The Importance of Evaluation

I am feeling gratified. Our near yearlong efforts to acquire funding from Z. Smith Reynolds for an evaluation study of TLA has finally paid off. Julie Crain, Vice President of Programs at Wake Education Partnership and Board of Advisor member, received preliminary notification Tuesday that the two-year grant was in the bag. Many of you have sent congratulatory messages to me and for those I am grateful.

As with any complex effort, our proposal was created as a team. I got the ball rolling and was soon joined by then TLA Director of Learning, Fran Riddick; TLA Training Consultant, Dawnelle Hyland; outside evaluator, Sally Bond; and, of course, Julie Crain. ZSR staff also weighed in with some suggested revisions. Thanks to all who contributed.

So why is program evaluation important? Simply stated, we want to improve. This requires us knowing the extent to which TLA participants are impacted by what we do and, assuming that they are, how those impacts are effected. In other words, what's working, what's not, and why. A secondary reason is that potential funders want to be sure they are backing a winner. You should want to know it too. A third reason is that, if positive impacts are demonstrated, TLA may provide a model for how others can create a regional solution to building systemic leadership capacity in individual districts.

There is one thing that worries me a little bit. TLA is by design and desire a "with and through" organization; consequently much of what it does and how it does it is up to people in the districts it serves. That means that there is no singular leadership development solution to measure. What happens in reality is that people are exposed to a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It all adds up to something but the extent to which any one thing can be extricated from another thing is nearly impossible.

I am sure that there are those who may think that conducting a valid evaluation of TLA will be like trying to extract a drop of chocolate syrup from a glass of white milk. (Thank you, Michael Evans, for the metaphor.) They may be right but that is no excuse for our not trying. Of one thing I am certain. We will be a more focused, more effective, more collaborative organization for our having been studied by an outside evaluator. No doubt the evaluator will want to interview you at some future point. I hope you're reading the blog!

Leadership Begins at Home

As a testament to business and education leaders everywhere who more brightly shine at work than at home, I want to share a bit of my life over the past 72 hours. I am beginning to believe that, if we have become any good at all at leading our organizations, our practice, for better or worse, will have endured its greatest challenges at home. Case in point, a birthday party for my daughter last night.

Caitlin is our youngest child, now 23 years old. Caitlin graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last December with a major in voice. She aspires to a career in music production and marketing, and to that end, is interning for six weeks with the Eastern Music Festival in Guilford College, former summer home of classical luminaries Wynton Marsalis and Yo Yo Ma. Of course, we are proud of Caitlin, but raising her, as all daughters' parents know, was no picnic. But that's for another blog.

Caitlin's ultimate success in life will be due to the same qualities that she employed to influence my wife and I to host a birthday blowout for her and a few close friends on the heels of two other major celebrations for which we were responsible this week. If you know me well, you know that I am an introvert, neither shy nor reserved, just one who derives his energy from his private time. Only now on a Sunday afternoon, is my private time happening. Thank God for this blog.

Deborah, my wife and Caitlin's stepmom, had planned a gourmet meal for the event, most of which was to be grilled on our patio by your's truly at about 6:30 last night. Of course, our deck and picnic table had been decorated and adorned with loving detail for friends and relatives from far and wide, all of whom arrived within 15 minutes of each other. Does anyone know what happened in and around Raleigh last night around 6:30 pm, give or take half an hour? That's right. We enjoyed a great dinner inside.

Our enjoyment was preceeded, however, by 20 minutes of storm-and-mojito-fueled mania punctuated by incredilous shouts of, "I thought you charged the camera battery last night!" "The placemats are flying over the deck!" "For god's sake, get the seat cushions inside!" "Where's the directions for this thing?" and "I told you it was going to rain!" But the promise of the perfect birthday was not yet fulfilled.

Like most 20-somethings, my daughter and her friends enjoy downtown nightlife. In the weeks preceeding her birthday, Caitlin had somehow attained from us a commitment to transport her and her friends from our home in North Raleigh to the Moore Square area. I foolishly declined the intelligent option of renting a limo and proposed that Deb and I, using two sedans, taxi the entourage to and from Tir Na Nog, the popular Irish pub on Blount Street in downtown Raleigh.

When dinner ended around 9:00 pm, I arose from the table announcing,"We're ready to go if you are." Here is where I learned that socially-adept people do not arrive on the club scene until 11:00 pm. Dog-tired from the homeowners association early-morning garage sale and afternoon cookout, Deb and I departed for our bedroom to catch a nap. At 10:30 pm, my son and Caitlin's confederate, Chris, awoke the old folks to their duty.

One 40-minute trip to and from downtown Raleigh, one back-to-normal kitchen, three bags of party garbage and recycled adult beverage containers, one episode of Saturday Night Live, and a far-too-short nap later, a call from Chris came again, this time to fetch the Birthday Bunch from the club. Once home, the party continued until about 3:45 am, while Deb and I struggled to fall asleep upstairs. When Caitlin arose at the crack of noon today, she said for the tenth time in ten hours: "I love you guys. This was one of my best birthdays ever. I feel very grateful to have parents like you." I felt like a hero.

An act of leadership? You decide. Admitedly, there were moments of barely-masked anxiety amid frustrated plans for an outside dinner and definite feelings of bewilderment at young folks' inability to square a beer bottle with a coaster, but you know what? I would do it all again. The gift of a grateful family is without equal. And I will wager you this: If we love our employees and our customers as we love our families, we can be their heroes too.

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When is Variability a Good Thing?

