Introit

Muting the Hippos

I found a term in the October 2012 issue (p. 65) of the Harvard Business Review that I just love -- one that I want to make use of, if I can just remember to do it!

HiPPO -- the Highest Paid Person's Opinion

The term is mentioned in an article dealing with management having to make sense of big data. Toward the end of the article, the authors talk about a new culture of decision making in a section called 'muting the HiPPOs':

"One of the most critical aspects of big data is its impact on how decisions are made and who gets to make them. When data are scarce, expensive to obtain, or not available in digital form, it makes sense to let well-placed people make decisions, which they do on the basis of experience they've built up and patterns and relationships they've observed and internalized. [...] For particularly important decisions, these people are typically high up in the organization, or they're expensive outsiders brought in because of their expertise and track records. Many in the big data community maintain that companies often make most of their important decisions by relying on HiPPOs. [...] But we believe that throughout the business world today, people rely too much on experience and intuition and not enough on data."

They go on to tout the merits of data-driven companies, and, admittedly, they do have a strong argument, even if the argument might feel a bit odd for schools, since we so rarely talk about data.

So, to return to my new favorite term...can you identify the HiPPOs in your school? Do you ever feel like muting them?!

Accountability and Small Teams

When there is special work (projects, etc.) to be undertaken in schools, we turn our minds immediately to the question of who ought to sit on the committee charged with that work. Schools are, at their core, human/social enterprises, so it is only natural that we should consider first the "who" when embarking on special work. Or should we?

I propose that, first and foremost, instead of "who" should be involved, we would benefit from considering "how many." In other words, we ought to focus on establishing a constraint of team size, so as to ensure accountability, enable nimble decision-making, and increase the probability of reaching a solution/working model in a shorter period of time. The notion of imposing a constraint is not to tie our hands; rather, as design-thinking methodology underscores, it forces creativity and innovation to emerge. It forces us to make choices that correspond to the constraint, and keeps everyone focused on attaining the desired outcome.

Consider, for example, Amazon.com, where Jeff Bezos restricts team size, not necessarily by a strict number, but by how many people two pizzas will feed. As Andrew Hill writes in today's edition of the Financial Times, "This focus improves accountability and clarity--in a small group, no one can avoid pulling their weight and no one can claim they don't know what the goal is." An additional benefit to the deployment of small teams is that any advance toward the team's goal resonates and ripples positively throughout the team, thereby energizing the team.

Of course, for that to occur, teams must be given great autonomy, so that they feel a sense of ownership of their work. The notion of ownership will make the work more rewarding, and the sense of rewarding work will drive motivation. Voila, a (small) virtuous cycle.

We don't need to assemble such teams for "grands projets" alone; even the more mundane or pedestrian projects would benefit from this structure. In other words, we need not assemble a small team to "change the world," when what we need the most often is a desire to solve a specific problem.

Observable Candor

Keith Ferrazzi writes a poignant piece in the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review. Entitled, "Candor, Criticism, Teamwork," the article treats teamwork and its effectiveness, based on research into the organizational life of institutions. Guess what factor made the most difference, in terms of high-functioning teams? Candor.

"My team interviewed executives at six top banks to gauge their teams' level of candor. We found that the teams that scored the lowest on candor saw the poorest financial returns among those banks during the recent global economic crisis. In contrast, groups that communicated candidly about risky securities, lending practices, and other potential problems were able to preserve shareholder value" (40).

Observable candor is "the behavior that best predicts high-performing teams", in other words.

However, as Ferrazzi rightly points out, "asking people to be candid in the absence of a supportive organizational culture is a challenge" (40).

He suggests three techniques to help colleagues at all levels work more effectively and directly:

1. Break meetings into smaller groups. Groups of five or more tend to favor the domination of specific voices, while the other group members remain silent. Be intentional about creating smaller groups. Why? "Smaller groups promote higher degrees of risk taking and increase the odds that more voices will be heard."
2. Designate a 'Yoda'. Designate a person (or take a volunteer) to be a Yoda: the official advocate of candor. "A Yoda's job is to notice and speak up when something is being left unsaid. [S/he] may also call out anyone whose criticism is unconstructive or disrepectful."
3. Teach 'caring criticism.' Negative feedback, while it can hurt, is "a gift aimed at helping the recipient improve performance or avoid mistakes." However, it doesn't have to be delivered in a negative fashion. Use phrases such as "Think about this..." or "I might suggest..." to deliver this kind of feedback. If the person receiving the feedback considers you as generous rather than authoritarian, that person will be more open to changing the behavior in question.

I know schools that have this "culture of candor," but I also know some that do not. If you're a leader in the latter camp, given all your other duties (which may be overwhelming, especially if your schools is still struggling financially), how might you go about changing the culture to be one in which there is "observable candor"? But what if you're not the head of school? What if you happen to "lead from the middle" (i.e., department chair, dean, coordinator)? How might you become a cultural change agent?

Rewarding Teams

Featured in the current edition(Q4.2011) of Briefings on Talent & Leadership by Korn Ferry International, Hilti, a Liechtenstein-based power-tool business is really big on teamwork. The article got me thinking about teamwork and partnerships in our curricula.

