We are nearing the end, my friends. No, not in the sense that The Reverend Camping's feckless prediction last Saturday meant. What we are nearing the end of is not the world but of Triangle Leadership Academy as we know it. But we are not sad.
Having successfully navigated the fifth stage of grief weeks ago, Donna Scanlon, my loyal and extraordinarily able program assistant, and I are actively engaged in transitioning both organizationally and personally. Beyond the tying of loose ends, the taking stock of assets, the reconciling of financial statements, and the predictable executive director recommendations, we are thinking about three things--learning, leadership, and legacy.
I am reminded of the first thing--learning--this week inasmuch as I have been assessing the last assignment of the last NC State University-Triangle Leadership Academy-sponsored Master of School Administration cohort. The current cohort is the eighth one to matriculate since 2002. Approximately 150 professionals, most of whom are still in Wake County and three-fourths of whom have been promoted to principal or assistant principal, have benefited from our attention. Yes, we believed in "growing our own." And it has worked.
As part of the cohort program, Joe Peel and I had the privilege of augmenting the standard course of study through a series of Leadership Seminars, typically convening every month on Monday evening. Among many topics, including Crucial Conversations and Facilitative Leadership. we explored Becoming An Authentic Leader, Designing Quality Lessons, Leading and Learning Through Teams, and since my tenure, a course I called Career Management 101.
One of the texts of the course is the national bestseller, The Hardball Handbook: How to Win at Life by noted political commentator, Chris Matthews. I typically ask students to choose two of the 25 chapters and respond to end-of-chapter questions that I wrote. The similarity of their choices is striking.
"How do you know when you are listening?" "What will you do when you learn that the person sitting next to you in class is interviewing for the same position as you?" and "How do you nurture your circle of professional friends?" are perennial favorites. The choices reveal a sense of immediacy, that landing that all-important first job will be not only a function of how well they have learned academic content, but of how well they have learned to navigate the white water of organizational politics.
The second thing I am reminded of tonight is leadership. We spend a lot of time at TLA teaching the difference between management--the efficient discharge of tasks known and settled--and leadership--the transactional, and sometimes transcendent, act of walking beside someone to a place they would otherwise never go alone. Management is about complexity. Leadership is about change.
But here is an insidious truth for principals: If you believe your superior knowledge of effective teaching will arouse, inspire, or instruct your staff to teach effectively in the face of challenge, you are doomed in your belief and sabotaged by your superiority. Attention must be paid not only to result, but to process and relationship as well.
In the end, leadership involves people, caring about them, wanting to be with them, hurting when they hurt, celebrating their accomplishments and life-cycle events, loving them enough to expect the best of them, and supporting them in achieving it. Leadership does not shout out in anger, wag its finger in the aftermath of failure, or shake its head in the face of best effort fallen short. Instead, it teaches.
Leadership asks questions, listens, and as a last resort suggests what the follower might do based on the leader's experience, experience which can never be an exact analog of the current circumstances. Hence leadership balances confidence with humility.
Leadership avoids obligatory language like" must, should, need to, and you had better, "language that robs initiative and personal responsibility. Instead it uses language that inquires and empowers. "I wonder how a different result could have been achieved?" "What question would be the best one to answer now?" "What can I do that will most likely ensure that you have everything you need to succeed?"
At TLA, we have tried very hard to teach this kind of leadership. It's never about a person or a position, but about a set of practices teachable and learnable by anyone at any level. So this leads me to legacy, the last thing that's on my mind tonight.
What would we like to be remembered for? On a personal level, all the MSA cohort members who matriculated through our Monday night leadership seminars and our participants in our Aspiring Administrators Leadership Institute have already reminded me in a book of notes from every one of them that TLA changed their lives. It is on my to-do list to write a personal thank-you note to each person. Believe me, they are leaving as much a legacy in my life as me and TLA staff and consultants are leaving in theirs.
Gandhi famously said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." If there is something of the Leadership Academy that we have known for the last six years, and really for Wake County, for the last 12 years, it will be that people we have touched act on Gandhi's words.
