Introit

Wine or Beverage?

Is your school a wine or a beverage? The difference might be more than you think.

The question finds its genesis in remarks made by an acquaintance of mine who is co-owner of a popular wine shop in the greater Philadelphia area. A number of folks who try to get to know him find him somewhat abrasive at times, yet he acts that way because he's trying to underscore something important.

That point, according to him, is that many "branded" wines (think: Yellow Tail, Hardy's, Woodbridge, etc.) are beverages, and not wine. Beverages are meant to have the same taste, the same flavor profile, year after year. Viewed in that vein, vintage has no meaning: the companies are trying to produce a wine whose flavor profile never alters. On the one hand, consistency is something on which customers can rely, meaning that there are never any surprises. To maintain this consistency, however, the companies must result frequently to methods that add or subtract certain elements inherent in making wine -- for example, they might bathe the wines in oak chips or they might "extract" some water from the juice during an overly-wet year. On the other hand, this same consistency means that consumers never get to taste the differences in wines from vintage to vintage, meaning that they will fail to appreciate the inherent "naturality" of wine.

A wine, as opposed to a "beverage", is a drink that tastes different from vintage to vintage, as it reflects the effects of nature in any given year. Just as people are different at different times of the year and in different social situations, so too are wines. Good wine, my acquaintance would say, cannot be made by a massive corporation; only an honest grower can produce grapes of the best quality, and can tell you about variations in soil, exposure, gradient, ambient temperatures, and the like. That grower can craft the story about the wine, giving it personality and soul. As such, folks who drink wine (and not beverages...) appreciate the uniqueness of any given wine; they appreciate the soul, and they're looking for growers who can make such expressions of a grape into meaningful wine.

So, is your school a wine or a beverage?

Endings - Happy and Sad

Happy Endings: another NAIS Annual Conference, a chance to meet new people -- including a number of folks in the Aspiring Heads fellowship, an opportunity to reconnect with familiar faces and ongoing acquaintances, a learning opportunity in many sessions, a chance to see a unique community on the harbor across the bridge from Washington, D.C. Also happy: looking forward to the next NAIS Annual Conference I can attend, even if it's not next year's in Seattle. Though the quality of the overall conference can vary from year to year, I find the connections, reconnections, and session attendance very stimulative and often generative. It rejuvenates me, serving as a remind of why I love independent education.

Sad Endings: speaking with two people from two very different schools, both of which are closing at the end of this school year. At one, the entire administration has been let go already, as the school doesn't have the funds to pay them for the remainder of the year. What is more, the bondholders (the school had debt, which is no surprise to readers of my posts on debt issues) want the property sooner rather than later, so the school has had to accelerate its academic calendar in order to graduate the students before the bondholders take over the property. At the other, the decision to close was announced in recent weeks, and they are in closing mode, which will take the next six months or so. It is difficult to imagine the emotional drain on a leader who, with the board, must shut down operations, place students in other schools, and assist faculty and staff with job searches, etc. The silver lining, perhaps, is that the pain resulting from closure has an end-point in sight; at other schools that are struggling to stay afloat -- usually due in part or exclusively due to debt issues, the pain will continue in the form of more rounds of downsizing, reduction or elimination of benefits, salary reductions, and the like. Death by a thousand cuts; a kind of torture that prolongs the feelings of wounded-ness rather than provide for well-being and sobriety.

Bringing Disruptive Innovation to Independent Education

A new paper from the Center for American Progress and the Innosight Institute (see the executive summary here) describes higher education in the United States as being in dire need of "disruptive innovation," using language that could just as well apply to the independent school sector.  The authors, Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, Louis Caldera, and Louis Soares, define a disruptive innovation as one that transforms complicated, expensive, and inaccessible products or services into ones that are simple, affordable, and convenient, serving many no matter their wealth.   Higher education has, for decades, focused on expanding access without improving affordability; e.g., Pell grants, student loans, support from endowments, etc.  A truly disruptive innovation, to these authors, would be one that improves affordability (i.e. reduces cost) and thereby increases access to services.

via triangleassociates.typepad.com

How to Grow a Monumental Endowment: NAIS Presentation

Tim McIntire (senior consultant at Carney Sandoe & Associates and co-founder of the Santa Fe Leadership Center) and I (Tower Hill School) will be presenting "How to Grow a Monumental Endowment" at the 2011 NAIS Annual Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Friday, February 25 at 8 a.m.

