School Improvement, the Ultimate Test of Leadership

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins tells about the Stockdale Paradox.  The point Collins is trying to make is that a paradox exists between holding out hope and confidence while at the same time being able to confront the brutal facts as they currently stand.

Here's the story, Jim Stockdale (you might remember him as Ross Perot's running mate) was a prisoner of war in Vietnam's Hanoi Hilton.  While he had no doubt that he would eventually be set free, he knew that it wouldn't happen any time soon.  Jim Collins had an opportunity to meet Jim Stockdale and asked him the question "Who didn't make it out?"  Stockdale did not hesitate with his answer.  He replied "The optimists."  You see, the optimists would say "We'll be home for Christmas." When they weren't they said, "We'll be home by Easter."  When they missed enough milestones, they died of broken hearts.

It is easy to see the story as a metaphor for leading school improvement efforts. You have to maintain faith that improvements will come; but you also have to realistic in understanding that the improvements will take time.

I have a different moral for this story.  While in the prison, known as the Hanoi Hilton, Stockdale would intentionally disfigure himself by cutting himself with a razor or beating himself in the face with a broken leg of a stool.  He did this so that he could never be put on television as an example of how well the prisoners were being treated.  Even this is not my moral.  My moral is the fact that he was able to get other prisoners to disfigure themselves.  In my view, true leadership only happens when people follow even though they have a choice not to.

I really liken this kind of leadership to attempting to lead a school improvement effort.  Teachers can attend planning sessions, but then go a back to their rooms and do pretty much whatever they want.  The job of the leader is to get people to do that which they have the realistic option of not doing.

Think that this is overstating the obvious? Me too.  Wish that rather than just pointing out the obvious I would offer some guidance? Stay tuned.  Next week, although I won't tell you what always works, I'll tell you what never works, and why not.

Look before you leap

I guess that if there is anything to be learned from the recent financial news, it is that committing resources unwisely has serious consequences.  I am quoting somebody (actually somebody's father, probably) is stating "If you don't have time to do it right, you better have time to do it over."  I think there is a lesson here for principals who are attempting to forge professional learning communities in their buildings.  My guess is that there are few buildings that are tying to create these communities for the first time.

Many principals I know would rather have a root canal than spend time developing strong professional relationships with their staffs. The list of reasons for this condition contains many of our greatest hits:

• A lack of belief that any tangible results can come from getting to know your colleagues more deeply.
  

• A feeling that time is so valuable that "wasting" it on team-building, trust-building, or communications activities detracts from getting something "real" accomplished.
  

• School culture causes teachers to find security in their ability to keep their practice private.
  

• Relationship building is difficult and fragile work.  Principals must take enormous personal risk and weather a great deal of criticism in order to harness the true power of collective wisdom.  There is little wonder, then,that many principals would rather just "get through" the staff meeting in a "Town Crier" format rather than invest in true community activities.
  

These are just a few of the reasons why so many schools "jump" into the work at hand rather than taking the time (and expending the energy) necessary for creating a true collaborative environment. Among the many paradoxes involved with creating PLCs is the notion that real, measurable results are necessary for the group to truly believe that collaboration is worth the effort, while at the same time real, measurable results cannot be achieved without true collaboration.

If you have not had a great deal of experience in leading Professional Learning Communities, or if you are always on the lookout for collaborative activities, check out this site hosted by the National School Reform Faculty.  It contains a wealth of information about Critical Friends Groups and offers downloadable activities for staff meetings.

A Place to Start

Just as the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, building community in your school begins with a single conversation. Roland Barth, in Learning by Heart, writes that every school has non-discussables.  These are issues that are so emotionally charged that they cannot be spoken about in any formal way.  They are discussed in parking lots, teacher lounges, and in teacher's rooms.  Barth maintains that a school's quality is inversely proportional to the number of non-discussables it has.  Examples of non-discussables include the leadership of a new principal, the move to block scheduling, the adoption of a managed curriculum, and the enactment of a new board policy.

In our attempt to get results rapidly, some schools jump right in to the "work at hand."  It is not possible to understate how big of a mistake this is.  I am tempted to argue that "jumping right in" is less an attempt to get things done in a hurry than it is an attempt to not have to discuss things or real importance.  Blend this with the fact that there are people on every staff who would rather have a root canal than share their practice with colleagues and it becomes easy to see why so many attempt to create learning communities are doomed from the start.

That we must begin slowly and in a non-threatening manner is pretty intuitive. How to do it is less so.  Beginning slowly does not have to mean small talk of the "how's the weather" variety.  In an article entitled Good Talk About Good Teaching, Parker Palmer demonstrates just how easily these initial conversations can be.

Read the article.  The way forward should become more clear.