June 28, 2007
Moving to New Blog Site
Folks,
This is my last post with the Center for School Leadership Development. I've been honored to have had the chance to work with many of you in various roles over the past 5 years.
You can continue reading and "joining the fray" by going to my new blog site, Your Executive Edge. The URL is listed at the bottom of this post.
Best to you and I look forward to continuing the conversation, finding and sharing tips and tools to help you become even more effective.
http://yourexecutiveedge.wordpress.com/
Posted by chitch at 9:00 AM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2007
Thanks to Brad Sneeden
As many of you know, Brad Sneeden will be leaving the Principals' Executive Program to serve as Superintendent of Carteret County Schools, beginning in July 2007.
I've been exceedingly fortunate to have the chance to work with lots of terrific people at PEP, but I've especially been lucky to have had the chance to work with Brad. He has led PEP to find ways to serve more school executives by expanding the Leadership Program for New Principals and Leadership Program for Aspiring Principals, initiating a program for experienced principals (Leadership Program for Experienced Principals), rallying support for school executives with the State of the Principalship, regrowing partnerships with the RESAs around the state, initiating a partnership with multiple groups to create an Executive Leadership Academy for school superintendents, and a multitude of other initiatives that have significantly increased the capacity of school executives.
Thanks to Brad for his leadership, his vision, his energy, and his passion for helping to continue to increase the capacity of school executives.
I'll miss working with him as closely as I have, but Carteret County students and families are getting a terrific individual as superintendent.
Posted by chitch at 10:21 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)
April 28, 2007
Walking the Talk from Stephanie Sandifer
I'm part of a group of school leaders who have a variety of backgrounds and perspectives on school leadership. The blog, Leader Talk, requires me to post once a month. I'm VERY impressed with the level of discussion on different topics. I'd read Tuesday's post from Stephanie Sandifer and was struck with her post on walking the talk. What makes this post so good from my perspective is that she gives specific additional resources on how to make your faculty meetings more productive.
I'd urge you to take a look at Leader Talk and especially at Stephanie's blog post on Leader Talk.
Great post, Stephanie. For me it's a bit like rolling the rock uphill-it may roll down periodically (I may revert to lecture more than I would like or have presenters that work with me spend more time lecturing than I would like), but she gives me gentle reminders on how to be more effective in my work with others.
Posted by chitch at 9:36 AM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2007
Vanilla is Not just Vanilla
In today’s chaotic school environment, it’s more important than ever that you are able to cast your school and your school's strengths in the most positive light. Parents and community members have more choices than ever in where to send their child. Teachers have more options in what and where they teach. One of your roles as a school executive is to help make your school stand out from the crowd so that people want to come and want to stay at your school. That’s the first lesson in marketing. Find ways to differentiate yourself from others. Dan Herman noted that a successful differentiation has two defining characteristics (a) it is not imitated by others and (b) brings you unmistakable success with those who may join in to your program (buy your services).
If you fail to differentiate, you end up like the stacks of vanilla ice cream that are stacked up in the frozen food section of the grocery store.
Our family loves ice cream. Almost every evening, we enjoy a small bowl or cup of ice cream. My wife and children are real ice cream connoisseurs. Once, I threw a small party at work for a coworker, Marie, who was moving out of state. Our teenage daughter wanted to go with me to the grocery store to get the ice cream and toppings. I looked up and down the aisles of ice cream and was astounded to see the different flavors of ice cream (Yes, I admit, my wife doesn’t allow me to do the grocery shopping because I am the world’s worst impulse buyer). I picked out a carton of vanilla ice cream from the freezer. Before I could pull it out, my daughter touched my hand and silently shook her head, then reached for a carton of Ben and Jerry’s ™ signature vanilla ice cream. I looked at the price of both of the cartons and gasped. “ I don’t see the difference between what I have (generic vanilla) and Ben and Jerry’s vanilla. They’re both vanilla.” My daughter shook her head and asserted, “It’s not just plain vanilla. This one (pointing to Ben and Jerry’s) is much better.” I persisted-“They both have the same ingredients and the same flavor. My daughter shook her head again and told me quite clearly that if I wanted to go down that path of buying only generic vanilla ice cream, hardly anybody would pick those cartons. “Even with all the toppings?”, I asked. “Dad,“ she responded in an exasperated tone, “you make whatever decision you want to make-after all it is your money and your party. But I am telling you that vanilla is NOT just vanilla.”