The download (PowerPoint) of our presentation can be found below. Also, it is posted on the NAIS Annual Conference page dedicated to our session.

Download Building a Monumental Endowment

Click here for more information on the endowment forecasting software we used.

Caveat: depending on your monitor, it may be challenging to see the screen shots of the endowment management software that is used. Best viewed on a large monitor!

Entrepreneurial Mindset

Luke Johnson, author of a column called "The Entrepreneur" in the Financial Times and chairman of the Royal Society of Arts, wrote a thoughtful piece yesterday (February 16, 2011) that prompted me to think once again about the role that independent school curricula and structures play in the nurturing of students' attitudes and expectations vis-a-vis their eventual workplace experiences. In particular, I wonder how we are instilling the notions of flexibility and adaptation in their mindsets? After all, their workplaces and jobs will be different from the generations that have gone before them.

Johnson writes, "I have always been transfixed by those who lead multiple careers. They are the ones who refuse to be typecast but instead break convention by embracing a variety of roles, sometimes simultaneously, more often consecutively. [...They switch] vocations and accumul[ate] new skills as they go, achieving great feats across different disciplines. Undoubtedly one of the true joys of being an entrepreneur is that you are not trapped in one stifling occupation but are free to roam."

Yes, he does substantiate that "domain knowledge" is "essential to excel in any calling," but he suggests that the ability to put aside fear and cast aside "all that training, those qualifications, networks and reference points" is something that we should pursue as a "fundamental goal."

In other words, it's about having a mindset that is different from that to which we were most often exposed while growing up. Carol Dweck, of course, has written and spoken much regarding her work in exploring the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.

So, to return to independent school curricula, where are we revamping our curricula to address the "mindset deficiency", or, in other words, to provide space for an entrepreneurial mindset to grow? Where might we begin? How do we maintain that link between what has been perceived traditionally as "rigorous" and what we might term as "vigorous" in regards to preparation for life, a skill which is doubtless just as important as academic formation?

A Better Top Team

McKinsey Quarterly recently ran an article that focused on how top management teams can improve themselves. The same criteria hold true in schools, I think.

1. Get the right people on the team...and the wrong ones off. More than 1/3 of the CEOs that McKinsey surveyed noted that their top teams did not have the right people with the right capabilities. Although we have senior leadership teams in schools, some of which may not have the right people, we also employ many teams in schools--and that is where we too often find the situation of wrong people on the team. Too often, certain folks are placed on a team because their actual title or perceived "rank" within the pecking order (of faculty, for example) seems to imply that they should be team members. Perhaps we could afford to follow that direction pre-2008, but now, when every little move matters greatly, I would argue that we cannot afford to follow past performance.

2. Make sure the top team does only the work just it can do. In other words, in schools, teams need to establish firm boundaries of where their purview lies and where it doesn't. That's tremendously difficult in independent schools because it's easy for us to convince ourselves that everything matters...and therefore should somehow relate to our team's purview. The result is that team meetings lose their energy and focus, and team members' engagement level diminishes, as does productivity of the team. Figure out what your team can and cannot do, and adhere to it!

3. Address team dynamics and processes. How much of a team's time is actually spent in "productive collaboration"? Why is that the case? Typically, the source of the problem is a lack of alignment in either the area of process or interpersonal dynamics. The cure is a form of cultural change within the team, if the feeling of the team leader is that the members could benefit from learning why they are disagreeing and determining a way to channel that disagreement into a productive discussion, ending with a result. Additionally, for warring factions, the team leader must address them immediately, rather than permit them to fester. The latter approach will serve only to render the team more impotent, and therefore, fragile. This kind of work is very demanding of the leader, in both time and personal energy.

Taking Advantage of the Mountains

About one year ago, I discovered a great machine at our local YMCA: a stationary bike with a video screen that offers a variety of courses that allow the rider to "race" against a whole host of virtual riders (click here).

There are certain courses that I return to with great frequency, as they have become favorite rides. I've gotten to know the curves, the grade of the road at multiple locations, the distance of a particular grade, and so forth. I also have learned much about my own limits; for example, at what point my heart rate truly reaches its maximum sustainable rate...and how long I can sustain it before having to slow down.

Each course has a computer-generated pacer, a rider with a certain wattage (power output) that is meant to serve as a guide for the person on the machine. For each level of course offered (basic, moderate, challenging, extreme), the pacer's wattage is increased.