"Teamwork is central to everything. The reward system is partly built around team results. There are no bonuses based on individual performance [...]. All bonuses, both annual and longer-term, are based on the performance of teams. And so are the acknowledgements of achievement" (65).

We've been talking a lot about the importance of teams in schools over these past few years. Are we practicing what we're preaching, or is it a case of edu-speak? How many student "teams" do we have, whether in single disciplines or in interdisciplinary units? Do we value that teamwork? How do we assess it?

Live Blog (3): ADVIS Technology Workshop

MIT Open Courseware -- why make it free? Something really dramatic is happening!

The argument: the best learning is still face-to-face: the "memorization piece" is important, but the "conversation piece" is valuable.

Flexbook -- open textbook initiative -- you can mix/match content to your heart's delight.

What Skype does for education, from hiring to the classroom, is amazing. It connects people on a global scale.

Internet is now facilitating how we get things done...there is an explosion of collaboration. Connectedness is leading to innovation.

The Long Tail -- why the future of business is selling less of more. The "long tail" is a plotted curve that shows publication of books that don't "make it" on major stores and such. About one year ago, Amazon began to sell more product in the "long tail," ie. more product that wasn't in book store versus what was in book stores.

What's interesting is that the technologies are now allowing us to "return to participation, pre-broadcast, pre-factory model." In other words, communication is super-important -- kids are getting feedback, sharing writing and ideas with others...and not in the Henry Ford-like model of education.

Redistribution of our cognitive surplus, says Clay Shirky. The internet has unleashed this cognitive surplus. It is unleashed energy.

Where do schools live? In structure or in freedom? Where does cognitive surplus thrive?

Live Blog (2): ADVIS Workshop

"The answer to content overload is to...create more content."

Hargadon has problem with Kahn Academy and TED. It's nice to have that info available, but the point of technology is to create content. "Finding the best lesson" doesn't make sense, if the web is about conversation and content creation. That info can be used for backup, but it doesn't replace teaching content to students 1:1.

Learning as memorization vs. Learning as creation > which do you want to espouse?

Learning as creation is hard work.

Live Blog (1): ADVIS Workshop on Technology in Education

I'm going to send out some information today "live" from a workshop I'm attending, sponsored by ADVIS (Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools). The speaker is Steve Hargadon, and the focus of the session is on how technology is now poised to change education fundamentally.

Interesting link:

Future of Education -- here you can join the conversation on technology in education, including listening to podcasts of great speakers.

Steve: "There's a crisis in meaning" in today's educational environment. We need new narratives to help us illustrate why we need to do what we need to do.

"We're about to go through the biggest change in education in a long time...perhaps ever."

The learning and creativity that is taking place on the internet is largely taking place outside our institutions. How do we make schools the place for this kind of learning, creativity, innovation?

Book: Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology

Realistic View of this change: image of tsunami hitting shore...look out!

Three large cultural shifts that are taking place, that will impact how we think about education:

1. How we find, create and consume information

2. How we connect with others

3. How we get things done

Choose the Right People

Is your school forming committees or task forces to tackle a pressing issue? Whom does one select to serve on committee/task force x, y, or z? Is there a single criterion that stands out?

A recent article from McKinsey Quarterly suggests that it is this: "pick people who can answer the questions you're asking."

That seems a rather obvious response, yet too frequently it is not the norm when groups are brainstorming ideas. If you'd like to have a productive brainstorming session, you absolutely need to have people in the group who can answer the questions you're asking.

Whom should one not choose? The "idea crushers." That could mean subject-matter experts to whom everyone always defers because of some presupposed wisdom, but, more importantly, it usually means "big mouths," those who "take up air time, intimidate the less confident, and give everyone else the excuse to be lazy."

So, choose wisely.

But what if you don't have the luxury to choose wisely? Group leadership will have to be highly politic; there is no other way. If any substantive work is to be accomplished, a group leader must allocate a fairly significant portion of his/her time to cultivating and growing relationships with every single person in the group so that s/he knows the pressure points within the group. That leader must have the political skill to navigate many kinds of seas, guiding the ship toward its port.

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.

Outdated Knowledge Management

Knowledge management, or the set of processes and systems that companies and schools use to identify, codify, and share their intellectual capital, is rather outdated. At least, how it is usually done is rather outdated.

The current model goes something like this:

1. The school has plans and goals.

2. An internal person works with a group of people to attain a) consensus and b) compliance around said plans and goals.

3. With consensus and compliance attained, the group moves to convergence on what, precisely, should be done.

This particular model can work well, but only in a school with a stable environment that creates incremental changes. But what if you don't want to make an incremental change? What if you want to make earth-shattering change? What if incremental changes don't cut it any more?

What the Head of School can do:

1. clarify the strategy in language that shows a clear framework for execution of the project in question

2. protect the project's position on the institution's radar screen (his/her screen and the board's screen)

3. guide change in order to prevent churn and chaos

What the RP can do (rp = responsible person, the one executing the project)

1. shape the project team with appropriate team members, not group members (remember: teams and groups are different beasts; you'll want a team for this kind of change)

2. ensure cross-divisional collaboration

3. excel at politics: get the right people together, quickly, when barriers are erected

4. re-frame any and all constraints

5. make decisions, and make them on time: help your Head of School!