We ended up getting six cartons of ice cream but I persisted in the generic vanilla. After all, vanilla is vanilla. She told me to pick up the Ben and Jerrys ™ and see for myself.
At the party, I waited until the last person had gotten a bowl of ice cream. Guess which one was the only one left-that’s right the plain vanilla. Ben and Jerry cleaned my clock. I smothered my plain generic vanilla ice cream with toppings and got ready to eat crow when I got home that evening . The lesson? You have to find ways to differentiate your school from the others. You can’t be just plain vanilla. Vanilla is not just vanilla.
Posted by chitch at 8:21 AM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2007
Congratulations to 17 HS Leadership Teams
One of the projects I've been proud to be associated with is working in a 8 month long leadership program of high school principals and their teams. This group was noteworthy in several respects-this was the first time PEP has worked with a team of education leaders (principal, assistant principal, and teacher teams) and the first time PEP has worked closely with the Kenan Flagler Business School to develop and deliver the program. Last Friday was the graduation for this group of leaders. One of the key aspects of this program was a capstone project where each team had to identify a problem, determine how to fund a solution to the problem, create a written plan that included many aspects of a business case (problem, solution, marketing, detailed detailed project operational plan, financial considerations, and a 15 minute presentation to the entire group and five judges-I was fortunate to be one of the judges). The creativity, planning, and presentation was exciting to watch-there were so many great ideas that have the potential to help these school teams solve some of their pressing problems.
This capstone project took these leaders WAY out of their comfort zone and there was more than a bit of frustration as groups worked on their projects throughout October until this past week. Having had to do something similar for my Kenan Flagler program that I attended this past fall (I received a scholarship to this and my capstone resulted in a series of podcasts and my blog), I know that it was difficult. Yet to see how the different groups came together to develop and present their plans was an incredible honor for me. I'm very proud of them and their work and they should be recognized for this.
Congratulations to West Mecklenberg High School (Charity Bell, Bridgette Somerville, and Stephanie Hood) who won a $5,000 prize for their capstone project as well as Plymouth High School (Gloria McCray, Corey Crossen, and Linda Justis) who won both a $5,000 prize for their capstone project as well as being named as "The People's Choice" by their peers.
Congratulations are in order to all of the seventeen schools who are:
-Alamance Burlington Cummings High School (Lynn Briggs, James Matanzo, and Rhonda Robinson)
-Cumberland County EE Smith High School (Rene Corders, Candis Jones, and Frann Ladd)
-Durham Southern High School (Rod Teal, Darneise Massey, and Kathy Springfield-Cobb)
-Bertie High School (Sharon Bond and Jennifer Hill)
-Wayne County Goldsboro High School (Pat Burden, Gary Hales, and Harold Baines)
-Northwest Halifax High School (Sharon Arrington, Teicher Patterson, and Gloria Manning)
-Winston-Salem/Forsyth Carver High School (Carol Montague, Paula Boozer-Wilkins, and Freeda Ward)
-Durham Hillside High School (Earl Pappy, William Wynn, and Nelda Caddell)
-Southeast Halifax High School (Michael Earl, Phyllis Sanders, and Ethel Whitaker)
-Guilford Dudley High School (Phyllis Martin, Stephanie Gallop, and Malishai Woodbury)
-Northampton West High School (Willie Bell and Shonda Muhammed)
-Guilford Ben L Smith High School (Noah Rogers, Donna Matthews, and Lisa Comito)
-Mecklenberg Garinger High School (Jo Ella Ferrell, Pamela Davenport, and Chandra Shackleford)
-Mecklenberg EE Waddell High School (Stan Frazier, Jane Rollins, and Nancy Weber)
-Mecklenberg West Charlotte High School (John Modest, Ron Bailey, and Marrissa Anderson)
Thanks also to the members of Kenan Flagler Business School (Jim Johnson, Steve Orton, Ron Fischer, Catherine McClain, Pamela Santos, and Makeisha Williams) and to members of the PEP team (Brad Sneeden, Alisa McLean, Lolita Kimble, and Katherine Zeph).