TLA is not ending. It's just beginning anew. After a few months of our existence as a regional entity, Joe Peel started calling us "a sophisticated leadership consultancy organization." So like the end to which good consultants all aspire, ladies and gentlemen, we have succeeded in working ourselves out of a job. That's a good thing.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
What's In a Name?
You've all read them. The articles documenting the most favored names of the year. Brittany's out. Emily's in. Jason's hot. Juan's not. Alarming parents of the so-called helicopter generation (as if they needed more to fret over), psychologists are beginning to learn what indigenous cultures have known for ages. Names matter. I'll circle back to the issue in a minute.
First, there is the issue of a late Friday blog. I am posting late this week because I knew what Saturday held in store for what I, and by extrapolation you, might learn. As I write, I sit on the balcony of Mom's downtown Greensboro condo, basking in the dimming light of a warm spring evening and replaying what I had envisioned would be and was a successful day facilitating a meeting.
Several weeks ago, my wife, a Family and Consumer Science teacher in Wake County, volunteered my service for her colleagues. "He's great!" Deborah told them. "And he's free." That's all it took.
From that declaration came the first of several phone calls with Dr. Jane Walker, Professor at North Carolina A&T State University. Jane was to convene a think tank of professionals who practice under the big umbrella of what used to be called "Home Economics."
I say "used to be" because, like every public endeavor, home economics is influenced by society and politics. Caught in a vice of high-stakes testing and girls aspiring to be less June Cleaver and more Madonna, practitioners and policymakers in the 1990s came to believe that sewing, cooking, and childcare, as courses of study, were either inadequate, irrelevant, or both.
Welcome then to Family and Consumer Sciences. The revised curriculum began to feature new and updated content, including financial literacy, interior design, culinary arts, early childhood education, to name but a few. As it turns out, however, the name change failed to quell critics or inspire supporters, because it failed to cure the underlying problem--lack of a professional brand. Tackling that problem, at least in North Carolina, was the major purpose of the meeting today.
Planning with Jane and aided and abetted by the practices we teach in Triangle Leadership Academy, my job was to design and deploy an agenda that would give members of the think tank an opportunity to collectively identify the issues of societal interest facing families and children; identify how they were intervening in those issues from role-alike perspectives, ranging from education at every level to support from every level; identify the challenges and supports to intervention; identify vision themes and bold steps to achieving those elements; and finally build an action plan to create ownership and accountability.
Among the luminaries present was a past US House of Representative official, college deans and professors, a marketing consultant, public school teachers, and representatives of national and regional support organizations. Their energy was infectious and their ideas nothing short of inspirational.
No one suggested that the name of the field should be changed again, only that they work to integrate the pieces and parts into a whole and create a uniform message for every audience, parents to policymakers. It was very gratifying to be part of the work of these leaders. It should also remind all of us that it is a major task of leadership to brand the products and services for which the leaders are responsible.
What's in a name? The stories you remember when you hear the name. Make your names good ones.
First, there is the issue of a late Friday blog. I am posting late this week because I knew what Saturday held in store for what I, and by extrapolation you, might learn. As I write, I sit on the balcony of Mom's downtown Greensboro condo, basking in the dimming light of a warm spring evening and replaying what I had envisioned would be and was a successful day facilitating a meeting.
Several weeks ago, my wife, a Family and Consumer Science teacher in Wake County, volunteered my service for her colleagues. "He's great!" Deborah told them. "And he's free." That's all it took.
From that declaration came the first of several phone calls with Dr. Jane Walker, Professor at North Carolina A&T State University. Jane was to convene a think tank of professionals who practice under the big umbrella of what used to be called "Home Economics."
I say "used to be" because, like every public endeavor, home economics is influenced by society and politics. Caught in a vice of high-stakes testing and girls aspiring to be less June Cleaver and more Madonna, practitioners and policymakers in the 1990s came to believe that sewing, cooking, and childcare, as courses of study, were either inadequate, irrelevant, or both.
