Bill Gates. Meryl Streep. Kobie Bryant. They're not like us, are they? Forgetting wealth and concentrating for a moment on talent, if you believe they came into the world genetically predisposed to become the world-class leaders in business, acting, and sports that they are now, you would find not one scintilla of evidence to back up your belief.
"But what about Mozart?" protests the musician in me. Well, according to recent research wherein was discovered that the composer routinely and with some serious mental butt-kicking revised one manuscript after another. musicologists find that Wolfie was a mere mortal, not the demigod who but penned to paper the music he heard full-blown in his head as had been alleged for over two centuries. What, then, is the font of Mozart's ability?
As it turns out, the origin of extraordinary performance in music or any field is not as mysterious as we might like, or have been led, to believe. But neither is it just hard work.
According to Geoff Colvin, author of Talent Is Overated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else? while Kobie and Wolfie are not like us, had we trained in ways and under similar circumstances as they did, although we could not have been them, we may have been serious contenders to their crown.
Students of Triangle Leadership Academy's workshop, Influencer©, know that improving any ability is a function of deliberate practice, that is, understanding the elements of ideal performance, designing strategies to reduce the gap between one's current and the ideal performance, and then deliberately practicing for mastery. For a program developer who earns his living in the belief that people can improve practice, that is great news.
I am thinking of an earlier conversation today with Matt Olhson, new assistant professor at North Carolina State University and coordinator of North East Leadership Academy (NELA). I am working under contract with North Carolina Principals and Assistant Principals Association to develop and deliver for NELA sessions of leadership training to its 21 aspiring leaders. The cohort is comprised of teachers in some of the least-wealthy counties in North Carolina. But they are hungry to learn.
Beyond motivated learners, the good news is that Matt and the NCSU recipients of this Race-to-the-Top funded program have assembled a team of developers, teachers, coaches, and mentors who understand the importance of deliberate practice. And frankly, we are aided and abetted by the new North Carolina Standards for School Executives which spells out the 83 practices about which we can be deliberate.
There is much to celebrate about NELA. So, too, when I read in the News and Observer last Sunday that TLA staff taught or otherwise worked with all 10 Wake County professionals currently nominated as Principal or Assistant Principal of the Year, I am profoundly gratified. I am also reminded that world-class school leaders like those nominees and the 26 recently-named Wake County principals are made, not born.
We know what the leadership ideal is. Whether you teach, coach, develop curricula, or support public education from another profession, let's bridge the performance gaps with deliberate practice.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Something About Maxine
"I'm a talker," she said.
"Okay, I'm listening," I thought. And I am glad I did.
Now folks, you know that it doesn't take an advanced academic degree to appreciate that the world is full of people who don't mind speaking their mind. And Maxine did. Less prevalent, however, are people who have something worth saying. And Maxine did.
Today I had the privilege of facilitating a session on Developing Your School's Organizational Identity at Wilburn Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is there that I met Maxine Weakly.
Although I find it increasingly redundant to differentiate, Maxine is a teacher and a leader. Our after-the-session conversation convinced me that Maxine is someone who both talks the walk and walks the talk. I expect that she looks for the same thing in others, including her students.
Admittedly I enticed Maxine to share more about herself with me because of comments she made in her Kiva activity. In a re-enactment of an ancient Native American ritual, Maxine joined her Kiva colleagues in a circle of representing teams of teachers and teacher assistants. There in the circle they talked about the values they identified important to their work at Wilburn.
As staff talked, words like "creativity, integrity, and respect" naturally surfaced. Just when the conversation started to subside, Maxine, who had already more than adequately represented the thoughts of her team, asked the group if she may tell us a story. Permission more assumed than actually granted, Maxine regaled the room with an account of a friend's nieces visiting from her country of origin, Jamaica. No one regretted it.
"I had to bring the little girls to school," Maxine said.
And oh, Maxine continued, how these pint-sized scholars fell in love with what they saw--computers, books in the library, bright lights, washrooms--things we all take for granted. The value Maxine most wanted to remind her colleagues of was "gratitude." She suggested, too, that it was also worth teaching students. What a revolutionary!
