Hire for Core Values

I was listening to the Dave Ramsey Entreleadership podcast today as they interviewed Patrick Lencioni about his new book The Advantage. I was intrigued by Lencioni's philosophy that he hires people based on three core values. He hires people who are humble, hungry, and smart. I thought that is a great way to select people by defining just a few core values that are non-negotiable for your team.

Google Forms Take 2

I redid the screencast to see if I could make the video player window a little smaller:

Google Spreadsheet with Form

Here is a tutorial for creating a survey to capture data on a Google Spreadsheet. This is a great tool for collecting information from a lots of people in one place.

What is your favorite iPad app?

What are your favorite iPad apps?

Love Goes to School

Photo Credit: Gisela Giardino

I was recently reading about the work of Dominic Randolph at Riverdale Country School in New York City.  The article focused on their character education program that was developed through conversations with Martin Seligman and Steve Levin of KIPP fame.   These two educators, Randolph and Levin, took the work of Martin Seligman on character virtues and decided to utilize the character traits that Seligman had uncovered in his work Character Strengths and Virtues.  They were further bolstered by the research of Angela Duckworth who found that IQ was not as strong a determiner as Grit in predicting academic achievement.  She came up with a short list for the educators as the focal point of their character development programs. Now, this is what I found curious.

After a few small adjustments (Levin and Randolph opted to drop love in favor of curiosity), they settled on a final list: zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity.

So, my one question is: Why did they drop love? Is that not a powerful character trait? Did they feel it was impossible to teach love at school?  Then I came across a podcast by Andy Stanley with Joel Manby, the author of Love Works: Seven Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders.  Mr. Manby takes the bold step of declaring that you can move the bottom line and still take care of people in an organization.


This definitely confirms my feelings about teaching and modeling love in schools. What better place to highlight the self sacrificing quality we desire in ourselves and those we (here it comes again) love than in the school setting.  We see many schools announcing the virtues of tolerance and their anti-bullying programs, but I'd like to explore what would happen when love goes to school.

50 Success Tips minus 47

Photo Credit: PHOTO ♥ BOOTH

Just saw this post on twitter, 50 Success Tips for Principals, and got to thinking.  How do I remember 50 tips about anything?  I mean do I need 50 tips to be a good dad?  How about 50 tips for saving energy.  You're lucky if I remember one thing to do.  Since, I've written before about focus, here's my list of successful tips for principals and I'm going to distill them down  to three.

Here we go.

1.  Have a Positive Attitude - Now, if you went to the 50 tips link above you may have noted that this is also #1 on their list, but I promise I did think of it before these guys.  A Positive Attitude does a world of good.  One of the parents in my son's boy scout troop was reading a book on wilderness survival, and you'll never guess what the most important thing you can do to survive - that's right - Have a Positive Attitude.  A positive attitude has a profound effect on you and everyone you lead.  You will face many challenges in the Principal's seat and you only have control over one thing - your response.  A positive attitude will help you absorb the challenges of the work both small and great and encourage those around to pursue the most positive course for students.

2. Make the People Around you Better - A former Principal I worked with years ago once said, "The job of the Principal is to do nothing".   Now, that is not an incentive for lazy administrators, but an acknowledgment that the people who actually run the schools are the teachers, secretaries, custodians, parents, and students.  The Principal's job is to create the environment where all of these folks can do their job to the best of their ability.  You'll need to get resources in their hands, build collaborative structures so they can work in teams and highlight their accomplishments every step of the way.  It's also good to remember that when you finally leave that school, they will not remember the things you did, but how you made them feel.  Did you make them feel competent, supported, encouraged, challenged?

3.  Be a Student of Learning - Study your school.  Study your curriculum.  Study your teachers, students, and community.  Read research.  Read for pleasure.  Listen to complaints, criticisms, and compliments.   Learn, Learn Learn.  The Principal should be the CLO (Chief Learning Officer) of the school.  Model a willingness to change (isn't that learning?) and constantly look for new insights, ideas, and strategies to make your school better.   Having a vision for your school comes from thinking about what is working and what could be better.  It also involves looking outside your school for inspiration and ideas.  The Principal as a learner is a powerful force for adult and student learning.

The principal job is extremely complex and sophisticated and can hardly be reduced to any list of things you can do.  In fact, I was tempted to put as #3 Never make a list like this!  However, some things are more important than others, and here is a great place to start.  If I can learn something new every day, help one member of my staff get better today, and keep a positive attitude no matter what comes my way, success is sure to follow.  If not, go back to that list of 50 things and try another one of those.   They're actually pretty good.

What Should Kids Read?