Welcome then to Family and Consumer Sciences. The revised curriculum began to feature new and updated content, including financial literacy, interior design, culinary arts, early childhood education, to name but a few. As it turns out, however, the name change failed to quell critics or inspire supporters, because it failed to cure the underlying problem--lack of a professional brand. Tackling that problem, at least in North Carolina, was the major purpose of the meeting today.
Planning with Jane and aided and abetted by the practices we teach in Triangle Leadership Academy, my job was to design and deploy an agenda that would give members of the think tank an opportunity to collectively identify the issues of societal interest facing families and children; identify how they were intervening in those issues from role-alike perspectives, ranging from education at every level to support from every level; identify the challenges and supports to intervention; identify vision themes and bold steps to achieving those elements; and finally build an action plan to create ownership and accountability.
Among the luminaries present was a past US House of Representative official, college deans and professors, a marketing consultant, public school teachers, and representatives of national and regional support organizations. Their energy was infectious and their ideas nothing short of inspirational.
No one suggested that the name of the field should be changed again, only that they work to integrate the pieces and parts into a whole and create a uniform message for every audience, parents to policymakers. It was very gratifying to be part of the work of these leaders. It should also remind all of us that it is a major task of leadership to brand the products and services for which the leaders are responsible.
What's in a name? The stories you remember when you hear the name. Make your names good ones.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Club Ed?
I know. I shouldn’t let it get to me.
Most of you know that I last lived in Greensboro and my mom calls it home still. When I visit her at her downtown condominium, I invariably stroll the Elm Street sidewalks and stop at one of the many newspaper stands to pick up whatever is free--Auto Trader, Apartment Finder, Boomer. They have it all.
Last Sunday, I found myself reading Carolina Journal. I think it is a spin-off of the right-leaning Rhino Times. I wish I had never seen the Carolina Journal. I wish in particular I had not read an article in the Education section by writer, David N. Bass, Associate Editor. Here’s the title that caught my eye:
“GOP Budget Plan Would Close Plush ‘Club Ed’ Training Center.”
To what NC “training center” was Mr. Bass referring, I wondered. I’ve been in the professional learning business for quite sometime but I’d never encountered such a place, especially in my home state.
As you may infer, “Club Ed” is a not-so-obvious reference to Club Med of jet-set fame. I soon learned, however, that the writer was describing the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, NCCAT, the same facility where as a SERVE program director, I annually convened the Southeastern State Teachers of the Year Advisory Committee.
So I’ve been to the Cullowhee, NC facility many times. In my ignorance, however, I never realized that my sans-TV, single-bulb-lamp, twin-bed, bring-your-own-linens accommodations were as elegant as they now seem to be. It is true, however, that each room had its own bathroom--with a shower. The extravagance. The horror.
The other thing you should know is that NCCAT, brainchild of Governor James B. Hunt, serves the professional development needs of over 5,000 teachers annually. Typically delivered in five-day sessions, the learning focuses on artistic, cultural, and historical topics including among others pottery, global warming, and holistic health.
As it turns out, some members of the NC General Assembly want to cut from the budget what Mr. Bass calls “lavish accommodations” featuring “rambling stone buildings, and finely manicured landscaping [that] could be mistaken for a upscale mountain retreat.”
Mr. Bass writes that NCCAT boasts “an idyllic lake, nature trails, and gardens complete with picnic tables, benches, and fountains.” It has a “computer lab, indoor amphitheater, library, a health and wellness facility, and an extensive art collection.” Meals are also served “in a multilevel dining room that looks out on the gently rolling Appalachian Mountains.”
Well, that’s true. In fact, all these things are all true. The other thing I remember is that the teachers from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina were all envious of what North Carolina had in NCCAT. North Carolina has been the envy of southeastern states in more ways than one. But I fear we may be poised to experience a self-inflicted wound, recovery from which will be long in the making.
