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May 25, 2007
Pause for Thanks
This short post is simply to honor and remember the brave men and women who have served so honorably in the military and who have died in service for their country. It's easy to think of Memorial Day as the start of the summer season, Indy car racing, boats, camping, vacations and lots of other summer activities. Yet, none of this would be possible were it not for the actions of the millions who have died to protect our freedom and to the families of those who have lost loved ones serving our country.
I've had the honor to meet, work, laugh, and cry with men and women who either currently serve in the military, or who are veterans. Some bear physical or emotional scars, yet to a person, they are proud of their service and when they do talk about their time in the Armed Forces, they invariably touch on either taking care of their brothers and sisters or protecting our country.
The Raleigh News and Observer columnist, Dennis Rogers, has an occasional column entitled, The Home Front. I've read Dennis' column for over ten years and I have to say that this column is one of the most powerful I have read. It is worth your time to read his column, especially this Memorial Day weekend, but also every week.
May our fallen heroes continue to be remembered and thanked. And may we also remember and thank our friends and neighbors who have and continue to serve.
Posted by chitch at 9:00 AM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2007
Getting It Right with Your New Gig
What do you do to make your shift to your "new gig" successful? This question was posed to me by four different school executives in the past two weeks-two of them making the move from an assistant principalship to their first principalship and two principals, who were very successful in their current role, who were selected to serve a different school.
When I talked with them individually, I gave them what I hope is useful advice, not only from my experience, but also from the experience of others. So, I'm opening this up to readers of Leaders Talk to share any experiences and collective wisdom-who knows-you may find it handy as well!
Here's what I shared (in no particular order)
1-Hold Your Fire: Unless you are clearly placed in a turnaround situation, stifle your instinct to immediately try to change things. Take a look at how things work, how the culture operates, how people interact with each other, and how the core teaching/learning process happens in different classrooms. You want to be known as a person who, while decisive, has an open mind without making changes for change's sake. This is not the time to be known as the Lone Ranger.
2-L2-Listen and learn-ask LOTS of questions-use your new stature to your advantage. Ask why certain processes and procedures are the way they are. Ask why the annual school improvement plan has certain components listed as priorities. Watch to see who talks and who doesn't talk during meetings. Look to see who sits with each other during these meetings. You're in a clear stage of internal data gathering.
2(a)-write down your observations-use either a spiral notebook or 3x5 cards or some way to capture what it is that you are seeing-you want to look at patterns. Take 5 minutes daily to jot down what you have seen and learned.
3- Who are your "go to" people? Give different people different tasks and see how they handle the tasks- you want to start forming some ideas of who your strongest people are.
4-Seek out good and bad news equally-people will be eager to give you one type or the other-be diligent in ferretting out the opposite news, especially from the same people!
5-Expect to spend SIGNIFICANT time in network building-you are trying to build and expand your network within the school, with your peers in the system, and external colleagues who are within the system. This is especially important if you are making the move from assistant principal to principal and if you are moving from one school system to another. This pays tremendous dividends as you seek to make changes-you now have a stronger set of people to bounce ideas off of.
6-You are your calendar- set up appointments early with key central office executives-this list is NOT exhaustive by any means, but you should obviously set up a meeting with your manager (if she has not done so for you), the finance officer, the chief C/I executive, and the HR director. Most people neglect this step at their significant peril.
7-Look for patterns-what patterns do you see in your observations? You'll likely want to start thinking about what you see and getting ideas for making changes as you start your 4th month (this is just a generalization-NOT a recipe!)
8-Secure early wins-nothing succeeds like success and early wins make this happen. In your discussions with your different groups, look to see if there are some easy and quick solutions you can implement that everybody (or almost everybody) agrees needs to happen. This builds momentum for you and your work.
9-Use the research. Understand that there are some terrific resources out there on change management and transition management. I have a bias toward two researchers-John Gabbarro and Michael Watkins.
10-your turn. Now, I've listed some of my suggestions-what suggestions or lessons learned do YOU have in making transitions smoother and easier? Post them below. I look forward to hearing from you.
Chris
Posted by chitch at 3:59 PM | Comments (3)
May 12, 2007
12 Good Questions
It's the time of year for teacher interviews. Most of us today ask similar behavior based interviews to candidates so we have a way to compare teacher skills equitably.
My friend and colleague, Mike Rutherford, has developed a series of "12 Good Questions" to ask teaching candidates.
Hope you find this useful.
Now the question for you-what are two or three "top quality" questions that you use in interviewing teacher candidates? Anybody willing to share?
Chris
Posted by chitch at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)
May 5, 2007
Transparency (or I'll go first)
This past week, I read Michael Hyatt's blog on the scourge of cynicism. Michael has taken another bold step in being a transparent leader. He is evidently having some challenges in implementing change at his organization. Now, every organization can and should go through organizational change. It is unrealistic to think that change can happen painlessly. What I was impressed with in Mike's blog is his utter and complete transparency as a leader.
Now, to his lesson applied to me...
I'm fortunate to work in a very exciting place where great things are happening for leaders and students in NC public schools. I spend about half of my time in management tasks and the other half of my time either working with various individuals to develop and deliver outstanding training and professional development. Mike's implicit point on transparency led me to audiotape myself engaging in some training with school principals on time management and delegation. I'm somewhat embarrassed by what I heard myself saying (or not saying). When I listened to the recording, I found myself using WAY too many instances of imprecise speaking. I heard myself saying "it", "things (or with my Texas drawl-thaings", and other words with imprecise meaning. Did my group of clients notice? I hope not. What it taught me was the incredible value of either listening or seeing yourself in a public speaking situation. Transparency. Or adapt Allen Iverson's rant on "practice-I'll be sure to practice and prepare in greater depth before any presentation.
Now, I'll likely post the series of podcasts for my Principal Fellows. Yet, I learned an invaluable lesson on how to improve my speaking skills. Now, I went first. My suggestion to you is to be more transparent-half of my work is speaking and training in public or school venues. Most of your public speaking work is either with principals (if you are in central office) faculty, community members or parents. Take the leap and audiotape yourself-nobody has to know your results. You'll be surprised at what you learn.
Practice? I'm absolutely no franchise player so I'm gonna stop talking about practice and start practicing!
Chris
Posted by chitch at 8:13 AM | Comments (0)