical procedures. These may have taken a lot of hours to perform and included changing surgeons half way through the procedure and the patients being transferred from the operating theatre to recovery and then to intensive care. Sadly, they were finding that their processes were not have the desired success rate. The surgeons were naturally worried about this. One day two surgeons had completed a shift and they were sitting in the lunch room watching TV. Something came on the TV which made them think about their processes especially teamwork.  What they saw on the screen did not have anything to do with medical procedures. In fact they were watching a sporting team support crew in action.

Have you ever watched the car races and heard that the car went into the pit lane and the pit crew did their work. You all know what a pit stop is. Changing tyres, refuelling, fixing mechanical problems. This what the two doctors were watching. They were watching a pit crew in action. It is interesting to watch the work of pit crews over the years and see how things have changed and what we can learn from them in much the same way as the surgeons did.

Firstly, if you examine a pit stop looked in the Indianapolis 500 in the year 1950 you will find that there is only a small number in the team. One man jumps on the jack at the front of the car lifting it. Another person is hammering at the tyre to replace it. Another one is refueling the car. Another person hands the driver a drink and then starts to clean the glass windshield. The tyre changer then moves to the second tyre. The whole process took 67 seconds. I’m sure many of us would be pleased if we could change two tyres, refuel, get a drink and wash the windshield in 67 seconds.

However if you compare that with the pit crew at the Melbourne Grand Prix in 2013 you find that there is a lot more people in the team and each person stands at a certain place because they had an individual role to play. They know where to stand, when to move in, when to move out. All designed to support others to do their work. There was also the addition of new technology to allow the process to happen with a level of professionalism. The whole team was dressed for the role. They wore protective clothing and in fact they are dressed like the driver because they needed to be mentally sharp like the driver. The driver runs the race whilst the pit crew makes sure that they can do so safely and quickly. In 2013 they changed 4 tyres in 2.1 seconds. Pit crews spend time rehearsing and they are out everyday practicing, bringing down the seconds bit by bit so that now the fastest pit stop recorded is 1.9 seconds.

What the surgeons at the London Hospital watched on TV was the Ferrari pit crew and they were impressed by what they saw. So the went to Italy and spoke to the crew and observed their processes. They then invited the leaders of the Ferrari pit crew to go over to London and observe their work. The feedback that they gave was that in the changeover of shifts or movements of patients the doctors and nurses were getting in each other’s way, dropping instruments, talking about everyday things rather than their task and they were taking too long to finish the task to ensure patient recovery. The hospital department wanted to save lives, of course, so they took on the feedback and put into practice what they had learned. So they started to rehearse their roles. Everyone got to know their role, where to stand, when to act, when to get out of the way. And they practiced to get the times down. And this has now become the model around the world.

So what is the message for us? We acknowledge and celebrate student leadership. All leaders bring their own unique style to the work that they do. But they need their pit crew. Those students who do not get a leadership badge can still find a role or roles to play and support the vision, mission and core values of the College.  They may not be the driver but they are no less important and, in fact, vital for the College to run and be successful in our race. Congratulations to all those who are acknowledged for their leadership role at Marian. Your qualities of leadership has been witnessed already so continue to do the good work that you do and I am quite prepared to hear your voice as you contribute to the growth of our College. 

Raymond Pisani

Principal