What, I would ask Mr. Bass, do our public school teachers deserve? Would pup tents and beef jerky be the sort of reward for the work we ritualistically implore high school students to take up in the cause of common schooling for a democratic society? What exactly is your vision of public education and professional learning, Mr. Bass?
Folks, I could go on and on with this topic. But I cannot apologize for valuing our public school teachers and suggesting that eliminating funding for NCCAT is so ill-advised, it is not even funny. NCCAT is symbolic of all that is good, decent, and frankly, sane, about recognizing teaching and teachers as the economic driver of our economy that it is.
Whether you are a business person or an educator, you should be concerned about this ill-advised proposal from where-ever it comes. Speak up or sit down. There’s no in between. “Club Ed,” no, but it should be and we should be standing in line to fund it.
Most of you know that I last lived in Greensboro and my mom calls it home still. When I visit her at her downtown condominium, I invariably stroll the Elm Street sidewalks and stop at one of the many newspaper stands to pick up whatever is free--Auto Trader, Apartment Finder, Boomer. They have it all.
Last Sunday, I found myself reading Carolina Journal. I think it is a spin-off of the right-leaning Rhino Times. I wish I had never seen the Carolina Journal. I wish in particular I had not read an article in the Education section by writer, David N. Bass, Associate Editor. Here’s the title that caught my eye:
“GOP Budget Plan Would Close Plush ‘Club Ed’ Training Center.”
To what NC “training center” was Mr. Bass referring, I wondered. I’ve been in the professional learning business for quite sometime but I’d never encountered such a place, especially in my home state.
As you may infer, “Club Ed” is a not-so-obvious reference to Club Med of jet-set fame. I soon learned, however, that the writer was describing the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, NCCAT, the same facility where as a SERVE program director, I annually convened the Southeastern State Teachers of the Year Advisory Committee.
So I’ve been to the Cullowhee, NC facility many times. In my ignorance, however, I never realized that my sans-TV, single-bulb-lamp, twin-bed, bring-your-own-linens accommodations were as elegant as they now seem to be. It is true, however, that each room had its own bathroom--with a shower. The extravagance. The horror.
The other thing you should know is that NCCAT, brainchild of Governor James B. Hunt, serves the professional development needs of over 5,000 teachers annually. Typically delivered in five-day sessions, the learning focuses on artistic, cultural, and historical topics including among others pottery, global warming, and holistic health.
As it turns out, some members of the NC General Assembly want to cut from the budget what Mr. Bass calls “lavish accommodations” featuring “rambling stone buildings, and finely manicured landscaping [that] could be mistaken for a upscale mountain retreat.”
Mr. Bass writes that NCCAT boasts “an idyllic lake, nature trails, and gardens complete with picnic tables, benches, and fountains.” It has a “computer lab, indoor amphitheater, library, a health and wellness facility, and an extensive art collection.” Meals are also served “in a multilevel dining room that looks out on the gently rolling Appalachian Mountains.”
Well, that’s true. In fact, all these things are all true. The other thing I remember is that the teachers from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina were all envious of what North Carolina had in NCCAT. North Carolina has been the envy of southeastern states in more ways than one. But I fear we may be poised to experience a self-inflicted wound, recovery from which will be long in the making.
What, I would ask Mr. Bass, do our public school teachers deserve? Would pup tents and beef jerky be the sort of reward for the work we ritualistically implore high school students to take up in the cause of common schooling for a democratic society? What exactly is your vision of public education and professional learning, Mr. Bass?
Folks, I could go on and on with this topic. But I cannot apologize for valuing our public school teachers and suggesting that eliminating funding for NCCAT is so ill-advised, it is not even funny. NCCAT is symbolic of all that is good, decent, and frankly, sane, about recognizing teaching and teachers as the economic driver of our economy that it is.
