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Strategy Now Focuses on Change

Nothing could be more true for K-12 education than this by a team of seasoned management consultants writing in the MIT Sloan Management Review: A fundamental assumption underlying traditional approaches to strategy is that industry boundaries and economics remain broadly stable over time. This assumption is no longer realistic... Change, not stability, are the key [...]

A Call For Educators To Take a Stand

Americans from across the political spectrum were horrified and saddened watching the video of George Floyd's death more than a week ago. And Americans from across the political spectrum are horrified and saddened by the scenes of senseless violence and destruction perpetrated by rioters in our cities. We don't have to agree on everything; heck, [...]

Images of a Very Different Strategic Planning Process

High school students gather in cross-grade teams to ideate ways to advance one of four big themes for the future. Strategic plans should reflect the vision of a school community. Most do not. Most plans are the result of relatively shallow input from some school stakeholders, followed by a rapid synthesis by a [...]

Part 2: What Does Your Admin Leadership Team Actually Do?

Last week I posted Part 1 of  the evolving role of a school or district admin leadership team.  I want to dig deeper into this: How might we really amplify the power of this team of leaders? Think about your admin leadership team and your team meetings. Like any  group within an organization, your admin [...]

What Does Your Admin Leadership Team Actually Do?

What does your administration leadership team actually DO?  That is not a rhetorical question.  What are the actual tasks of the team that gathers around the conference room table every week or month for an hour or two?  Are these meetings just an aggregation of pieces, or is there something that is greater than the [...]

Courage to Change Springs From Social Proof and Social Herding

Danvers Fleurry at TalentedApp reminded me last week that behavioral change is almost always a function of courage.  We don't change our personal or professional behaviors, even if we cognitively know we want to, unless we have the courage to walk over that bridge. Where do we find that courage? Major sources, and probably increasingly [...]

By | 2019-09-25T17:01:50+00:00 September 25th, 2019|Leading Change, Uncategorized|0 Comments

What Comes First, School or Well-Being?

What really drives your big, long-term school-wide decisions? In a video call yesterday with Corwin Press president Mike Soules and a group of Corwin authors, I noted that at virtually every school I have visited in depth for the last couple of years, student well-being has been at or very near the top of stakeholder goals and concerns.  We [...]

By | 2019-09-10T15:35:40+00:00 September 10th, 2019|Big Challenges to Education, Leading Change|0 Comments

Is the Classic “Hero’s Journey” Still Timeless?

The Hero's Journey lies at the heart of human storytelling. From the Bhagavad Gita to the Old and New Testaments; from Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology to the creational stories of indigenous peoples; from the life stories of comic book superheroes to the modern sagas like Star Wars and Game of Thrones, the Hero's Journey [...]

By | 2019-06-17T15:18:03+00:00 June 17th, 2019|Challenges to Education, Leading Change|0 Comments

The Simple Thesis of New Book THRIVE: How Schools Will Win the Education Revolution

I just made two new slides that seem to sum up pretty much the argument for, and the content of, my new book, THRIVE: How Schools Will Win the Education Revolution, due out in the early fall. Whether we like it or not, this is the hand we have been dealt as K-12 educators today [...]

The Power of 10,000 Small Ideas

We have passed a fundamental tipping point in the evolution of human connectivity. For millennia, big ideas spread through a highly-constricted pipeline. Masses of humanity listened to a handful of political, religious, or social influencers and followed where those few led.  Humans were a metaphorical crowd of 10,000 people listening for one good idea from [...]