Proud to be a part of this terrific group!
Chris
Posted by chitch at 4:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2007
Leader Talk Blog by Scott McLeod
This past month, I was approached by Scott McLeod at the University of Minnesota to participate as a monthly blogger for his blog
Leader Talk has bloggers from across the globe, all focused upon the topic of educational leadership by educational leaders.
I'm humbled by the opportunity to be a part of this.
My blog entry is Out of The Sandbox.
Scott's doing a great service and facilitating reach for educational leaders. If you are intrigued by the idea of blogging but not sure how you as a school executive can make use of blogging-see how many of the contributors use blogging as a communication tool-almost like a "reference-able" electronic newsletter to faculty and the community.
Posted by chitch at 10:08 PM | Comments (1)
March 11, 2007
Edgy article on Gen-X preparation for leadership
The January 2007 issue of CIO magazine has an edgy article from Deborah Gilburgh, called "Stepping Up to the Leadership Plate". What I found interesting in this article were Ms. Gilburgh's assertions about what she perceives as strengths and weaknesses of Gen-X leaders and the passionate responses from readers.
It's audience is for the Chief Information Officer (both corporate and public sectors), yet I'll continue to believe that cross pollination with other industries and markets is useful to all of us.
BTW-I've included a link if you want to scan some of CIO's articles and blogs on career and "career-boosting"
Chris
Posted by chitch at 3:01 PM | Comments (0)
March 4, 2007
Stopping PowerPoint Abuse
I ran across this link a week ago while working on ways to improve my presentation skills. It's from BNET.com, which is a pretty terrific aggregator of management information written in a short concise style. This link talks about how to use presentation software (focused on PowerPoint, but it fits for any presentation software that you and I use.
I especially like tips 3, 5, and 6.
If you do a lot of presentations or want to get better, I'd suggest also that you look at Beyond Bullet Points, by Cliff Atkinson.
Posted by chitch at 4:09 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2007
Three steps to help find opportunities to improve your school
During the month of February, most school executives are already looking forward to what they need to do and focus upon with planning for the upcoming year. Most of us won't likely engage in this act alone. Instead, the wisest among us will enlist others who can help us with possible opportunities for continuing growth. Our role as leaders is to help enlist others, evaluate possible approaches and solutions, and then implement the recommendations. You may find this model useful to try the following approach with your leadership team, school improvement teams, and other groups as well.
Step 1-Step back and step in. Step back from the day to day operations of your school and identify possible areas and situations that need improvement. Obviously, you'll use the data and facts unique to your school to help you in analysis. Once you've stepped back, get ready to step in to work with your team to find possible solutions.
Step 2-Look for outliers of expertise. ID people who are doing a terrific job at what you're trying to accomplish. Often, you'll find one or two people on your staff that are doing a terrific job in the area you've focused upon. You also want to enlist others that can help carry the message and bring in acceptance for what you are trying to accomplish. The biggest mistake school execs make here is to think they have to do it alone. This is not time for the Lone Ranger Syndrome.
Step 3-Examine the data, make assumptions, and challenge those assumptions. Making any type of improvement depends upon data and facts, not simply opinions. Once you think you have a possible solution, write down the assumptions that you are making with your plan. Is it dependent upon a particular source of funds (like a grant)? Is it dependent upon one or two key individuals? Finally, ask the members of your team to challenge those assumptions and see where your collective assumptions do not hold water.
Doing these three steps won't guarantee that your plan for next year won't have some hiccups, but it certainly helps reduce the likelihood.
What other tips do you have in planning for the upcoming school year?
