Good Advice

One of the truly honorable things about my job as executive director of TLA is convening our boards: the Board of Governors--the superintendents, each one's selected board of education member and business partner; and the local education fund president, his selected board member and business partner; and the Board of Advisors--each superintendent's appointed assistant superintendent and central-service and building administrators. I've never worked with better folk.

But if you were hoping to have begun your day with this blog, I apologize. I intentionally waited until Friday afternoon  to capture and report on an important meeting of the TLA Board of Advisors earlier today.

The reason today's meeting was perhaps more important than most other meetings should be obvious by now. The horse that took us this far can take us no further. Translation: the member fee structure that created and sustained us for the last five years must be discarded. What advice would you give such an organization?

To begin at the beginning, meeting attendees know that after welcome and introductions, announcement of good news, and review of the agenda, I present a standing piece I call "State of the Academy." This piece today began by sharing results-to-date of my structured interviews with district leaders, initially scheduled in Wake County and ideally expanding to other TLA districts. The idea behind the interviews is get a sense of how TLA has served their division, department, or area in the last five years, and what TLA may do to improve our partnership in the next five years.

Gratifying is the way I would describe the interviews so far. The average senior leader and his or her direct reports have engaged in at least five to six TLA learning events, with our signature products from VitalSmarts and Interaction Associates leading the way. The only area superintendent I have interviewed so far reported that seven of her principals have participated in one of our School Leader Networks. To a lesser extent that will be true of other area superintendents' responses, according to the record.

Looking ahead for the next five years, there was consensus that, if anything, TLA may be doing too much, may be spread too thinly, and could improve its needs-sensing strategies. The other side of the coin, and built into the interview, was that a couple of leaders stated that they could do a better job of reaching out to TLA as issues arose instead of waiting to be invited or trying to solve the problem themselves.

I could have written the above information before the meeting. What happened at the meeting, however, was that the conversation there mirrored what I was learning from privately interviewed leaders. To get a feeling for district needs, one advisor said we "needed to be in the room" when problems with a professional-development solution are surfaced. Another advisor talked about looking at the vast portfolio of TLA learning assets and feeling nearly "overwhelmed with choices." Sometimes less really is more.

The question that might best capture advisors' conversation was this: How does TLA bridge the sometimes disconnect between its high-quality service and leadership problems that actually live in the districts? In my mind, figuring out a way to answer this question is good advice. If we are walking our talk, those answers will come best from you. I am convinced that once we find those answers, money will find us. Talk to me.