So, you have successfully dealt with the now -- the pivot to remote learning and governance, keeping the virtual trains running on time, sustaining your community and leadership teams, creating virtual graduations and end of year celebrations. Much has been accomplished yet there is an impending sense of dread, what next?
Guest Blog Writer: Georgy Ann Peluchiwski is a GLP critical friend and collaborator, working with us as Faculty in our Women’s Leadership Summit program and on several governance related projects. She is currently the Board Chair at the Latin School of Chicago.
Any crisis, including the current pandemic, lays bare the essential elements of our schools and their leadership. Our strengths shine through. Gaps in governance or leadership that existed pre-crisis do not go away, but are magnified. Our clarity of our purpose and our values is revealed - for better or for worse. And individuals reveal what is most core in their capacities - both their positive attributes and their vulnerabilities. This “laying bare” can be good or bad, depending on your pre-crisis state, but in either case there are things school leadership can do to respond and lead effectively. For those heads and boards who have weathered a crisis together in the past, they likely have “muscle memory” to draw upon in working through the present situation. For others, who are either new to working together, or don’t have prior crisis experience, they will have to create structures, formal or informal, to organize for a successful response.
In the context of a pandemic, the shift to “remote governance” empowers us to laser focus on the things that matter most. I think about it as the corollary to the pivot to “remote learning,” in which we are forced to ask: what is most essential that we MUST deliver on? How do we keep our community engaged and connected? What tools can we use to communicate effectively in a remote setting?
Finally, the “essentials” of governance and leadership are no different now than before a crisis. The three domains of fiduciary, strategic, and adaptive still matter in the work going forward (see Stephanie Rogen’s white paper on “Adaptive Boards” for a more detailed description of the three domains). Additionally, GLP has consistently prioritized in its work with clients a focus on the interrelated elements of strategy, organizational development and capacity building as the keys to progress. A focus on these three elements has even greater implications for how we lead our schools into the future in the context of this pandemic.
Looking through these lenses can help to effectively focus our efforts as boards working in partnership with our heads and schools.
For Boards:
Focus relentlessly on the essentials of governance:
Ensure adequate resources are secured to address crisis plans and communications, immediate financial needs, and access to information
Ensure support of school leadership (see “Ask the Head” below)
Mobilize around other fiduciary work —budgeting, scenario planning, election of board, other policy issues, PPP? What can or are we willing to do with our endowment?
Identify the relevant and high priority strategic and generative work-- boards and school leadership still need to be planning for the future.
Support (and offer training if needed) effective remote work by agreeing on tools, norms, schedules and new methods of collaboration that everyone can use with ease
Ask the Head: What Do You Need?
What can you take off the Head’s plate? Assume your head has the operational in hand, but listen for where they are feeling unsure and assess where the board can assist, either directly or indirectly. Often, financial considerations, endowment use, and modelling in a crisis are places where Boards can do a lot of technical and adaptive work. Your head may need your help to assess impact on enrollment, tuition, financial aid, philanthropy for budgets, and/or endowment considerations. Your Head may also need a more “just in time” advisory group or task force that leverages trustee talents. Don’t convene a special group without a defined need, but do inventory what you can offer and make sure you are aligning that to the Head’s needs.
For Heads:
Keep your Board informed and involved
Share what decisions have been made and updates on the execution and ask for their support and feedback. Then, help your board look beyond the horizon. You may have to be specific with your existential questions: some boards are “stuck” right now and may gravitate toward discussing micro things that feel “safe” rather than tackling the great unknown. Heads with good board relationships should be honest about how it’s going, what they are concerned about, and where they need help. If convening whole board for this doesn’t feel right, consider the executive committee, or officers. For heads without good board relations, consider convening a group that you select as a special advisory group, or finding individual trustees who have the expertise you need.
Together:
If you agree on where you are headed, it’s easier to work out the details together. Ideally, Heads should share, and trustees should be interested in the following information -- when in dialogue about these topics you should find common ground:
How we are delivering on our mission in the current environment (distance learning, ensuring community, wellness etc)? Where might we be drifting?