I just returned to my office from having observed a presentation led by two participants in the Wake County School Aspiring Administrator Leadership Institute. I think I had a key leadership learning reinforced this afternoon. Indulge me for a few paragraphs and see if you agree.

The purpose of my observation was to benchmark Leadership Institute presenters' efforts in disseminating the main ideas of VitalSmarts' Influencer training--one of their assignments--against other Institute participants' presentation around the same content. Mind you, Institute participants are considered by the Academy and Wake County Schools to be among the best and brightest building and central-service administrators expected to rise in the district's leadership ranks in the coming years.

Despite participation in the Institute and uniform instruction in how to present the information, of three presentations I have observed to date, no two have been alike. All presenters began with approximately the same agenda, the same three-hour limit, the same video, and the same goals, yet each presentation differed significantly in delivery, use of resources, and learner engagement. What was the same, however, was that every presenter and all of their learners claimed to have been richly rewarded by the experience, smarter about how to influence change, and ready to sign up for the comprehensive two-day training event.

Since W. Edward Deming and the Six Sigma principle that his work spawned, has it not been the case in both business and education that variability is to be reduced? Isn't that what the standards movement in education is all about? Isn't that what's behind the drive for a national curriculum?

To those who argue for uniformity, I say, not so fast. About the Influencer presentation, all desired outcomes were achieved. People were jazzed up and wanted more where that came from. Presenters were affirmed in their ability to present complex material. However, the means of reaching those outcomes ranged widely. Why? Because of presenter attention to learner needs. Some presenters had gregarious folk who wanted to talk a lot; others taught quiet types obviously most productive in solitude. Some presenters had people who had already read the book and could have delivered the presentation; others had people whose prior knowledge was at ground zero.

I think the lesson is this: Effective leaders, whether presenting material, opening a new school, or executing a business plan, are receptive and flexible. When is variability a good thing? When it gets you the leadership results you seek.

Leaders and Their Moms

I have written this blog in honor of Mother's Day coming up this Sunday. I hope you are all giving the day the due reverance it deserves. Some of you may extend an extra note of gratitude once you've finished reading.

At the risk of upsetting my brother and sister but who know nothing of this blog anyway, I want to begin with what I find to be a facinating paragraph from Donald T. Phillips' Lincoln On Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times. We use the book in some of our courses. Phillips writes:

"Studies of well-known leaders suggest that certain factors in childhood can predispose a person to great leadership. James McGregor Burns points out, for example, that the most important influences on the shaping of leaders lies 'almost wholly in their early years.' He observed that Gandhi, Lenin, and Franklin Roosevelt appeared to have 'a strong attachment to one parent coupled with some intensively negative attachment to the other.' Most of these leaders had a close relationship with their mothers, who appeared to favor them over other siblings. Sigmund Freud made a similar observation when, in The Interpretation of Dreams, he wrote, 'I have found that people who know that they are preferred or favoured by their mother[s] give evidence in their lives of a peculiar self-reliance and an unshakable optimism which often seem like heroic attributes and bring actual success to their possessors.' (p. 4)."

As the firstborn child and grandchild in my family blessed with everyone's, especially my mom's, undivided attention until I was going on four-years-old, you will understand why the book holds a prominent place in my professional library. Now you should know something about my mom and the 50% of her blood that runs through my viens.

Mom is 78 years old, widowed since she was 48. She has been working continuously since she was the "counter girl" in a Thomasville, North Carolina pastry shop at the age of 14. Mom still works a full-time job with the Guilford County Schools Child Nutrition Program. Because she wanted "to stay active," two years ago Mom started a one-woman clearning service for commercial and residential property in downtown Greensboro.  Mom is optimistic, tenacious, full of faith, and generous to a fault. She is disease-free. Mom reluctantly gave up dancing only last year. But Mom's greatest problem is finding age-alike peers with whom to socialize--they cannot keep up with her.  Is your mom like mine?

Leaders everywhere, thank your mom this Sunday. You are where you are in no small measure due to her.

Finding the Pony

As everyone knows by now, the purpose of this blog is to recount the weekly comings and goings of Triangle Leadership Academy, recommend pertinent readings, and generally share what's on the executive director's mind, all to help the Academy create its preferred future. I usually seek an optimistic tone in my writing. Today, not so much. But bear with me because there is a pony in this pile of manure.

Let's begin with some brutal facts. Anyone who tries to stay in shape through physical exercise knows that the body is masterful in its resistence to do or be anything other than what it already is. Biologists call it homeostasis; physicists call it inertia. Whatever you call it, it's tough to get traction for change in the course of the daily grind. If it seems like the laws of the universe are conspiring against you, they are.

But here's the pony-- stuff happens. In its worst form, it looks like a critical illness, a job terminated, a marriage voided, a move to a city where no one knows your name. In its less dramatic form, it feels like a sore neck, a new work role, a stupid argument with your spouse, an adult child whose job takes her a little further from your home. Not feeling like you want to find this pony yet, let alone ride him?

Well here is the good news: With little effort to do otherwise, when resilient people see the containing environment changing around them, they find themselves changing. Like the charred floor of a forest set ablaze, they have just been replenished hundreds of times over with the very substance from which life itself emerged. They survive. They adapt. And although none of them would have knowingly sought life's lemons, they mindfully and strategically use them to do something they have wanted to do all along.  

At TLA, we do not know quite yet what that something is. But we do see the lemons. Until we begin collecting member dues again and garner additional revenue streams, we are proceeding into the great unknown sustained only by yesterday's money. But I am happy to report that we are keeping the dream alive. Meanwhile, let's keep digging. The pony is down there.