Posted by chitch at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
February 2, 2007
13 Ways to Frustrate Your Employees
Read this post by Michael Hyatt today on 13 Ways to Frustrate Your Employees.
Like my post last week, I recognize these in many managers . I guess the good (or bad) news is that these 13 ways are common (unfortunately). Mike's take is a humorous one, but look behind the humor and you can reconnect with some key ways to NOT engage the people with whom you work.
Check it out.
Chris
Posted by chitch at 1:08 PM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2007
BE Interested
Another Barry Zweibel gem from Gotta Getta Coach. He's posted an occasional series of "Leadership Moves" from which I pulled this small gem.
I'm struck by the quality of the question-"What's on YOUR radar that is probably not on mine?" Immediately, the person on the other end is validated, recognized for his/her expertise, and it helps all of you become more proactive. In the event that the other person hasn't thought of what is on the radar, it provides a gentle push to be thinking in this way, which leads to increased talent development.
It's an interesting corollary to Danny Meyer's comments on "the saltshaker theory of management"
Posted by chitch at 5:08 AM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2007
Rafting and Leadership (part 2)
One other item that Dave Coley reminded me of when I talked with him about the raft trip.
"Remember that before any time on the river, you go over a safety talk to review the keys that you need to remember if you fall out. Generally, people fall out, not because they are careless, but because they are moving outside of their comfort zone and doing something new. Also, if and when someone falls out, you don't sit in the boat and laugh or criticize. You drop your paddle and help the person get back in the raft as quickly as possible."
Kinda like what we should be doing with the people with whom we work. When people try something new and it doesn't work as well as they wanted it to, we don't laugh or criticize. We help them get back in the boat.
Posted by chitch at 2:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2007
Rafting, Guides, and Leadership
Over the holidays, we were looking at pictures. One of the pictures had Dave Coley, 30 principals, and I in a group photo before going on a rafting trip as part of the Principals Summer Institute.
One of the themes that Dave emphasized to the group was the location of the guide in a raft. The guide was always in the back of the boat, giving some small, seemingly insignificant moves of the paddle to move the boat to avoid the rocks.
Seems very similar to the best position from which a good leader leads. The leaders seemingly small moves have very high leverage to move the organization. The leaders also are "in the boat", rather than yelling from the shore. Finally, the leader has others with whom the leader works to move the boat downstream safely, where everybody at the end of the journey thinks they did the work themselves.
Posted by chitch at 2:30 PM | Comments (0)
January 5, 2007
R4
One of the keys of management is to ensure that you are not a bottleneck to the people with whom you work and from whom you depend to achieve results. One way to help reduce the bottleneck is to think of R4. This shorthand stands for: get the RIGHT information to the RIGHT people at the RIGHT time to make the RIGHT decisions.
RIGHT information-what information do your colleagues (peer, those you manage, and those who manage you) need from you?
RIGHT people-to me, this has two meanings: having the right people in the right places to be successful and giving the needed information to the people who can and should be making the decisions.
RIGHT time-data is absolutely useless if it is not shared with people on a timely basis. Having budgeting or other data that doesn't get to you until 8 weeks after you need it doesn't allow you to help make decisions that can move your organization forward.
If these three R's work, then there is a much higher probability that the decision will be the RIGHT decision.
Posted by chitch at 2:21 PM | Comments (0)
December 31, 2006
Ram Charan's Eight Secrets for Executive Leadership
I just finished reading Ram Charan's article from his forthcoming book, "Know-How: The Eight Skills that Separate People who Perform from Those Who Don't". This article from Optimize Magazine gives leaders from all sectors (non-profit, public corporations, and service organizations like education) an interesting and worthwhile model for building leadership. Charan has written numerous articles and books and I find them all to be very useful and practical.
Can't wait to read the entire book when it comes out. His work is well worth your time.
Posted by chitch at 5:13 AM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2006
I swear by Apollo...