Everybody seems to have an opinion on the matter.  First, there was this report by Renaissance Learning (of AR fame), which showed the book levels per the ATOS scale from students who are using AR in grades 1-12.  The report has opinion pieces from several different YA authors like Dan Gutman and Dave Pilkey, one of the authors of the Common Core Standards, as well as a librarian.  Renaissance thought only to give one teacher a voice in the discussion.  Sandra Stotsky, Professor of Education Reform,  University of Arkansas added her opinion in the New York Daily News.  Finally, Robert Pondiscio chimed in at the Core Knowledge Blog.  Of course the Common Core Standards have answered the question by telling us that students should be reading a lot more non-fiction, an idea that I think has a lot of merit.  So, what should students be reading?  Where is the proper balance between student choice and teacher choice?

What Does Educational Research Really Tell us?

Photo Credit Nic's Events

Most educators in the past 10 years have confidently followed the lead of Robert Marzano in his famous meta-analysis of What Works in School and attempted to implement some or all of those high impact strategies that his organization has uncovered by looking at hundreds of studies and averaging the effect of each study to determine which strategies have the greatest impact.  Therefore, summarizing and notetaking is considered an effective strategy because the average improvement of performance on the studies under consideration was strong.

I started wondering about the advantages and disadvantages of this approach as I was reading Creating the Opportunity to Learn by A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera.  These authors used a different approach as they recommended promising practices to close the achievement gap.  They often cited research from a singular study (though they also referred to meta-analysis as well).  For example when discussing Teacher Student Relationship Quality (TSQR) they cited a study by Hamre and Pianta where the researchers followed 1900 Kindergarten students through 8th grade.  The relationship between the teacher and student was quantified in Kindergarten and their academic performance and grades were compared every year.

My wondering is what can we learn from these two approaches to research. It seems to me that the individual study gives us some specific lessons, especially if we dig into the manner that those Kindergarten teachers built productive relationships with their students, for example.  Whereas in the meta-analysis we are left with the general idea that students should be taught note taking and summarizing.  While I feel that this is a gain in our understanding, I'm guessing that within those many studies that were used for the meta-analysis there were students who gained, some who stayed the same, and a few who even dropped.  Therefore, we need to know more by looking at some of the individual studies with the biggest gains to determine the specific factors that led to success compared to those who did notetaking and summarizing but saw no student gains.

Either way, educators need be wise consumers of research, looking closely at the claims of researchers and practitioners alike.  We need to be able to judge for ourselves these claims and judge our own work through reflection and objective analysis to determine if what we are doing is working for the students we serve.

Getting Things Rolling

Photo Credit: Kevin Cochran

Michael Fullan likes checklists and another list he has is around a concept he calls Motion Leadership.  It is really about creating a culture where change can flourish.  An effective leader builds the systems, conditions, and processes that will develop sound decision making. He quotes Schwartz and Sharpe in their book Practical Wisdom, "(System Changers) .. have to build institutions with the culture and organization to encourage wisdom in everyday practice.  they have to create communities of practitioners who not only nurture moral skill but help inspire moral will, the commitment to o right by those the practitioners serve."  Fullan gives his checklist to create such a culture:

1. Relationships First
2. Beware of Fat Plans (My favorite)
3. Behaviors before beliefs
4. Honor the implementation dip
5. Communication during implementation is paramount
6. Learn about implementation during implementation
7. Excitement prior to implementation is fragile
8. Take risks and learn
9. It is OK to be assertive

What would be on your checklist for creating cultures that embrace learning and change?

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rammorrison/

Michael Fullan's book Change Leader describes his approach to leadership, one he has used successfully in Ontario to lead that city to significant academic gains over the past 9 years.  He prescribes seven key insights leaders should adapt to create the conditions for change to flourish.

1. The effective change leader actively participates as a learner in helping the organization improve.
2. The effective change leaders combine resolute moral purpose with impressive empathy.
3. Realized effectiveness is what motivates people to do more.
4. Collaborative competition is the yin and yang of successful change.
5. Change leaders are more confident than the situation warrants but more humble than they look.
6. Statistics are a wonderful servant and an appalling master.
7. Simplexity is salvation for an intricate world.

Numbers 1, 2, and 5 deal with the character, demeanor and approach of the leader.  I agree wholeheartedly that an effective leader participates as  a co-learner with the staff (#1), maintains a healthy balance of push and support (#2), and balances confidence with humility (#5).  We would do well to cultivate these three character traits in our work and life every day.

Balancing Talk with Time to Think

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Susan Cain recently published Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking and this has got me thinking about the exalted benefit we have placed on talk in our classrooms.  Indeed we have made it extremely clear - I hope - that students need to be expressing themselves orally in order for them to solidify their acquisition of academic language and content.  However, her challenge is a fair one.  Not having read the book, and only perused her blog and her Ted Talk, I do think it's important to give equal value and opportunity for quiet reflection, and teaching of independent work habits alongside our focus on teaching students how to clarify, challenge, and deepen ideas in a group setting.

