Introit

Strategy Execution

How would your school deal with the following four elements of strategy execution? Specifically, if you were to map out your strategy, how would you vertically order the following areas? How are they linked, and how would you prioritize them? (They are not in any recommended order here)

• Execution capabilities

• Core objectives

• Competitive objectives

• Customer outcomes

For those familiar with curriculum design, the UbD (Understanding by Design) method can be used here. Where would UbD have schools begin? With customer outcomes. In other words, what can the school provide customers that will 1) make them content with the product, 2) keep them coming back, and 3) encourage them to spread positive word of mouth regarding the school? Begin with the end in mind, and work backward from there.

Historically, independent schools have been uncomfortable with the notion of customer outcomes as a/the primary driver of the business model, as it seems to suggest that schools are placating families by providing them with what they want, when they want it, which would mean that school curricula would be manipulated constantly.

Customer outcomes can be balanced by a focus on competitive objectives and core objectives. The former signifies how each school differs from its competitors, and the latter is synonymous with what we normally term "mission." Although the core objectives tend to remain fixed (we are who we are), competitive objectives should be in flux; their change allows schools to direct the change(s) that customers might like to see, while remaining true to core objectives. Competitive objectives need to be in flux; they represent the levers and dials that schools use to translate core objectives into customer outcomes. As technology progresses, for example, it changes our competitive objectives, or at least, it should change them. These objectives consist of new initiatives, upgrades, and so forth. To provide one example, increasing the leverage of social networks can increase the intimacy between school and "customer" (parents), a win-win for both parties, but it doesn't mean ignoring or changing our core objectives, our mission.

Execution capabilities are also important: these are the capabilities of those who are in-house--faculty, staff, administration. Do these folks bring to the table everything that is needed to keep the message of core objectives (the mission) fresh and meaningful to the customer, by means of competitive objectives?

How does your school come up with competitive objectives? Is it a board "think tank," is it the head alone, or are faculty and staff members encouraged to identify such objectives? If it's only the board or head, there will be a palpable "distance" between the board/head and faculty/staff, with the latter feeling as if the former doesn't understand what things are like in the trenches. In this case, there's work to be done on strategic alignment within the school, and much of that is cultural work. And that's perhaps the hardest work there is.

Control Culture No Longer Works

Henry Ford was famous for his assembly-line model of automobile production. In short, he was able to keep costs down and enable the average person to buy a Ford because he controled the process by means of simplicity: you can have any color you want, as long as it's black. Standardization was the name of the game. Control the process of production and keep it simple. One model, standardized parts (i.e. they did not have to be custom-fitted, as had been the case previously), a predictable manufacturing process, etc.

The control culture that Ford epitomized is similar to the culture in a number of independent schools: our product is X, this is how we provide it, you can have anything you want here so long as it's what we provide.

The problem, however, is that the control culture no longer works for our schools. As technology has progressed--and has become more disruptive, independent school families have become accustomed to greater choice and greater flexibility, to the point where they're looking for those characteristics in our schools.

Families are working on a "collaborative culture" model (they want input, in some way), and a "control culture" model no longer serves their wants/needs. If your school operates in the control culture model, can you see how you might be seeing a drop in enrollment, perhaps exacerbated by the current economic climate?

Control culture schools need to move toward becoming collaborative culture schools, although the trick will be for each school to determine just how collaborative it wants to be. Some will be more, some will be less. Schools will continue to remain diverse, just as before, but they will be diverse in different ways.

Time: Enemy of the Culture Lever

In my last post, I asked whether one should consider pulling the culture lever, if all other levers were no longer viable for a given school. The underlying assumption is that the school is in such a position that levers need to be pulled in order for the school 1) to continue operations and 2) to be successful in fulfilling its mission.

So, would you pull the culture lever?

The enemy of the culture lever is time. Research in organizational theory suggests that, to significantly alter organizational culture in order to re-establish viability, the time needed is somewhere around ten years. For example, if your school's culture is what's called a "competence culture," where competent (brilliant, most likely) faculty and administrators in functional silos dominate the landscape, but you recognize that your school could be more in tune with independent school parents and educational innovation by moving to a "collaboration culture," be aware that that kind of shift could take a Head's entire tenure to accomplish. Board support of that Head will never be more important, as well as the support and leadership of a select group of visionary administrative leaders within the school.

