The Big Disconnect

To set the context for this post, imagine yourself at a typical independent or international school strategic planning workshop. You know, the kind where the board, administrators, perhaps some faculty and maybe even a few parents meet on a Saturday to discuss the future of the school. We have facilitated hundreds of these sorts of sessions in all types of schools, and way too often I come away thinking that the stakeholder groups in the room spent the day speaking different languages.The board members, and a few parents, talk about pushing the program forward, accomplishing more and achieving even stronger results, by whatever indices they use to gauge performance. The faculty and some administrators talk about preserving--and even returning to--some sacred essence of "school like it ought to be." Not infrequently, our job as facilitators turns into keeping the board and parents from dwelling on what they want to see fixed, and keeping the faculty from becoming defensive and dismissive in response.Something embedded in this item from the Harvard Business Review's Management Tip of the Day (May 1, 2017) sheds light on the above phenomenon. The last point, "What else could we do to achieve more, better, faster?", is what caught my eye. This is very much the language of business innovation; never satisfied with the status quo because there is no such thing as a perpetually sustainable competitive advantage. It is the language in which many most board members spend their lives. And it is anathema to teachers, who deliberately opt for a life where they can avoid the more, better, faster imperative.This disconnect is what creates the different languages moments. It is also where I think heads of school come into the picture. A big part of their job is helping boards have reasonable expectations for more, better, faster, and helping the faculty accept the importance of continuous innovation and improvement.