Just writing that last line makes me realize how much harder this is to accomplish then it is to teach children to learn and think independently.  In a group setting, you have to learn how to LISTEN and sincerely consider the arguent or point of view of another while comparing that idea to your own.  I mean, really, do you know many adults that do this well?  So, I'm hardly ready to abandon the benefits of Productive Group Work, but I think we need to talk long and hard - oops - I mean first think long and hard about where quiet reflection and independence fits into the learning equation.  Then, we can have that conversation about how this best fits into a learning model.

What jumps out at me from the start is that writing plays such a pivotal role in this process.  As students think about new ideas or connect new ideas to currently held thoughts, they benefit by putting their first thoughts in writing.  This can be followed by sharing that writing with one other person, before embarking on the more complex dynamics of a group discussion or group project.

Smart In Math

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Came across this excellent list on what it takes to be "Smart in Math" at Math Mama Writes.

'Smart in Math' Before students work in groups, it's important to help them understand that we typically have many misconceptions about what it means to be 'smart'. Typically, people think that someone who is 'smart in math' ...

• answers questions quickly

• always gets the right answer

• doesn't have to work at it

But, really, people who are good at math ...

• are persistent

• wonder about relationships between numbers, shapes, functions, ...

• check their answers for reasonableness

• make connections

• are willing to try things out, experiment, take risks

• are resilient

• want to know why

• contribute to group intelligence by asking good questions

• notice and learn from their mistakes

• try to extend and generalize their results

Students may also need to know how synapses (the connections between neurons that are created each time you learn something new) are strengthened by repeated use. A new connection isn't strong until it's been used:

• multiple times

• in multiple ways

• after a time away

Those first three bullets are not only way off the mark they are detrimental and harmful to the "smart math student". When those students who seem to always get the right answer come up against content that stops them in their tracks, they don't realize how much hard work is needed to keep the engine of their "smartness" running.  Of course, this reminds me of Carol Dweck's work aroud the fixed and growth mindset.  I also appreciate the sense of wonder and discovery that is embedded in the second list.  When I come across the intricacies of math in nature it just boggles my mind - just don't ask me to come up with a proof using all the proper postulates.  That task still gives me nightmares.

Protocols

I've had my share of trips to ER with chest pains over the past 5 years.  At this point, I can rattle off the procedures quite easily.

1.  Give brief description of pains and symptoms to intake nurse
2.  Provide medical history and personal information to same.
3.  Get an EKG
4.  Take blood pressure and temperature
5.  Take an aspirin (if I don't already have in system)  If the pains are sever, I get the nitro pill!!!
6.  Give blood and start an IV
7.  Hook up blood pressure band, temperature and heart monitor for monitoring
8.  Connect to oxygen
9.  Get a chest X-ray10.  Await a visit from the Dr. who will read all the data, ask some more questions and decide next steps.

Clearly this protocol has been developed by years of working with patients who have chest pains.  Every medical office is relying on the shared wisdom of countless medical professionals who have gone before them.  These are carefully designed steps that provide all the information possible to  make an informed decision on care for each patient.  I'm really grateful for the expertise that has been gained over the years, which gives me confidence that I will receive the exact care that I need to get better.

So, do we have the same rigorous protocols for students who come to us with academic deficiencies?

What do we do with a child who can't sound out words?
How about a child who can read aloud but not comprehend?
What do we do if a child doesn't understand place value or negative numbers?

If we haven't thought through all the data that we need to collect and the best questions to ask such students, we are leaving it up to individual teacher knowledge and experience and shortchanging those students who would benefit from the best thinking of all.

So, let's be sure to share what we know about such best practices to provide every child with a level of care that is of the highest quality.

More Questions

Dave Dimmett over at Leader Talk provides another set of questions worth pondering to help us focus the  majority of our time and effort on what really matters for students. Try these on for size:

My recent experience with Lean Six Sigma makes me wonder, what are the value-added elements of the average teacher’s day? What are the teacher activities from one day that are adding value to student learning? If I think about the full professional day for most educators, it involves tasks that likely fall into some of these categories: adds value to student learning, doesn’t add value but is required by law, doesn’t add value but is required, doesn’t add value to student learning and can be eliminated without difficulty.

Adding new things to schools is easy.  Its agreeing on what should be eliminated and having the courage to cut that is the hardest.

Infrequently Asked Questions

This post at Leader Talk led me to this article at Harvard Business Review on the power of asking questions to lead your organization.  Polly Labarre argues that the best way to lead is through asking great questions that disrupt, challenge, and motivate.  She also shared the work of Vineet Nayar CEO of HCL Technologies, who has a set of 20 questions that he ponders daily.  So, following his model, I came up with some questions to think about for my school:


School

What is the purpose of schooling?


