Eaquals attends International House Directors Conference 2018

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Eaquals Executive Director, Lou McLaughlin, attended the IHWO (International House World Organisation) Directors’ Conference last month in Sofia, Bulgaria. IHWO are Associate Members of Eaquals and both contribute to the joint Eaquals-IH Inspection.

Lou joined the conference on Sunday for guest speaker, Loraine Kennedy’s plenary on “The 6 Ps of Change Management: Progress, People, Protest, Potential, Prioritisation, Pleasure”. This engaging and interactive plenary session provided the opportunity to stop, think and share ideas with other attendees. Groups worked together to compile a change management manifesto to bring back to their respective contexts.

This was followed by the IH San Sebastian team, and Eaquals Members, leading a session on “Adapting and succeeding in challenging and competitive markets”.  The team presented an insightful case study of a school which is adapting and succeeding in one of the most competitive countries for English language teaching. IH San Sebastian is a “Community of Communities”: 10 self-managed schools that share a mission, vision and values and they showed the changes being made in this 60 year-old organisation around company culture, in-company training, communication, offer adaptation and becoming customer-centric to maintain their competitive edge.

Many of the additional sessions over the course of the conference were led by members of the IH network and discussions on the topics of school innovations, customer experience, social media and online learning continued well into coffee breaks and lunch.

The conference also provided an opportunity to meet and catch up with Eaquals accredited members who were also in attendance as part of the IH network: IH Prague AKCENT, IH Newcastle, IH Bristol, IH London, IH Zurich-Baden, IH San Sebastian, IH Barcelona, IH Malta, IH Berlin GLS Sprachenzentrum, IH Budapest, IH Dublin, IH Bucharest, IH Madrid.