What context matters? Talk about the competitive realities, and how others in your market are responding. What are our relative strengths? Weaknesses? Help educate trustees so they can address the big questions and be good ambassadors.
Ask the important strategic questions: What threats does this pose to the future? Financial, reputational, mission relevance? Any opportunities? Innovation? Redefining value proposition?
Assess your capacity: who and what can you leverage to make progress? What’s limiting you and how do you remove obstacles and fill in the gaps?
Remote operations require a successful return to governance basics: support your HOS; focus on mission and values; be intentional about fiduciary, strategic and generative questions; and prioritize work in order of now, next, and later.
Find the team and people you need. It’s okay if those you need are not technically in the right seats. Who are the best thinkers, in school and on the board, and how do you organize them for what comes next?
Find the information you need. If you don’t have it, ask for it. Go beyond school to get expertise or resources that make the difference.
Over communicate around expectations and needs. If you don’t know what your head needs or your board needs, ask and be specific. Be honest about where you are. It’s okay to not have all the answers, but be intentional about defining a process to get there.
Build in agility and flexibility. Use teams to work on problems -- avoid large committee meetings or conversations without clear cut agendas.
You may have to slow down to speed up. Ask the right questions. Be thoughtful about potential implications to your actions at the outset so you can move fast and adapt easily as you implement.
On Friday, April 10, GLP’s Stephanie Rogen served as a panelist for a school leadership roundtable discussion facilitated by Michael Nachbar, Executive Director of Global Online Academy (GOA). The session was split between panelists sharing their thoughts and small group discussions in breakout rooms, all of which centered on the following key questions:
As educators around the world have had to design and manage distance learning plans in a short amount of time, many school leaders are now contemplating what impact these changes will have on our schools when they reopen. What will follow this unprecedented global transition to online learning and how might this change the way our schools operate?
There has been lots of planning inside schools and not for profit organizations for what happens when teachers fall ill, or staff members are unable to work. Team teaching, standardization of curricula for remote learning, identifying staff short term replacements to map who can “fill in” are ongoing leadership team discussions. Preparing to handle issues of trauma, loss, and anxiety at scale are emerging too, increasing readiness to provide care and support across the many scenarios any organization will likely face as we weather this pandemic. These are necessary, and important, considerations.
But what happens when your leaders get sick? You? Your Head? Critical members of the team? I’ve seen very little discussion on this topic, perhaps because boards and leaders feel they have well developed succession plans or perhaps because this feels like a second order of priority while they drive the first wave of crisis response. At the same time, I see leaders working harder than ever, playing “whack a mole” through new, day-to day demands, anticipating an uncertain future, and carrying a heavy emotional weight as they steward their communities through this crisis. This is not necessarily “plug and play” transition planning.
The criticality of succession planning and the ways to ensure steady leadership - even if only temporarily - feel like different challenges right now. First, the ability to reach outside and find talent to replace the temporary absence or tragic loss of a leader is limited -- and it’s everyone’s problem. The trauma to the community if its leader falls ill is naturally greater, and more emotionally complex, than that of a garden variety transition. The impact of multiple leaders falling ill is even more complicated -- and a more likely occurrence than in ordinary times. And the work is different -- and not necessarily what people have been prepared to do. Questions abound:
What happens, for example, if the Head or ED, the CFO and the Program leader are all incapacitated?
How do we address the reality that the work is both different, and more challenging than it was in the course of “normal” operations?
How does day to day management learn and recalibrate in this context -- and how does a new team form -- one that is ready to work?
Is the organization ready and is the Board ready to act?
I wonder how boards and leaders are approaching these questions. Frankly, I wonder if they’ve even had time. In the ideal case, there are already succession plans in place for every senior leader, with clear identification of internal people who can steer the ship -- at least for an interim period. But these plans are designed largely on the assumption that the organization is solving for one role only. And that’s where the vulnerability is as we consider the current state of COVID-19 planning.