Bruna Martinuzzi from Bluepoint Leadership Development (a leadership consulting group spun off from the Tom Peters Group, writes a 17 point summary of some wise actions that all of us as leaders would be better off reviewing and acting upon it.
There are other articles below Bruna's, but I found hers especially poignant.
Posted by chitch at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2006
Do You Follow Me?
Jack McCall, one of PEP's finest teachers and friends, remarked during his conversation with 65 principals in PEP's Leadership Program for Experienced Principals, started off his conversation with the assertion that he is nutty about principals. One of his key points is that principals are principal TEACHERS. He strongly urged principals to spend your time with teachers.
This was a terrific combination with Mike Rutherford's (another PEP alumni) session the previous day on leveraging leadership time by working with teachers. Both of them noted that the more time you spend with those who get the work done, the better the quality and quantity of the work.
Mike called it a leverage point. Jack said that education was not filling a pail, it was setting their hair on fire with the thirst for learning.
Jack's other comment was that every decision a leader makes leaves a footprint.
Jack had an engaging way of making sure that we got the message-he kept asking "Do you follow me? Does that make sense to you?
Yeah, Jack and Mike-you both make terrific sense. Thanks for reminding us of the key points.
Posted by chitch at 4:24 PM | Comments (1)
December 16, 2006
Building and Cultivating Your Network of Mentors
Barry Zweibel (from GottaGettaCoach) wrote this short article on how to build and cultivate your network of mentors in the Wall Street Journal's Career Journal.com.
Chris
Posted by chitch at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)
December 10, 2006
Blogs I Pay Attention To
Now that I am paying a bit more attention to different blogs, I thought it would be some use to share which blogs I read regularly and what each blog's focus is.
David Maister: Maister (pronounced May-ster) is the preeminent expert on professional service firms.
Tom Peters: Tom (same guy who wrote In Search of Excellence 25 years ago) is another professional service firm expert whom I find as a terrific bookend to Peter Drucker (he has said that he doesn't like the comparison but...). In my view, Drucker outlines "WHAT" excellent executives do, Peters outlines "HOW" to do it. Peters is irreverent, smart-alecky, and consistently spot on.
Bob Sutton: Sutton is a relatively new expert for me to follow. He has written several books on organizational dynamics and innovation. His blog focuses on design. I'm coming to better understand how designing (rather than "structuring"-semantics matter) programs and services helps people to use them more effectively.
Michael Hyatt: Mr. Hyatt is a sometimes blogger. He is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and writes From Where I Sit. It's intended for an internal audience, but this gentleman is INCREDIBLY transparent and gives a tremendous perspective.
Guy Kawasaki: Kawasaki is a former Apple employee (I think he headed up the Macintosh Product team), who has gone solo-his thoughts on design and work make me think.
Merlin Mann: Merlin's blog is one that focuses on individual productivity. It has a Mac bias on some of his postings but the ideas help me tremendously.
These are the folks that make me think. Check them out.
And PLEASE send me some ideas on some other thought leaders.
Posted by chitch at 10:25 AM | Comments (4)
December 3, 2006
Delegation Mop Up
One of the blogs I regularly read is Barry Zweibel's Blog "Gotta Get a Coach". Barry is a business coach out of Chicago and we did some work together in our previous lives. I find Barry to be consistently thought provoking and helpful, in fact, I've modeled some of how he does his blog to The Executive Edge.
His 11/25/06 Post on Delegation Mop Up is a good reminder on thinking through things when you delegate.
Enjoy.
Posted by chitch at 9:21 AM | Comments (0)
November 27, 2006
What Information Do You Need?
This past weekend, I ran across an interview with late Peter F. Drucker (the absolute guru of management and widely acclaimed as the father of modern management) who was discussing the role of the computer and it's effect on management. In the interview with Computerworld editor, Gary Anthes, Drucker noted 4 very important points that got me to thinking:
1) technology's greatest impact has been to automate traditional operations (his comment was that a bureaucrat is an expensive microchip).
2) we get hypnotized by the technology that we don't look at what real results we need (we can do things with the computer faster and faster but are we looking at doing the right things?)
