"The unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates. If it was true for the young men of ancient Athens, for aspiring 21st century public school and district leaders it is even more true. Today has been for me a reminder of just how important it is to know what you bring to the table, and of who you need to join you there because of what you do not bring.
Jim Sweeney, TLA Consultant for Planning & Development, and I were privileged to host a meeting of TLA's Aspiring Administrators Leadership Institute today. We are now matriculating the third cohort of assistant principals and central-service directors in the Wake County Public School System through the second year of the two-year curriculum.
As were their 40 predecessors, cohort three participants were selected for the Institute through a competitive application process. Beginning with cohort two, we have engaged participants in an extraordinary program called, "Shared Leadership through Self Knowledge." It has earned a prominent and permanent place in the curriculum, as far as I am concerned.
Designed and delivered by TLA contract consultant, Gail Ostrisko, the program objective is to help aspiring leaders understand and articulate their natural abilities, recognize and facilitate others' abilities and talents, and engage all abilities and skills through leadership in a team-based learning environment. Doesn't that pretty much sum up what we need in Triangle principals and central-service leaders?
Gail uses her credentials as a Licensed Highlands Affiliate to facilitate participants' self-administration of the three-and-a-half-hour online Highlands Ability Battery. She then uses her expertise as an executive coach and presenter to process Battery results, both one-on-one and in a day-long whole-group session. Essentially, the timed tests assess skills and abilities that psychologists concur are relatively fixed in human beings at about age fourteen. Through coaching and group facilitation, Gail makes sure everyone understands exactly what their results mean.
The big "so what" is obvious: When you work with your natural abilities, you're going with the flow; when you work against your talents, you're paddling upstream. Since the job of leaders and managers is to get stuff done through other people, failure or burnout is likely when leaders do not have people on their team who possess abilities that they themselves lack.
Research has shown that what folk think they are good at and what they are actually good at may be two different things. In other words, even well-intended leaders can be self-delusional. With Gail and Jim's help, TLA is replacing warm and fuzzy delusion with hard cold fact one leader at time. Socrates would be proud.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Abundant Organizations
Have you ever asked yourself, "Why do I go to work?" Studies show that you, me, and most everybody else goes to work for the same reason (and it's not money). The reason we do what we do is for meaning.
In The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win, Dave and Wendy Ulrich argue persuasively that through work, we seek "a sense of purpose, contribution, connection, value, and hope."
I am a frequent visitor of Triangle Organizational Developers Network events. At a recent meeting, husband and wife team, Dave and Wendy Ulrich, talked to about 40 professionals who primarily do for the corporate world what I do for public education. Dave is a highly-sought management expert. Wendy is an acclaimed psychologist.
The Ulrich's have talked to thousands of people, from frontline workers to C-suite executives. Combining fieldwork with an extensive review of the literature from multiple disciplines, they have synthesized in their 2010 book the "why" behind our most successful work experiences.
Using a model called "the abundant organization," the authors provide a seven-step process for creating workplace abundance, understanding your customer and employees' needs, personalizing work, and building a recession-proof business. As you might imagine, I'm excited to be about halfway through the book and look especially forward to learning the "secret"of the last chapter.
Secrets and silver bullets notwithstanding, I think public education has growing evidence that a school characterized by "organizational abundance" is a school where teachers, students, and parents want to belong. Five years of data from the North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey show, for example, that the same schools where teachers experience voice and choice, collegiality, and a supportive principal, are those schools where teacher retention and student performance tend to be highest.
It is no accident, then, that the upcoming Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation evaluation study of Triangle Leadership Academy and its precedent, Wake Leadership Academy, will draw on Teacher Working Conditions Survey data to determine, in part, the impact of the Academy over an eight-year period.
Let's think in the coming week about how you and I can create abundant organizations where ever we may be, however large or small, rich or poor, public or private the setting. After all, the bottom line is more influenced by leadership than it is the balance sheet. In fact, get the former right and the latter follows.
In The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations That Win, Dave and Wendy Ulrich argue persuasively that through work, we seek "a sense of purpose, contribution, connection, value, and hope."
I am a frequent visitor of Triangle Organizational Developers Network events. At a recent meeting, husband and wife team, Dave and Wendy Ulrich, talked to about 40 professionals who primarily do for the corporate world what I do for public education. Dave is a highly-sought management expert. Wendy is an acclaimed psychologist.
The Ulrich's have talked to thousands of people, from frontline workers to C-suite executives. Combining fieldwork with an extensive review of the literature from multiple disciplines, they have synthesized in their 2010 book the "why" behind our most successful work experiences.
Using a model called "the abundant organization," the authors provide a seven-step process for creating workplace abundance, understanding your customer and employees' needs, personalizing work, and building a recession-proof business. As you might imagine, I'm excited to be about halfway through the book and look especially forward to learning the "secret"of the last chapter.