Boards need to talk openly with their leaders about a deeper and more flexible response to contingency planning for leadership. One possibility is to create a “leadership map” that helps boards and leaders quickly tap into the people and resources they need when leaders can’t work. Your map might include:
A clear profile of the capacities, skills, and dispositions that matter most in a phase of crisis leadership - and who in your organization has them!
An inventory of what roles are critical, and identification of a minimum of one, ideally multiple stand-ins.
An inventory of staff/faculty who are capable (enough) to step into a broader role, along with a scan of retired leaders who may be able to step in temporarily.
An inventory of board capacity, and readiness to support an interim leader(s)
An inventory of functions that can be outsourced in the case of extended illness or multiple illness (in accounting and payroll for example)
An examination of what roles or functions might be combined, divided, or even eliminated -- at least temporarily, in the event of leadership gaps. This analysis allows for a broader view of the available talent pool inside your school or organization.
A strawman for agile teams that can work collaboratively on mission critical functions -- increasing resilience and building stronger cross-functional coordination at a time of rapid execution when the “left hand may not know what the right hand is doing”
Even if no one is sick now, it’s time to “hope for the best and prepare for the worst”. In the corporate sector, this issue is high on CEO minds. If boards have a plan in place for how to respond in the case of their leader(s) falling ill, they can continue with even greater confidence the critically important work of ensuring the community is cared for and the mission is sustained. What are you doing to get ready? Please share your best ideas and tips with us -- and we’ll shine a light on them as we continue this conversation!
In the face of new challenges without clear solutions, leadership expert Ron Heifetz reminds us that:
“Progress on problems is the measure of leadership; leaders mobilize people to face problems, and communities make progress on problems because leaders challenge them and help them to do so.”
Yesterday, in “Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst”, I made the case that we should expect and prepare for a protracted period of disruption (12-18 months) for schools - and frankly, for all aspects of our lives, as our world battles the spread of COVID-19 and works to develop an effective vaccine. Later that day, I read a similar take in MIT Technology Review, and a bold call to action in the Atlantic.
As crazy as things feel now, if the virus spreads as forecasted, even with strong efforts to mitigate, we will likely see a big resurgence of infection in the fall/winter of 2020. Our new normal is likely to be one of ongoing “social distancing” and intermittent school closures in communities or regions where the need to isolate is acute. So what we do NOW is the emerging playbook for what’s ahead -- and if we embrace it our potential to successfully support thriving learners, adults and students, is greatly improved. It’s time to “make progress on problems”.
I outlined a few areas for awareness:
Don’t approach your closure and your move to distance learning as temporary
It’s going to be about a lot more than “school”
The economic impact to schools (and all of us) could be severe
What matters most in learning must be redefined
Adults and their children need support more than ever in learning
Build a “new normal” response team that does more than respond: While the triage reality may feel overwhelming, we are also tasked with looking out to the horizon. Not only do you need in the minute leadership capacity, you need to do scenario planning. Engage members of your board who can offer thought partnership and who can help model contingency plans. Clearly define and carefully compose the team who can make decisions, anticipate needs, and unleash and distribute leadership throughout your school. Cluster your best talent around this, and set up a protocol for how you’ll work. Acting now will ease the burdens, ensure no one feels isolated, and showcase your best efforts in communicating with, serving, and sustaining the needs of your community. GLP counsels schools to build agile teams as a regular part of our work. McKinsey offers some guidance here, as does the Clayton Christensen Institute.
Establish a clear plan for adult learning -- now! This will be a work in progress as faculty and staff adjust to working remotely. For teachers, the upskilling, both in the use of technology and in the effective design of remote learning experiences and adaptation of curriculum, will take time. I loved this article from Kirk Wheeler that calls our attention to the many pieces of this puzzle. The American School in Japan continues to adapt and assess their dynamic Distance Learning Plan — this is also a strong launch pad for schools coming up to speed. We recommend using ZOOM as the best platform to gather faculty together and to break out in smaller teams or groups to design, learn, and engage in dialogue.