Maxine, I learned, is a hoarder of all things useful for Jamaican schools. Reportedly, her classroom is laden with boxes of paper, pencils, markers, spiral-bound notebooks and other supplies bound for that Caribbean island nation known more as an importer of honeymooners than as an exporter of high-performance learning organizations.
Anyway, I told Maxine that I might be able to "hook her up" with potential donors. So here is my two-part ask: Part one, if you can help some very needy kids in Jamaica, let me know, and I'll have Maxine get in touch with you.
Part two, if you are an educator or a parent, do yourself and our nation a favor and remind your children that, at worst, they have things better than 90 percent of the rest of the world. Gratitude is an always-appropriate value. Something about Maxine reminds me to tell you.
"Okay, I'm listening," I thought. And I am glad I did.
Now folks, you know that it doesn't take an advanced academic degree to appreciate that the world is full of people who don't mind speaking their mind. And Maxine did. Less prevalent, however, are people who have something worth saying. And Maxine did.
Today I had the privilege of facilitating a session on Developing Your School's Organizational Identity at Wilburn Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is there that I met Maxine Weakly.
Although I find it increasingly redundant to differentiate, Maxine is a teacher and a leader. Our after-the-session conversation convinced me that Maxine is someone who both talks the walk and walks the talk. I expect that she looks for the same thing in others, including her students.
Admittedly I enticed Maxine to share more about herself with me because of comments she made in her Kiva activity. In a re-enactment of an ancient Native American ritual, Maxine joined her Kiva colleagues in a circle of representing teams of teachers and teacher assistants. There in the circle they talked about the values they identified important to their work at Wilburn.
As staff talked, words like "creativity, integrity, and respect" naturally surfaced. Just when the conversation started to subside, Maxine, who had already more than adequately represented the thoughts of her team, asked the group if she may tell us a story. Permission more assumed than actually granted, Maxine regaled the room with an account of a friend's nieces visiting from her country of origin, Jamaica. No one regretted it.
"I had to bring the little girls to school," Maxine said.
And oh, Maxine continued, how these pint-sized scholars fell in love with what they saw--computers, books in the library, bright lights, washrooms--things we all take for granted. The value Maxine most wanted to remind her colleagues of was "gratitude." She suggested, too, that it was also worth teaching students. What a revolutionary!
Maxine, I learned, is a hoarder of all things useful for Jamaican schools. Reportedly, her classroom is laden with boxes of paper, pencils, markers, spiral-bound notebooks and other supplies bound for that Caribbean island nation known more as an importer of honeymooners than as an exporter of high-performance learning organizations.
Anyway, I told Maxine that I might be able to "hook her up" with potential donors. So here is my two-part ask: Part one, if you can help some very needy kids in Jamaica, let me know, and I'll have Maxine get in touch with you.
Part two, if you are an educator or a parent, do yourself and our nation a favor and remind your children that, at worst, they have things better than 90 percent of the rest of the world. Gratitude is an always-appropriate value. Something about Maxine reminds me to tell you.
Friday, August 12, 2011
The Creation of Settings
Birth is difficult. Of course I have no experience with human birth except as husband to a wife who bore him three children. To be only present during the births was difficult enough. I have nightmares still about the arm nearly torn from its socket by the wild woman occupying my wife's body who, in the throes of birthing, cursed the ground upon which I walked. A nearby sailor actually blushed.
No, what occupies my mind this evening is milder stuff, but not by much. The short of it is that I am midwife to what educational leadership consultants like me call, "Developing Your School's Organizational Identity," fashioned after a monograph of the same name written by Joe Peel.
The client is Brentwood Elementary Magnet School of Engineering, one of four "Renaissance Schools" in Wake County receiving Race-to-the-Top funds. Its staff has been hired from all over the United States. One teacher-couple I met today moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to cast their lot with Brentwood. Jennifer and her husband may be distal examples but are far from unusual in their willingness to invest in something extraordinary. Every teacher I met was cut from the same cloth.
Specifically, my task is to help leadership and staff create mission, vision, values, and belief statements, public agreements that both will guide their work and inspire the school community. What we embarked upon today was nothing short of the creation of a setting.
As I worked with principal Ken Branch, assistant principal Eric Fitts, and administrative intern Rob Epler, I was reminded of a school where I was once principal that also embarked upon a curricular innovation and particularly of my doctoral studies some 20 years in the rear view mirror.
