Short post. Open thinking.
Bear with me on this one. I don’t normally share encounters on public transport, but I think you will find this resonates. What does a quality manager in the central European automotive industry have in common with a delegate to an education conference in the UK? This rather unpredictable question was answered during my train journey to ALTC25 in Glasgow. Unexpectedly, conversation flowed and there was a mutual understanding of the benefit of learning, the importance of different perspectives and an appetite to look to new opportunities to better how we work and who we are as people.
It starts with a coincidental train seat booking where ALT CEO, Susan Martin, and I were sitting opposite each other with a delegation of supporters from the Austrian football team SK Sturm Graz occupying adjacent blocks of seats. One of the supporters, Jürgen, struck up a conversation with us and we explained we were going to the conference and our anticipated sharing of practice and perspectives.
Do not ask me how the idiom “thinking outside the box” came to evolve into a substantive discussion point, but the relationship between bringing different perspectives together and enabling thinking about new perspectives and new opportunities seemed rather apt. My conference workshop is based on this premise: that bringing different perspectives to tackle common challenges will lead to fruitful discussion and, ultimately, new opportunities for our sector, our profession and how we enable educational change. It transpires there is a phrase that reflects “thinking outside the box” used in Austria (and presumably Germany) of which a literal translation is “to look beyond the edge of the plate”, seeing the surrounding table, going beyond the perimeter, looking beyond the horizon… Looking at the perspectives of those sitting opposite you. Whilst the metaphor differs, the meaning behind it is shared and in particular the value that is also placed on multiple perspectives, looking at different contexts, in order to achieve creative thinking.
“über den Tellerrand blicken”
Shared by Jürgen, on the 1521 from Manchester Piccadilly to Glasgow Central, 22 October 2025.
Our conversation naturally led to an exchange of our working contexts. Quality management in the automotive parts industry is a learning process, as Jürgen explained, taking inputs from customers and internal testing, and identifying causes of issues and making improvements. Adopting a ‘learning engineering’ perspective, there are parallels with processes in education, based on inputs, outputs, iteration and connecting the dots to understand what is happening. This philosophy is also present in course development processes, educational technology deployment and academic development.
Learning takes place everywhere and in his management role Jürgen shared how he encourages his team to make connections about problems, share with each other and sees his role to lead their development. This is part of his professional practice, as it is in mine.
I champion opportunities for people to learn from each other and so perhaps it’s no surprise that I found hope and enjoyment that I could communicate freely with someone from another country (largely down to the Austrian education system and automotive industry expectations of English language) and find connection in a shared, positive world view.
How we understand context, make comparisons, learning from our similarities and differences, that to me is what enables growth and learning, demonstrating respect and being part of a global community. In both leadership and educational roles, we can model an inquisitive attitude to ask questions, draw on different perspectives and look beyond what is immediately in front of us to understand both the place we are at and new horizons to explore. This chance encounter reminded me that the enthusiasm for learning and multiple perspectives isn’t confined to formal educational institutions, but is part of what connects us as humans.
See also
- Wikipedia entry with a bit of background to the phrase origins.
- Uber den Tellerand has been adopted as the name for a social non-profit for learning about and integrating different cultures and perspectives.
Short post, open thinking are posts of ill-formed ideas and notes that I’ve not expanded into articles. They are shared here in case they stimulate comment or ideas elsewhere.
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