Rethink all your assumptions about learning and learning design: First and foremost, do not ask teachers to replicate their classroom experience or lesson plan online. It won’t work for a whole host of reasons and it won’t be good for students. Instead --invite teachers to be creative and try new things. Now is a time for experimentation grounded in the hands of your learners -- as Thomas Arnett of the Clayton Christensen Institute guides us, they will need to take on more of this work and self direct. What does that look like? Most of all, it’s about allowing families to exercise control over learning time and objectives; employing resources already available so they can engage productively; and ensuring ample opportunity to connect virtually in dialogue and in community. And the first order of the work is to establish connections, set expectations, and build community in your new environment— the next few weeks may well feel like the first weeks of the school year.
Keep it simple: As one head of school commented to us, there are so many resources for remote learning it can be tremendously overwhelming. You don’t need all of it, and you can discover slowly what works for your school and your learners. Start with where you are. For example, if you are school working on the Google platform, focus there. As teachers discover particular strategies and resources they love, share them. Build a virtual PLC if you do not yet have one where people can congregate for learning, for fun, and to share resources. To get started with online learning design, here’s an easy guide that aligns tools to purpose. Relax your expectations: decide what matters most for learning in these early days, and emphasize how teachers and students remain connected— and set yourself up for success next fall and beyond.
Be hopeful but also be realistic in your communications: We really don’t know what’s next. Help people prepare and engage in the potential realities ahead. Don’t promise families or employees that all will be back to normal soon— it may not be. Instead, stress the values that comprise your community, invite them to adapt and learn with you, let them know that there will be bumps, be vulnerable, and reassure them that you will navigate this together. At the same time, ensure clarity and precision in the decisions you can communicate. Whether it’s about expectations for learning, expectations for work, expectations for communication, or how school will operate, it’s important to be calm, clear, and definitive so people know where they are amidst a lot of confusion.
Share, share, share: What we learn in the next few weeks will be the foundation for how we adapt and thrive going forward. Our collective efforts to collaborate, share, and innovate need to be in the spotlight and spread— so all schools, families, and communities benefit. We will be hosting ZOOM conversations next week— please let us know of your interest in this quick survey. And if you need real time help, a resource, or a sounding board, Stephanie is offering free “just-in-time” 30 minute calls for the next several weeks for anyone who wants to connect. You can schedule here.
Our goal is to stay in the “middle” and connect people, ideas, and resources as best we can. Let us know what you are doing so we can shine a light on you— together, we are better!
Yesterday I read the March 16th COVID-19 modeling and analysis from the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team. Largely credited as a major influence on both the US and UK response to COVID-19, the paper is both sobering and edifying. The opening sentence of the executive summary sets the tone:
“The global impact of COVID-19 has been profound, and the public health threat it represents is the most serious seen in a respiratory virus since the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic.”
There’s a lot here that matters for schools. While the future is neither certain or predictable, the likely outcomes and the many possibilities in the face of those outcomes are pertinent to schools and worth examination.
Everyone should read this report closely, but here’s a quick summary from my read:
Until we have a vaccine, we are reliant largely on public health measures “non-pharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs)
There are two basic approaches: 1) mitigation (slowing the spread of the epidemic) and 2) suppression (reversing the growth of the epidemic).
Mitigation involves some combination of case isolation and quarantines with social distancing. Suppression involves the more comprehensive combination of measures, including school and university closures, case isolation and home quarantines, and strict social distancing. Needless to say, both take a heavy toll on people and the economy - and are hard to sustain.
Given how this virus transmits, this forecast makes a strong case for suppression as the preferred option, in order to not overwhelm the healthcare system (critical care beds) and to reduce mortality.