Whether you are a business person or an educator, you should be concerned about this ill-advised proposal from where-ever it comes. Speak up or sit down. There’s no in between. “Club Ed,” no, but it should be and we should be standing in line to fund it.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
The Social Compact
I love my son, Chris. It is true that he is taking the "scenic route" through college, but just when I start to stew about it, he hands me a book he is studying in one of his classes and says, "Dad, I think you will enjoy this." He is nearly always right. There is as usual a leadership lesson hiding in the narrative I hope you now feel enticed into reading.
The book Chris handed me last Sunday was one expounding ideas most educated people have learned something about but which has regrettably fallen from the national conversation. The book my son gave me was Basic Political Writings by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Educators generally encounter Rousseau in undergraduate school where professors connect him with the progressive or child-centered movement in schools today. Others, like my Chris, learn Rousseau in philosophy class.
What is important here and now was re-inserted recently into the language by President Obama, although I doubt one in a thousand people could identify in his remarks the writer from 18th century Geneva. The phrase is "social compact."
The "social compact," according to Rousseau, has its basis in nature where liberty is the natural state. As Rousseau observes, "men have reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state." In other words, life is too complicated to go it alone.
But in agreeing to associate, Rousseau says we can preserve the state of nature because "each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields other over himself, he gains an equivalence for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has."
So, "each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole." Were all that true. I have never seen our nation more divided and that saddens me. But I guess that is why Chris' class is called "Political Theory."
When I think, however, about the more than 1200 hours of face-to-face training that TLA offers, and the work of our consultants and principal network facilitators, I am rewarded by the extent to which we have built corporate capacity and received everyone as part of the whole. In my opinion, everyone is or can be a leader, regardless of job title, rank, and rate of pay. So how does our social compact show up?
TLA staff and consultants honor the general will in every group with whom we work though planning, delivering, and following up; we teach our customers how to facilitate agreement, maximize appropriate involvement, make conversation safe, hold people accountable, and search for sources of influence to increase the effective and quality of worklife for all within their circle of influence.
Most of all, we advance our social compact by living our mission statement: Changing leadership from the power and position of the few to the skillful collaborative practice of the many. I guess this sounds like bragging, but as the old fellow said, "It ain't braggin' if it's fact." I appreciate our association and wish you well in your others. What we have made, we made together. I think Rousseau would approve.
The book Chris handed me last Sunday was one expounding ideas most educated people have learned something about but which has regrettably fallen from the national conversation. The book my son gave me was Basic Political Writings by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Educators generally encounter Rousseau in undergraduate school where professors connect him with the progressive or child-centered movement in schools today. Others, like my Chris, learn Rousseau in philosophy class.
What is important here and now was re-inserted recently into the language by President Obama, although I doubt one in a thousand people could identify in his remarks the writer from 18th century Geneva. The phrase is "social compact."
The "social compact," according to Rousseau, has its basis in nature where liberty is the natural state. As Rousseau observes, "men have reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state." In other words, life is too complicated to go it alone.
But in agreeing to associate, Rousseau says we can preserve the state of nature because "each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields other over himself, he gains an equivalence for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has."
So, "each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole." Were all that true. I have never seen our nation more divided and that saddens me. But I guess that is why Chris' class is called "Political Theory."
When I think, however, about the more than 1200 hours of face-to-face training that TLA offers, and the work of our consultants and principal network facilitators, I am rewarded by the extent to which we have built corporate capacity and received everyone as part of the whole. In my opinion, everyone is or can be a leader, regardless of job title, rank, and rate of pay. So how does our social compact show up?
TLA staff and consultants honor the general will in every group with whom we work though planning, delivering, and following up; we teach our customers how to facilitate agreement, maximize appropriate involvement, make conversation safe, hold people accountable, and search for sources of influence to increase the effective and quality of worklife for all within their circle of influence.
Most of all, we advance our social compact by living our mission statement: Changing leadership from the power and position of the few to the skillful collaborative practice of the many. I guess this sounds like bragging, but as the old fellow said, "It ain't braggin' if it's fact." I appreciate our association and wish you well in your others. What we have made, we made together. I think Rousseau would approve.
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