Look at Louis Gerstner, who turned around IBM...it took him almost 10 years. But now, IBM is no longer a hardware- or software-centric company...so much of their profit now comes from services (e.g., consulting). You don't move from producing computer hardware to providing consulting services overnight, or even in two or three years. That's a fundamental cultural shift from a "competence culture" to a "collaboration culture."

So, I ask again, would you pull the culture lever?

How much time does your school have, before its position in the marketplace is compromised? Can you afford 10 years, or do you need results sooner? How might you do that?

Inattentional Blindness

"Inattentional blindness" is a phrase that references what happens when, in our case, a school is so focused on item X that it is entirely unaware of item Y, the latter being some sort of fault or glaring omission.

I'm doing an online graduate certificate program in Advanced Project Management, what one instructor said should be termed more appropriately "Organizational Engineering." I have to agree with him; it's about culture and strategy as much as the execution of a portfolio of projects. Most folks taking the course are from the Fortune 500 world, although there are a few educators or executive directors of non-profits. The instructor used the phrase "inattentional blindness" to describe companies who are focused so intently on one aspect of operations that they miss--quite entirely--what might be the real culprit causing their under-performance, their drop in sales, etc.

Permit me to translate the phrase into a more school-friendly situation. Imagine a school that is losing students, where parent complaints are the norm (as opposed to parent praise), where the program hasn't kept pace with developments in education. In that same school, the board has a single focus: finances. If they can get the finances right, it stands to reason (to them) that the school will be successful once again. Finances, they would argue, are the key to the school's viability.

Yet, they ignore the obvious: the program.

Inattentional blindness!

Is Your School a Cathedral?

I really enjoyed Tom Peters' most recent video on 'organizations as cathedrals', included below. The spirituality of excellence is something that should permeate our schools; we should be striving always to nurture people and help them grow (I'm talking faculty, staff, and administrators). Excellence is a mindset; if mediocrity rules your school, how might you begin the shift toward constructing a cathedral of excellence?

Is it Really Learning?

The New York Daily News today ran an editorial praising the work of state legislators and teacher union groups to come up with a new way of assessing teachers with an eye more than anything else on getting rid of those who are performing below expectations. As always, exactly how to figure out which teachers are “underperforming” is the problem, and the state’s attempt to win some of the Race to the Top money that’s being dangled in front of everyone’s face is driving the conversation. That means, of course, that students’ scores on standardized tests will play a big part in determining whether a teacher is “highly effective, effective, developing or ineffective.”

via weblogg-ed.com

Will Richardson's post this evening reminds me very much of Leonard Sax's book, Boys Adrift. Sax discusses how our educational system has moved from Kenntnis to Wissenschaft. Both terms (German) mean "knowledge," but the latter is factual knowledge instead of experiential knowledge. That is exactly what Richardson is talking about. The point is that exclusive focus on factual knowledge does not produce life-long learners; it produces folks who can take standardized tests well. Where' s the ability to apply knowledge? That comes with Kenntnis. Dan Pink would argue the same.

It's Easier to Teach Compliance than Initiative: Seth Godin

Of course, now that's all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance.

via sethgodin.typepad.com

Teachers as Master Learners

From Will Richardson, today's post on Teachers as Master Learners.

Enjoy.

Watershed Moment in 2010 Head Search

In a search announcement that may have been overlooked by many, the Online School for Girls is looking for its first director. Telecommuting is allowed; the location of the director is not of particular importance. What a powerful statement! Consider the ramifications of this headship. Then think about similar headships on the horizon. Perhaps they will become commonplace in 10-20 years. In any case, OSG has given us much to think about.

A true watershed moment.

Did you notice?

Hiring Teachers: Most Likely to Succeed

[From Malcolm Gladwell, circa one year ago. A great analogy that should give us (those who participate in the teacher hiring process) pause. I'd argue that schools looking for new senior administrators or even a head of school should also give it consideration. Click on the link below the introductory paragraph in order to read the full post.]

On the day of the big football game between the University of Missouri Tigers and the Cowboys of Oklahoma State, a football scout named Dan Shonka sat in his hotel, in Columbia, Missouri, with a portable DVD player. Shonka has worked for three National Football League teams. Before that, he was a football coach, and before that he played linebacker—although, he says, "that was three knee operations and a hundred pounds ago." Every year, he evaluates somewhere between eight hundred and twelve hundred players around the country, helping professional teams decide whom to choose in the college draft, which means that over the last thirty years he has probably seen as many football games as anyone else in America. In his DVD player was his homework for the evening's big game—an edited video of the Tigers' previous contest, against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.

via www.gladwell.com