Graduate students fortunate enough to study with Dale Brubaker, Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, will recognize in the title of this blog partial citation of a book by Seymour Sarason of Yale University. The Creation of Settings and the Future Societies. In an especially instructive chapter titled, "The Socialization of Leaders," Sarason writes:
"It is highly unusual for a new principal to leave his school in February or March, but in my experience it is not that unusual for a principal to want to leave. . . . Once this becomes recognized and the creation of new settings begins to receive the systematic study and clinical attention that the consulting industry (in and out of the university) gives to chronologically mature, malfunctioning settings, readers will not have to be convinced that creating a setting is and has to be an obstacle course true of the beginning as it is of any subsequent period (p. 204)."
In a later passage, Sarason writes about the wisdom required of the leader of a new setting, "wisdom that acknowledges reality without sacrificing dreaming." Together, and for me, these passages encapsulate everything that Ken and the principal of every reconstituted school is facing. A beginning is a delicate thing, a thirsty seedling in a scorching sun. Ken and his team are those practical dreamers of whom Sarason writes, but without adequate nurturing, no one can predict success for the school.
My experience suggest that here is what can be predicted: If Ken, Eric, and Rob will want to be at Brentwood in March, they will need the abiding assistance of central-service staff to support the learning agenda of the school. Similarly, leaders both administrative and teaching will need trust from the school community, including parents and business partners.
Looking from the outside in, I firmly believe that the necessary foundation for trust is now being laid, demonstrated in no small part by the way the faculty conducted itself during my session. I am looking forward to future work with the Brentwood Elementary Magnet School of Engineering and to witnessing the successful creation of a setting. Godspeed, friends.
No, what occupies my mind this evening is milder stuff, but not by much. The short of it is that I am midwife to what educational leadership consultants like me call, "Developing Your School's Organizational Identity," fashioned after a monograph of the same name written by Joe Peel.
The client is Brentwood Elementary Magnet School of Engineering, one of four "Renaissance Schools" in Wake County receiving Race-to-the-Top funds. Its staff has been hired from all over the United States. One teacher-couple I met today moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to cast their lot with Brentwood. Jennifer and her husband may be distal examples but are far from unusual in their willingness to invest in something extraordinary. Every teacher I met was cut from the same cloth.
Specifically, my task is to help leadership and staff create mission, vision, values, and belief statements, public agreements that both will guide their work and inspire the school community. What we embarked upon today was nothing short of the creation of a setting.
As I worked with principal Ken Branch, assistant principal Eric Fitts, and administrative intern Rob Epler, I was reminded of a school where I was once principal that also embarked upon a curricular innovation and particularly of my doctoral studies some 20 years in the rear view mirror.
Graduate students fortunate enough to study with Dale Brubaker, Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, will recognize in the title of this blog partial citation of a book by Seymour Sarason of Yale University. The Creation of Settings and the Future Societies. In an especially instructive chapter titled, "The Socialization of Leaders," Sarason writes:
"It is highly unusual for a new principal to leave his school in February or March, but in my experience it is not that unusual for a principal to want to leave. . . . Once this becomes recognized and the creation of new settings begins to receive the systematic study and clinical attention that the consulting industry (in and out of the university) gives to chronologically mature, malfunctioning settings, readers will not have to be convinced that creating a setting is and has to be an obstacle course true of the beginning as it is of any subsequent period (p. 204)."
In a later passage, Sarason writes about the wisdom required of the leader of a new setting, "wisdom that acknowledges reality without sacrificing dreaming." Together, and for me, these passages encapsulate everything that Ken and the principal of every reconstituted school is facing. A beginning is a delicate thing, a thirsty seedling in a scorching sun. Ken and his team are those practical dreamers of whom Sarason writes, but without adequate nurturing, no one can predict success for the school.
My experience suggest that here is what can be predicted: If Ken, Eric, and Rob will want to be at Brentwood in March, they will need the abiding assistance of central-service staff to support the learning agenda of the school. Similarly, leaders both administrative and teaching will need trust from the school community, including parents and business partners.