3) the second most important question that an executive can ask (not only of the IT team but also of oneself) is: what information do I need, in what form, and in what frequency to most effectively do my job?
4) Finally, the most critical question that an executive can and should ask of oneself is "what do I expect to achieve and what performance do I expect of myself?" He then takes it one step further to suggest that the executive sit down with the person who manages the executive to see if the executive's and senior executive's lists are congruent.
Posted by chitch at 8:19 AM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2006
America's Best Leaders (from US News and World Report)
The October 30 issue of U.S. News and World Report (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/leaders/) has as their cover story a ranking of America's Best Leaders. One of the comments of the reporter noted that:
"What, then, is the 21st-century leader all about? It is being authentic, uniquely yourself, the genuine article. Authentic leaders know who they are. They are "good in their skin," so good they don't feel a need to impress or please others. They not only inspire those around them, they bring people together around a shared purpose and a common set of values and motivate them to create value for everyone involved."
They have profiled 18 people as their leaders this year-I was impressed with the mix of backgrounds-public, private, nonprofit, government, old, young.
Well worth checking out.
Link is http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/leaders/
Posted by chitch at 8:43 PM | Comments (1)
November 12, 2006
The Saltshaker Theory of Management
The October edition of Inc. magazine had a guest column about Danny Meyer, who has received a great deal of buzz recently. Mssr. Meyer is a restauranteur who first came to my attention when I read Small Giants, by Bo Burlingame (good read, by the way).
Since then, he has been in a number of articles ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the Inc magazine article. I'm constantly on the lookout for better ways to manage, lead, and communicate with others. Meyer's bit on "Constant Gentle Pressure" is a good reminder:
Constant-never lower your standards
Gentle-coach and reteach while keeping other's dignity intact
Pressure-consistency and watching to make sure that the core of excellence stays intact.
The rest of the article is well worth the 5 minutes to read but fair warning-the implications of this article has kept me thinking on my daily commute....
Posted by chitch at 3:02 AM | Comments (0)
November 5, 2006
Another David Maister Gem
Here's another Maister gem.
On one of his recent posts, he asks the question, "Think about the best manager you have ever experienced. What specific things did this person DO that made them so effective in raising your performance?
Please share real stories about real people-no theories, generalizations, or principles.
What did the BEST manager do?
Posted by chitch at 5:24 AM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2006
Rick's Rule of Three with Email
One of my good friends and colleagues is Rick Adamson, the COO of American Research Institute. In our previous work together, there were several instances of emails that would get answered back and forth until there were 6 or 7 threads to the original email content.
Rick implemented his "rule of three". Rick's rule of three simply said that if it took three email threads or bounce backs, then the two (or more) individuals stopped using email and either used "sneaker net" (walking to another cubicle or office) or picked up the phone to call, get clarification, and resolution.
Pretty simple, but VERY effective rule.
Thanks Rick.
Posted by chitch at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2006
"You Go First" by David Maister
I've been a long time fan of David Maister, whom I consider the absolute best "thought leader" with professional service firms (and what we do in working with school executives and what school executives do in working with teachers, parents, and students is a professional service). I read his blog weekly and find it terrific on two levels-both on the content and on the rich dialogue that his blog inspires from a wide variety of people around the world.
He wrote a post on "You Go First" that I thought would be relevant to us as execs.
Check it out. I'd also be interested in your reaction to his two major points.
Posted by chitch at 5:12 AM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2006
My favorite month is October. Baseball playoffs are in full swing, college football is well underway, there is a crispness in the autumn air, and college hoops start practice this weekend. Read an article from Joe Torre, the manager of the NY Yankees on winning. Now, I'll freely admit I am not one of the diehard Yankee fans and I am very pleased to see the Tigers do as well as they have this year, but I have always been impressed with Mr. Torre's ability to work effectively with a high profile boss, within the glare of the NY media, and with a bunch of highly paid talent. The August 21, 2006 issue of Business Week had an interview from Joe on winning.
