In December 2015, the cheekily named “Study of Maternal and Child Kissing (SMACK) Work Group” published a study titled “Maternal kisses are not effective in alleviating minor childhood injuries (boo-boos): a randomized, controlled and blinded study” in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice.
Although the journal is real, the study is (of course) a spoof - a mocking jab at the cool data-driven objectivity of empirical studies taken to an extreme.
In July of 2016, GLP launched its Leadership Lab for new heads of school with the belief that a small, intimate and personalized approach to leadership preparation was needed for independent school heads. The program provides time to retreat and look inward, to build deep relationships with other leaders, and to prepare for the real work of headship. We prototyped our vision with cohort I---and this July cohort II continued this work – but with a modified design to incorporate suggestions. So together, we gathered four new Heads in bucolic Connecticut to reflect, prepare, practice and offer feedback to each other as they entered the first year of headship at their new schools. As was the case last year, cohort II was invited to be intentionally small and, though not intentional, was again all women.
GLP is happy to welcome Kirk Greer as a member of the GLP team and guest blogger this summer. Kirk is currently the upper school history chair at the Latin School of Chicago and previously served as its Director of Studies and Professional Development. He is also a new board member at Baker, a progressive JK-8 independent school on Chicago's North Shore.
Earlier this week, I had the chance to share a beer (or two) with a colleague who reflected on changes he had made to his communication style with students. Having read research that detailed how vital the teacher-student relationship is to the success of students of color in predominantly white schools, my white colleague invested more time in cultivating positive affect and personalizing his communication and encouragement so that he might connect more authentically with all his students.
Just in time for the extended summer holiday weekend, we’re excited to share with you our summer must reads!
We’re focused on two themes this summer: 1) understanding the rapidly changing macro-context that independent schools face and 2) how schools should prepare themselves to thrive in the face of these uncertain times and re-envision teaching and learning in response to those macro-conditions.
During one of my last years as a headmaster, the school had an interesting topic in our usual Tuesday night speaker series, which we call The Society of Skeptics. This speaker—whose name I cannot recall—was embarked on the goal of becoming a professional golfer by fulfilling the ‘10,000 hour rule’ (the theory of mastery that Malcolm Gladwell popularized in his book The Outliers).
At GLP, we are always interested what transitions are taking place in the independent school world, particularly as we are continuing our New Heads Leadership Lab program.
With that slight introduction, I want to report on a recent conversation Greenwich Leadership Partners had with Jim Wickenden, the veteran president of Wickenden Associates and a seasoned expert on the leadership search environment for independent schools. Throughout the independent school world, Jim is held in high regard for the firm’s successful work and his reputation for experience and understanding of the ever-evolving issues of school leadership and governance. I first met Jim as a teacher when he came to The Taft School to scout out early aspirants for leadership. Jim’s commitment to understanding not just his business but also the independent school world was impressive, so after becoming the headmaster at Blair Academy, I made one of my first off campus trips to meet with Jim in Princeton. Going to Wickenden Associates was sort of a pilgrimage both to pay respects and to glean as much as possible about the lay of the land for independent schools in New Jersey. That early venture proved quite valuable, and from that time forward Jim and I have kept in touch.
When do you actually look forward to going to a meeting? One of the biggest complaints we hear from educators is that they are asked to attend too many meetings that waste their time. As facilitators of meetings, we are constantly asking ourselves: what kind of experience do we want people to have; what makes a meeting valuable, productive and enjoyable?
It occurs to me that most meetings in organizations and schools originate from a logical purpose. Most of the time, they are a forum for advancing a work project, disseminating information, discussing an issue or making decisions. So why so many disgruntled meeting goers? I’ll offer three observations for school leaders.
As GLP enters a new year and the start of the 2017 edition of our Leadership Lab, it is a good time to report on the conclusion of our pilot Lab. In the 2016 cohort we worked intensely with first time heads as they prepared to enter headship and begin their work at school. Each new head worked individually with a GLP coach throughout last spring and summer, coming together as a group in July for an intense and productive three-day learning retreat. After returning to their schools for the opening months, supported by executive coaching, these new heads reconvened for the last formal part of the Lab with a December session in Washington, DC. During this final session, the participants gave presentations and discussed their first five months of their new headship, its challenges and joys, what worked and what is a work in progress. Going into the second half of their first year, the cohort members can continue with the coaching part of the Leadership Lab, stay in touch with each other, and will be asked for a report on this first year in June.
This July GLP held its first Leadership Lab workshop, part of a comprehensive transition program to help new boarding school heads prepare for their first year of leadership. We conceived the Leadership Lab as a highly interactive, but deeply personalized entry into headship. Sensing the need for a higher level of new head preparation, we conducted qualitative research and confirmed that a bold, fresh approach---one with small cohorts, beginning preparation months before the new heads start their tenure, and continuing with one-on-one executive coaching and feedback well into their first year on the job—was justified. In fact, our research feedback from current heads confirmed that such a program was necessary.
What happens when you bring five school teams, each comprised of board members, administrators and teachers, together for two days to design strategy for their schools? That’s the question we asked ourselves when we envisioned our Strategic Planning Institute. We had two big hypotheses to test. The first was that schools could design better strategy if they were in an environment that allowed them to support, inspire, question and challenge one another. The second was that if schools experienced this type of collaboration, and were offered helpful tools and structures for the process, they would be equipped to return to school and lead a strategic design process that was entirely their own.