Secrets and silver bullets notwithstanding, I think public education has growing evidence that a school characterized by "organizational abundance" is a school where teachers, students, and parents want to belong. Five years of data from the North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey show, for example, that the same schools where teachers experience voice and choice, collegiality, and a supportive principal, are those schools where teacher retention and student performance tend to be highest.
It is no accident, then, that the upcoming Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation evaluation study of Triangle Leadership Academy and its precedent, Wake Leadership Academy, will draw on Teacher Working Conditions Survey data to determine, in part, the impact of the Academy over an eight-year period.
Let's think in the coming week about how you and I can create abundant organizations where ever we may be, however large or small, rich or poor, public or private the setting. After all, the bottom line is more influenced by leadership than it is the balance sheet. In fact, get the former right and the latter follows.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Brutal Facts
Several months ago, I wrote about the Stockdale paradox. You'll recall that the phenomenon is named for Vietnam War era admiral, Jim Stockdale, who with many of his marines spent eight years in the Hanoi Hilton, courtesy of the Viet Cong. Stockdale and fellow survivors lived to tell their story because of clear-eyed realism combined with strategic vision.
How do leaders talk blue sky at the same time they face brutal facts? I suggest that this is exactly what leaders must do. To propagate optimism without clearly spelling out the difficulty of one's situation is a recipe for organizational failure. As it turns out, we have an exemplar of Stockdale-like leadership right in our own backyard.
Forest Pines Drive Elementary School leaders Freda Cole and Diane Daly-New, owing to their successfully receiving a Teacher Leadership Grant from Wake Education Partnership, contracted with TLA to assist in addressing a problem unconscionably common to many schools--closing the white-minority achievement gap.
We have consulted with this Wake Forest school staff about a half dozen times now, sometimes planning and sometimes delivering services, as was the case this morning. Understanding through research that an effective organization is a tide that lifts all ships, we have embarked on a four-day training program, Creating High-Performance Learning Cultures, first for a teacher-leader pilot group, and later for all staff.
TLA training consultant, Dawnelle Hyland, and I met this morning to teach session two. After I took care of a few housekeeping chores, I turned things over to Dawnelle to begin delivering content. She posed a perfectly appropriate question: What has been churning around for you since we last met? The floodgates opened.
"We've been in the new building for two years. When we were holding school in the temporary modulars, we shared a sense of community. We were family. Now I'm not so sure."
"We can't tell our African-Americans to 'just get over it.' Owning up to how they got to America in the first place has got to be part of the solution. History matters."
"We have so much on us that when I see a new teacher, I just want to say: It's not that I don't care to know you; I just don't have time to know you."
"We are doing everything we are told to do. Still, every straw that comes along, we try to grab it. It seems like all we do is focus on what is not working. Where is the appreciation for what we do well?"
"We see the data and, frankly, they are depressing."
If you read dysfunctionality and discord into these teachers' comments, you are missing the point. They are, in fact, among the most committed professionals I have ever met. Rather, what is to be noticed and applauded is that the school's formal leaders created a safe space without which these brutal facts and feelings could never have been confronted.
My hat is off to Freda and Diane. And my hat is off to the courageous teachers of Forest Pines Drive Elementary School who desire to build a high-performance learning culture where every student's success is more a result of a community of caring, competent teachers than of where the child was born or the color of his skin. Naming the problem is the beginning of solving it. I'll keep you posted as that vision becomes reality.
How do leaders talk blue sky at the same time they face brutal facts? I suggest that this is exactly what leaders must do. To propagate optimism without clearly spelling out the difficulty of one's situation is a recipe for organizational failure. As it turns out, we have an exemplar of Stockdale-like leadership right in our own backyard.
Forest Pines Drive Elementary School leaders Freda Cole and Diane Daly-New, owing to their successfully receiving a Teacher Leadership Grant from Wake Education Partnership, contracted with TLA to assist in addressing a problem unconscionably common to many schools--closing the white-minority achievement gap.
We have consulted with this Wake Forest school staff about a half dozen times now, sometimes planning and sometimes delivering services, as was the case this morning. Understanding through research that an effective organization is a tide that lifts all ships, we have embarked on a four-day training program, Creating High-Performance Learning Cultures, first for a teacher-leader pilot group, and later for all staff.
TLA training consultant, Dawnelle Hyland, and I met this morning to teach session two. After I took care of a few housekeeping chores, I turned things over to Dawnelle to begin delivering content. She posed a perfectly appropriate question: What has been churning around for you since we last met? The floodgates opened.
"We've been in the new building for two years. When we were holding school in the temporary modulars, we shared a sense of community. We were family. Now I'm not so sure."