I found a couple of comments in the interview useful for me, I kept the article just for this time of year. Hope you find the quotes useful as well.
"The great UCLA basketball coach John Wooden told me once that you can be prepared and have the best talent there is, but you can't necessarily control the outcome."
"...even with all the talent and resources we have here, having heart is what really makes a difference. As manager, or if you're running a company, you want to know that you can ask somebody to do something and that they are going to find a way to get the job done. That's the essence of a competitor."...."A winner is someone who goes out there every day and exhausts himself trying to get something accomplished. Being able to get the most out of their ability. That's what characterizes a winner."
Posted by chitch at 3:45 PM | Comments (1)
October 13, 2006
Moving from Analysis Paralysis
I ran across an article last evening from Optimize magazine by Michael Useem, from the Wharton Business School. He commented that "A less than ideal action stands a chance of success, whereas no action stands no chance."
He outlined several tools to overcome common decision making barriers. I'm planning to implement the "70% Solution" that he talks about in the article-if you have 70% of the information, have done 70% of the analysis, and feel 70% confident, then act.
Posted by chitch at 3:38 PM | Comments (0)
October 9, 2006
Jack's Five "Cs" of Leadership
I was lucky enough to learn from Jack McCall 13 years ago and have the distinct pleasure to listen and learn from him as he and his wife, Mary, come to the Principals' Executive Program to talk informally about leadership and life to some groups of school executives. During one of his talks with experienced principals, Jack mentioned the Five C's of leadership. With apologies to him if I missed some notes while I was sitting at the side of the room taking notes, here are the five C's for leaders.
Civility-it is the bedrock of civilization. We can disagree with someone without being disagreeable about it. Common courtesies, such as holding the door for someone else, and saying "thank you" go along way to bringing people along with your leadership.
Conservation-we are all interconnected. It is critical for us to remember that just like a food web in ecology, we are all interconnected through each other. There is truth to the idea of six degrees of separation.
Community Service-take care of those who need to be taken care of. People want to contribute and to be taken seriously.
Considerate Conversations with yourself-it is easy to beat yourself up for mistakes. You don't get wisdom by staying in the harbor and not taking a chance.
Jack concluded his "fireside chat" with us by reminding us that almost all of his successes followed upon his failures. Resiliency is key.
So the question is: Are there other "C's" or keys of leadership that you work from?
Posted by chitch at 5:16 AM | Comments (4)
October 1, 2006
Change and the Brain
Read an interesting article this past week from CIO magazine on change. In the article, "The New Science of Change", Chris Koch notes that while managers get frustrated with getting people to change their behaviors (I'm of the opinion that managers cannot change attitudes, we can only change behaviors and actions), it has it's roots in neuroanalysis. Koch offers up some interesting and useful reminders on change management. His difference is that he shares some rationale based upon his review of neuroanalysis in his article. There are also good reminders on helping manage change. CIO has some other links (see the sidebars on 10 rules for change management and the science behind the article.
Posted by chitch at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2006
AURA
This past August, we had our Principal Fellows Orientation for class 13. One of the most powerful speakers we had was General Don Broome, who spoke to us about how to retain and keep great people. I was reminded that there are several parallels between military service and our work in public service. While military service has a longer "contract", it is critical for the military to retain their troops, rather than spend additional time and money training new inductees. School executives have a similar issue- how do you keep the people in your organization that you want to keep? General Broome's comments were inspiring to say the least. He noted that the US Army has an acronym "AURA" that they use to help retain members of their organization:
A-Acceptance. How do you accept new people into the process?
U-Understanding. Does each member of the organization understand the goals and mission? How are we doing this-formally and informally?
R-Recognition. Give proper and immediate recognition
A-Appreciation. Demonstrate appreciation.
General Broome mentioned that one of the biggest ways that he has found is to find ways to take care of the troops and their families-simple gestures such as flowers, cards, and short notes go a long way as reminders that the individual is valuable to the organization.
Thanks General-You're an unsung hero.
Posted by chitch at 7:56 PM | Comments (0)