Students

What strengths, abilities, and interest do our students have?

What do our students need to know?  Why do they need to know it?

What do our students need to be able to do?  Why do they need to be able to do this?

Would my children want to attend this school?

What are the blindspots on our campus?


Parents

If our parents could choose any school in the city, would they choose ours?  Why or why not?


Teachers and Staff

What is there at our school that would attract the brightest and best educators?

What do our teachers need today to deliver high quality education to every child?

What can I do today to encourage a teacher?

What can I do today to encourage a colleague, fellow Principal, Superintendent?

What things do I control that I should no longer control?

How can I give control to others, especially those who create value?

How can I encourage others to lead with their strengths?

What can I do to create platforms for the great ideas of teachers, parents and students at SC?

What would happen if there was no Principal at this school?



What questions would you ask at your school or organization?

Reframing

Today I let someone crawl inside my head and chew on my brain cells, and it didn't feel good.  This week at school there were so many things to celebrate.  I observed class after class of engaging writing by students, excellent presentations on the history of Egypt, and teachers revising writing to a level I have not seen before.  But, I still let that one person mess with my head.  So, this is my attempt to extract those negative and useless thoughts away.

In order to get my head out away from those negative thoughts I resolve the following.

1.  Make a plan for addressing the issue that is proactive and has potential for redeeming the situation.

2.  Forget about it.

3.  Read a great story this week.  I think it will be this one or maybe this one.

4.  Finish a half-done project.

That wasn't so hard.  Some optimism is creeping in and it feels great.

Cheers

Grit

Heidi Grant Halvorson on the Harvard Ideacast discussed her new ebook 9 Things Successful People Do Differently.  One of the most significant findings she highlights is an individual's belief that they can improve.  It comes down to perseverance and that awesome word: GRIT.  Intelligence is overrated.  Positive Thinking (without action) is overrated.  Determination and a "Never Say Die" attitude rule the day.

Peter Drucker Wisdom

Jim Champy's new book, What I learned from Peter Drucker looks like a winner.  Drucker is one of the pioneers of modern management theory and practice and Champy appears to have had a lengthy personal and professional friendship with Drucker.  Here is an excerpt from the Introduction:

Peter's work had two major components. The first was the big picture: He believed that healthy organizations of all kinds — corporations, nonprofits, museums, libraries, sports teams, garden clubs, hospitals, government agencies — are the glue that holds society together and shields it from totalitarianism and economic chaos. Calling himself a social ecologist, he argued that every organization should understand its place in this sustaining mosaic and do its fair share of aiding the common good in all its actions.

The second thrust of his work focused on management per se, on organizational structure, function, and efficiency. His books and lectures were filled with practical and proven solutions to some of the most vexing challenges businesses face. For example, he was unyielding on the importance of focusing on customer needs, using time wisely, and scrapping weak or obsolete processes and products.

The two strands of his thinking intersected in his belief that companies succeed to the degree they make work meaningful, giving employees a sense of purpose and fulfillment. His ability to clearly articulate and balance these two complementary elements of his lifework, the macro and micro, was one of his great strengths. 

This connects with the management and leadership skill sets that I Kotter highlight in his article.  Leaders succeed to the extent that they can balance progress on the micro and macro areas of leadership.

Great Effort Better than Smarts

In order to learn, grow, and succeed, we must first FAIL.  That's right.  Failure is the key to success, however whether you  learn from your failures, depends on what you think about your ability and how one learns.  Carol Dweck in Mindset has made these two frames of reference quite explicit.  A new study by Jason Moser at Michigan State  University, highlighted in this Washington Post article, demonstrates that individuals with the growth mindset give more thought to their failure, presumably to learn from it, than those with the fixed mindset, who brush off their failure to their own detriment.
Lesson for schools = Praise students for effort, not intelligence.

Leadership and Management

Matt Perman shared this excellent article by John Kotter on the actions of leaders compared to mangers.

These two different functions - coping with complexity and coping with change-shape the characteristic activities of management and leadership

The best leaders are attuned to these set of complimentary skills.  I was thinking of this when I read this summary of Anne Mulcahy's address to the Stanford Business School discussing her work turning around a near bankrupt Xerox in the early 2000's.  She instituted immediate cost cutting and efficiency protocols to begin to stem the tide of debt, and at the same time she focused the organization on their core value of innovation, not cutting any money from research and development.  I also appreciate her comments about the centrality of communication to her successful leadership.

"I feel like my title should be Chief Communication Officer, because that's really what I do," she said, emphasizing the importance of listening to customers and employees. "When I became CEO, I spent the first 90 days on planes traveling to various offices and listening to anyone who had a perspective on what was wrong with the company. I think if you spend as much time listening as talking, that's time well spent."