"We can't tell our African-Americans to 'just get over it.' Owning up to how they got to America in the first place has got to be part of the solution. History matters."
"We have so much on us that when I see a new teacher, I just want to say: It's not that I don't care to know you; I just don't have time to know you."
"We are doing everything we are told to do. Still, every straw that comes along, we try to grab it. It seems like all we do is focus on what is not working. Where is the appreciation for what we do well?"
"We see the data and, frankly, they are depressing."
If you read dysfunctionality and discord into these teachers' comments, you are missing the point. They are, in fact, among the most committed professionals I have ever met. Rather, what is to be noticed and applauded is that the school's formal leaders created a safe space without which these brutal facts and feelings could never have been confronted.
My hat is off to Freda and Diane. And my hat is off to the courageous teachers of Forest Pines Drive Elementary School who desire to build a high-performance learning culture where every student's success is more a result of a community of caring, competent teachers than of where the child was born or the color of his skin. Naming the problem is the beginning of solving it. I'll keep you posted as that vision becomes reality.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Remembering
I have always loved words. I love exploring their origin, the nuances of their meaning, and the journey they took in getting to where we now find them. Because a major task of leadership is creating meaning, I would argue that leaders do well when they understand and use their words with precision.
Take, for example, the word "decide." Leaders do a lot of that, don't they? As our 43rd president famously said, "I am the decider." Does anyone understand when George W. Bush said that, he was claiming to kill off rivals. No, not people, competing ideas.
The word, "decide," as it turns out, has the same root as the words "homicide," "patricide," and "suicide." When leaders decide, they are figuratively "killing" other options.
This afternoon, I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself, a bit down about the state of our national economy and the havoc it has wreaked on our state education budget, and from there, to every Triangle district's budget. Until TLA figures out how to make money beyond collecting member district fees, it's living on borrowed time. After a three million dollar investment in a regional leadership academy, it is looking more and more like it may be another casualty of the recession. That thought depressed me.
My pity party was crashed, however, by one of Wake County Schools' special assistants to the area superintendents. We were getting on the elevator at the same time and he asked about me. With what was probably a hint of weariness in my voice, I said "I'm fine. And you?" I was not prepared for his answer.
"I am fantastic!" he beamed. "Since the first day students' returned from summer break, I have been visiting schools and classrooms. Kids are great. I love their enthusiasm. I love what I see their teachers doing to get them ready for the new year. It's all good."
I got off on my floor grateful for my brief exchange and feeling a little ashamed of my earlier mood. Larry's cheerfulness and the reason for it made me remember.
We all know what it means to remember, don't we? Generally, we understand the word to mean "return to memory." But it is more than that. When we re-member, we collect all the separated parts and pieces that reassembled make us whole.
When my colleague shared with me his joy at being among the children, he made me re-member that without their being, we educators have no reason for being. Arguably, without children the world itself is living on borrowed time. It's good to be alive. It's good to be challenged. It's good to serve. The next time I forget it, I will remember why I do what I do by visiting my nearest public school.
Take, for example, the word "decide." Leaders do a lot of that, don't they? As our 43rd president famously said, "I am the decider." Does anyone understand when George W. Bush said that, he was claiming to kill off rivals. No, not people, competing ideas.
The word, "decide," as it turns out, has the same root as the words "homicide," "patricide," and "suicide." When leaders decide, they are figuratively "killing" other options.
This afternoon, I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself, a bit down about the state of our national economy and the havoc it has wreaked on our state education budget, and from there, to every Triangle district's budget. Until TLA figures out how to make money beyond collecting member district fees, it's living on borrowed time. After a three million dollar investment in a regional leadership academy, it is looking more and more like it may be another casualty of the recession. That thought depressed me.
My pity party was crashed, however, by one of Wake County Schools' special assistants to the area superintendents. We were getting on the elevator at the same time and he asked about me. With what was probably a hint of weariness in my voice, I said "I'm fine. And you?" I was not prepared for his answer.
"I am fantastic!" he beamed. "Since the first day students' returned from summer break, I have been visiting schools and classrooms. Kids are great. I love their enthusiasm. I love what I see their teachers doing to get them ready for the new year. It's all good."
I got off on my floor grateful for my brief exchange and feeling a little ashamed of my earlier mood. Larry's cheerfulness and the reason for it made me remember.
We all know what it means to remember, don't we? Generally, we understand the word to mean "return to memory." But it is more than that. When we re-member, we collect all the separated parts and pieces that reassembled make us whole.
When my colleague shared with me his joy at being among the children, he made me re-member that without their being, we educators have no reason for being. Arguably, without children the world itself is living on borrowed time. It's good to be alive. It's good to be challenged. It's good to serve. The next time I forget it, I will remember why I do what I do by visiting my nearest public school.
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