No matter the course I choose, it is always my objective to beat the pacer. At the very least, I could ride his wheel and finish alongside him at the end of the course, but I'm competitive...so I do my best to win each race.

Early on, I learned a few basics which have helped me at all levels:

1. accelerate just before you reach the top of an incline (really increase your wattage)
2. maintain an average wattage of circa 200 watts
3. on very steep grades that are short in distance, stand up and give it all you've got
4. on down grades, keep the wattage around 190 watts, i.e. very close to 200 watts

The recurrent theme in that list is the mountains...it's all about learning how to take advantage in the mountains.

Riding the bike is an activity that reminds me of school leadership. If you want to beat the pacer (i.e., the average school in your marketplace), you've got to take advantage of the mountains: keep up your wattage, stand up and give it all you've got--especially on steep grades, and you'll compound your winning advantage in the long run, since that is where your competition will slow down.

Yet, you can't afford to let up too much and relax while on an extreme downward grade; hence the need to keep the wattage around 190 watts--rather high, in other words.

These strategies, used in combination, produce winning results. It's about pace (your own) and it's about taking advantage of the mountains.

Don't believe me? Watch the Tour de France this summer. You'll see that the race is always decided in the mountains--the combination of the Alps and the Pyrenees.

The New Craftsmanship

There's always been a bright line around the craftsperson, someone who takes real care and produces work for the ages. Everyone else might be a hack, or a factory guy or a suit or a drone, but a craftsperson was someone we could respect.

via sethgodin.typepad.com

A very brief thought on the notion of craftsmanship and what that might mean today.

To Keep Things Whole: On Educational Fomentation

            For the past ten years or so, educational revolutionaries have relied on what seems an obvious truth: “The Internet changes everything!” For the ten years before that, technology in general.

via tokeepthingswhole.blogspot.com

Superb post from Mark Crotty, Head of School at St John's Episcopal School in Dallas, Texas.

Leadership Overkill?

Are we on leadership overkill?

The more I look at messaging in schools, the more I look at titles of educational conference sessions, the more educator-focused workshops I see offered, the more degrees in 'educational leadership' I see offered...I have to wonder whether we're rushing too quickly toward this notion of "leadership."

In other words, are we being thoughtful and precise about the kinds of leadership opportunities we're encouraging (as independent school educators), whether for students, faculty, or administrators? Or, rather, are we on some sort of "high" regarding anything that carries the label "leadership"? Will we puruse "leadership" at any cost, even if a sloppy, artificial "leadership" program becomes detrimental to the profession?

It is not that I disagree with the need for leadership; quite the contrary. However, to me, it seems that "leadership" is becoming (has already become, arguably) an over-used term, meaning that its potential for positive impact is becoming diminished.

Perhaps I'll be the first person to say the following comment in the blogosphere, but I feel it should be stated nonetheless: aren't there simply too many graduate-level "educational leadership" programs out there? A look through industry publications indicates a plethora of such programs, and the universities that offer them are, ahem, diverse in terms of their quality and rigor. To be sure, there are quality programs, but their well-deserved gravitas is lessened by the wide-spread availability of similar programs.

A perusal of job ads for school leadership positions (read here: division heads or heads of school) will identify that schools are looking for individuals with "a degree in educational leadership." Does the degree itself prove that someone is a leader? It would seem to, according to industry use of/reference to the degree program. Has it really become a pre-requisite for such a position in schools? Should it? It's almost as ubiquitous as "a degree in education." Perhaps it used to be singular, but no more.

Again, I'm not ranting and raving against the need for leadership in schools. My concern is whether, in the verbal frenzy surrounding "leadership", we are losing focus on how true leadership is nurtured and developed.

It's not just about degree programs, however. It's also about the daily life of school, and how we are pursuing leadership programs for students. Which ones should we pursue, and, frankly, which ones should we drop?

At what point do we reach leadership saturation? And, if we reach that point, does leadership then lose all sense of meaning?

As I said at the outset, I have no definitive answer to my question. Yet, I am struggling with some strong feelings that have resulted from watching job ads, conference sessions, and the like, as well as listening to various discourses on leadership.

Is anyone else out there feeling a similar struggle? How are you dealing with leadership, and the fact that we need it, balanced against the growing leadership phenomenon that may be weakening the very thing we're looking to strengthen?