Even with aggressive mitigation (think New York right now), the forecast is that once things look better (China now) and policy is relaxed, we are predicted to see another outbreak requiring yet another suppression response within 2-3 months.
We are not out of the woods until we have a vaccine (12-18 months away) and until then, we’ll be dealing with outbreaks, capacity issues, and serious illness with fatalities in our country and around the world.
We should expect to see policies like the ones we are currently undertaking to be in effect, at least intermittently, from now until mid -- late 2021. We are in a new normal, and with new data everyday, we will have to adapt - globally, locally, and at the systemic level.
What does this mean for schools?
Don’t approach your closure and your move to distance learning as temporary: this is our new normal and we need to adapt and thrive.
It’s going to be about a lot more than “school”: think human suffering, loss, isolation, community stress, and deep disruptions to economic and social well-being. Schools can help children and families if they stay focused on their commitment to community care.
The economic impact to schools, like hospitals, could be severe: Schools with low reserves and weak enrollment are at risk, and some are facing the potential for closure. Boards and school leaders will need to consider all the potentialities. The economic impact, while uncertain, is sure to be significant, and schools need money and contingency plans to operate successfully.
What matters most in learning must be redefined: all our efforts to transform schools and learning may be here now -- and we may be forced to do what so many of us have been talking about for a long time -- allowing our students lead the way, drive their own learning, follow their interests, use technology productively, and learn to create, make and innovate beyond the walls of a classroom.
Adults and their children need support more than ever in learning: faculty learning to teach from home, parents and teachers working from home, children trying to learn at home, parents who need to go out to work and arrange for care for their at home children….and the list goes on.
Be well, be safe, and stay tuned for my next post: questions and issues for school leaders and boards as we build resilience in the face of this uncertain future!
On Wednesday, February 26, Stephanie Rogen and Randall Dunn (head of Latin School of Chicago) facilitated a three-hour workshop on strategy implementation at the 2020 NAIS Annual Conference in Philadelphia. As Randall described at the start of the session, it was a “workshop, not a listen-shop” — while both Stephanie and Randall presented a number of key insights for the attendees, there was also plenty of time for everyone to work collaboratively and brainstorm some actionable ideas that they could pilot when they returned to school. (Click here to access the toolkit that workshop attendees used to guide their work during the session!) Here are some takeaways from the workshop:
I took up yoga a year ago, and I’ve been trying hard to establish a practice, learn, and stay with it. When I start something new, or want to work on something important to me, I tend to get a bit overzealous - reading, watching videos, and the like. With yoga, I took a few classes and then I tried to do it myself - reading and studying poses; rolling out the mat on my bedroom floor, propping up the ipad to watch a class on you tube, or simply practicing on my own. And here’s the thing: I think I understand how to do what I want to do when I watch and read about it, and some poses I can do with some ease, but a lot of the time, I know I’m really not doing it as well as I’d like. And oftentimes, I simply quit, get distracted, and go on to other things.
Today, I went to the studio. And at the end of class, lying gratefully in “relaxation pose”, I had an insight. No matter how hard I try, or how experienced I am, I always work better when I have a coach or a facilitator. Here’s why:
I persevere, giving it my best effort and sticking with my class until I’ve finished, because having a witness to my work matters
I focus, because my yoga coach facilitates a carefully designed experience, and reminds me that yoga is not about right or wrong, it’s about exploring and deepening my practice where I am now
I improve, because just when I think I’ve mastered it, there is always a small adjustment to my posture or alignment from my yoga coach that makes me better
I reflect, because in the studio, my yoga coach talks with me about my work and supports my progress
When we enlist a facilitator or a coach for our work as leaders, teams and practitioners, we make a commitment to all four of these aims - to persevere, focus, improve, and reflect. Seems to me these aims are relevant no matter the level of experience or expertise. When we have a talented coach or facilitator holding us to these aims, we raise our performance, we strengthen our impact, and we feel productive and satisfied.