Looking from the outside in, I firmly believe that the necessary foundation for trust is now being laid, demonstrated in no small part by the way the faculty conducted itself during my session. I am looking forward to future work with the Brentwood Elementary Magnet School of Engineering and to witnessing the successful creation of a setting. Godspeed, friends.
Friday, August 5, 2011
In the Game
Readers of this blog know that I officially retired from the employment of Wake County Public School System and the North Carolina Teachers and State Employees Retirement System, June 30. For six years, I had the enviable position of director and then executive director of Triangle Leadership Academy (TLA). So what is my point in writing after a month-long hiatus?
Students in recent cohorts of the NC State University Master of School Administration program in which I taught know that one of my favorite books for aspiring professionals is Chris Matthews' The Hardball Handbook: How to Win at Life. Chocked full of lessons learned from his many years as a congressional aide and political journalist, Matthews says to win the game you must be in the game.
I would suggest that for the last six years we have been winning the school leadership-development game. Our leadership pipeline filled positions, our programs improved professional practice, and as a result student learning improved. It is important to remember, however, that we were winning the game because we first found a way to get into it by leveraging public-private resources.
Never numbering more than four full-time professionals, TLA staff were joined by scores of contractors, subject matter experts, and organizational partners to serve educational leaders cumulatively experiencing our training and development products and services nearly 20,000 times. Margaret Meade was right about the power of a small, committed group to change the world.
Looking ahead, most of you know that, as a leadership development service provider, TLA is morphing into a subsidiary of Wake Education Partnership, the local education fund for Wake County Schools. In the wake of my retirement, I hope to continue serving as a kind of leadership training & development director under contract with the Partnership.
Although many rivers remain to be crossed before an official launch, business acquaintances of Partnership president Steve Parrott say that if it is to be done, he can do it. Meanwhile, I am delivering on contracts with the Partnership around re-imaging Race-to-the-Top-funded schools' organizational identity and planning training in other schools using VitalSmarts and SREB products.
In addition to contracts with Wake Education Partnership, I'm also developing and facilitating programs of professional learning for school administrators with the NC Principals and Assistant Principals Association, working as an adjunct professor with Gardner-Webb University School of Education, and preparing to facilitate online learning for school leaders with SREB. And as you may have noted, I am continuing my blog under a new banner.
I hope you will be inspired to forward the blog to your colleagues and weigh in as the spirit leads you. Our cause and our conversation is way too important to leave the game now.
Students in recent cohorts of the NC State University Master of School Administration program in which I taught know that one of my favorite books for aspiring professionals is Chris Matthews' The Hardball Handbook: How to Win at Life. Chocked full of lessons learned from his many years as a congressional aide and political journalist, Matthews says to win the game you must be in the game.
I would suggest that for the last six years we have been winning the school leadership-development game. Our leadership pipeline filled positions, our programs improved professional practice, and as a result student learning improved. It is important to remember, however, that we were winning the game because we first found a way to get into it by leveraging public-private resources.
Never numbering more than four full-time professionals, TLA staff were joined by scores of contractors, subject matter experts, and organizational partners to serve educational leaders cumulatively experiencing our training and development products and services nearly 20,000 times. Margaret Meade was right about the power of a small, committed group to change the world.
Looking ahead, most of you know that, as a leadership development service provider, TLA is morphing into a subsidiary of Wake Education Partnership, the local education fund for Wake County Schools. In the wake of my retirement, I hope to continue serving as a kind of leadership training & development director under contract with the Partnership.
Although many rivers remain to be crossed before an official launch, business acquaintances of Partnership president Steve Parrott say that if it is to be done, he can do it. Meanwhile, I am delivering on contracts with the Partnership around re-imaging Race-to-the-Top-funded schools' organizational identity and planning training in other schools using VitalSmarts and SREB products.
In addition to contracts with Wake Education Partnership, I'm also developing and facilitating programs of professional learning for school administrators with the NC Principals and Assistant Principals Association, working as an adjunct professor with Gardner-Webb University School of Education, and preparing to facilitate online learning for school leaders with SREB. And as you may have noted, I am continuing my blog under a new banner.
I hope you will be inspired to forward the blog to your colleagues and weigh in as the spirit leads you. Our cause and our conversation is way too important to leave the game now.
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