How often do you ask for coaching, or appoint a facilitator to hone your craft or get big work done? Consider how a colleague or an expert can be helpful wherever you are in your practice. And, don’t get me wrong, I still practice on my own, but there is no question I am practicing with greater impact because I regularly head to the studio to be coached and facilitated in my practice (and to have someone give me permission to be in relaxation pose).
It’s long been established that “who you know” matters when it comes to professional advancement. Networking – or the accumulation of contacts and connections that can be helpful – is a strategy most aspiring or established leaders accept as a necessary part of the work. The bigger the network the better. But not everyone likes to network: the process can feel transactional, impersonal, and, if you are an introvert like me, downright exhausting. Moreover, many of the natural spaces for successful networking (the golf club, the bar, or the conference circuit) may seem more welcoming to some – and less comfortable for others. But what if we reimagined networking? I’d like to offer an alternative: I call it “netbuilding” and I believe it is essential to effective leadership development.
Here’s what netbuilding looks like: imagine a small circle of leaders, joined by a deep sense of trust, an authentic desire to support one another, and a shared sense of purpose and joy. Add in a lot of laughter, space to know one another as people first, and time for exercise and relaxation. Then imagine the power of that net: a smart, creative, experienced team of collaborators who offer ideas, honest feedback, advice, inspiration, and encouragement in a trusted circle. Now your net is more than a web of useful or expedient connections. It’s a net of empathy, kinship, wisdom, support, and safety. It’s a source of deep learning and growth. It’s a new kind of power – one that fuels you to lead, inspires you, and supports you when you are unsure of how to move forward.
This summer, we decided to try something different – and it was all about netbuilding. On the encouragement of many of our clients, we convened a small group of female school leaders and trustees from across the country at the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York. We were a small but mighty group; 23 in total – and we came together to explore questions of leadership, gender, the challenges of education, and the particular problems facing schools.
You can’t build an effective net without strong ties – so we started where all good educators start: with emotional safety and personal connections. Rather than jumping quickly into content, or random interactions, we invested time in getting to know each other as individuals, establishing norms for our work together, and practicing listening and questioning skills that empower us as coaches to one another.
Then we got to work. No sessions, no tracks, no keynote speakers. Instead, we stayed together, worked independently and with one another, in a structured and facilitated process to get centered and focused. We tackled questions at the core of leadership: What matters to me? What do I need to be effective as a leader? What do I want to accomplish for myself and for my school? What does it look and feel like when I’m successful? What’s in the way?
Over the course of three days we built the net – we shared our stories, addressed our fears, and celebrated our strengths. We developed and practiced leadership mindsets and behaviors – grounded in coaching methodologies – to unleash what is possible in ourselves, our colleagues, and our schools. We consulted and critiqued. We honed our skills. We hiked, broke bread together, and simply relaxed. In short, we centered ourselves in a supportive, trusted, and joyful cohort of women committed to one another’s success.
Research indicates that women need different kinds of support and that they thrive when they build nets – smaller webs of trusted colleagues – to advance their leadership. I hypothesize this may be true for many leaders. Not just those who identify as women, but anyone who seeks deeper connections and more meaningful interactions. This July we hosted our first, but not our last, Women’s Leadership Summit. From here, we aim to reinforce and expand the net we’ve built – leaning into the investments and energies of the cohort – and leveraging technology and places where we can come together to collaborate and celebrate. Most important, we’ll continue to design experiences that facilitate “netbuilding” for aspiring and established leaders who seek deeper connections and collaboration. As one of our participants stated: “this may well have been the best professional development experience of my career” and 100% of the participants surveyed rated the summit “highly effective”. We think we are onto something - and we hope you’ll join us as we build new nets! Stay tuned for more!
While the phrase “summer vacation” might be somewhat of a misnomer for educators (and especially for those in leadership roles), the summer months nevertheless provide ample opportunities for reading and reflecting. What you read over the summer has the power to transform the upcoming school year — here are a few recommendations to help spark powerful ideas about teaching, learning, and organizational strategy.
