Establish Reality:Effective Leadership for Learning

Raymond J. McNulty, President

International Center for Leadership in Education

Springfield, IL.

April 15, 2011

Schools are Improving

School Improvement

Schools are Improving

School Improvement

Changing World

The primary aim of education is not to enable students to do well in school, but to help them do well in the lives they lead outside of school.

The Boston Globe

Ray, reading the paper on your “Kindle” or online just

isn’t the same!

Almost everyone wants schools to be better,

but almost no one wants them to be different.

Teacher – Student Comparisons

T – I make learning exciting for my students.

86%

S – My teachers make learning fun.

41%

“The future is not some place we are going to, but one we (you) arecreating. The paths are not found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination.”

--John Schaar

Many of our efforts to transform education look like the same old system!

Solid Implementation • Focus

• Fidelity of Implementation

• Leading and Lagging Indicators

Current System

Something Different

The Horse

The Automobile

Henry Ford quote…

• “If I had asked the public what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”

First practice must change, then results, then policy.

THEMES• Three Transformative Issues

• Why Is It So Hard To Change?

• Best Practices, Next Practices and Innovation

• Closing Thoughts

THEME• Three Transformative Issues

Transformation # 1• Leadership today requires a balance of

traditional skills mixed with innovation skills

• Stability, control and standardization mixed with uncertainty, ambiguity and disruptive thinking

Transformation # 2• Making a better 20th Century School is not

the answer

• It is about becoming different not just better

• Using researched based best practices important, but for true transformation you need a mixture of BEST and NEXT practices.

Best practices allow you to do what you are currently doing a little better,

while next practices increase your organization’s capability to do things that it has never

done before.

Transformation # 2• Making a better 20th Century School is not

the answer

• It is about becoming different not just better

• Using researched based best practices important, but for true transformation you need a mixture of BEST and NEXT practices.

• 70 – 30 or 80 - 20

Best Practices toNext Practices

Fueled by Empowerment

AYP

Research Based Successful PracticesTight Tight

Critical PointRemain Tight TightEmpowerTight Loose

AYP

AYP

AYP

Transformation # 3• Collaboration is essential for success today

• Cooperation won’t get you the results you need

• Collaboration is mutual engagement to solve the challenge (21st Century)

• Cooperation is a division of labor approach (20th Century)

THEME

• Why Is It So Hard To Change?

Why is it so hard to change?

• The more successful a system is, the more difficult it is to recognize when it must change. By example, market leaders are the last ones to transform.

• The American Education System, “The market leader during the industrial era!”

Market Leader Thinking• Dominant logic: “That’s the way we do

things here.”

VII

Shown below is the Roman numeral seven. By adding only a single line, turn it into an eight.

IX

• Shown below is a Roman numeral nine. By adding only a single line, turn it into a six.

SIX

IX6

Mental Locks

• We don’t need to be creative for most of what we do (driving, shopping, business of living). So staying on routine thought paths enables us to do many things without having to think about it.

• Our training as educators has taught us that there is one right answer.

• The Right Answer

Five beautiful and well-dressed woman are standing in a tight group. One is crying and she has never been happier. The other four are smiling and they have never been more disappointed. Why?

The Second Right Answer

• What is the answer?

• What are the answers?

• The Right Answer

• That’s not logical

• SOFT • HARD

• Logic• Metaphor• Dream• Reason• Precision• Humor• Consistency• Ambiguity• Play• Work• Exact• Approximate

• Direct• Focused• Fantasy• Reality• Paradox• Diffuse• Analysis• Hunch• Generalization• Specifics• Child• Adult

• SOFT• Metaphor• Dream• Humor• Ambiguity• Play• Approximate• Fantasy• Paradox• Diffuse• Hunch• Generalization• Child

• HARD• Logic• Reason• Precision• Consistency• Work• Exact• Reality• Direct• Focused• Analysis• Specific• Adult

• SOFT

• Shades of gray

• Hard to pick up

• Many answers

• Flood light, diffused

• HARD

• Black and white

• Easy to pick up

• Right answer

• Focused like a spot light

Cat - Refrigerator

THEME

• Next Practices and Innovation

Expertise (the way we do things around here) can sometimes be a road block to problem solving and the development of “Next Practices”.

A Story….• Not a bad idea, but to

earn a grade more than a C+, the idea has to be viable! (Yale Professor)

• Fredrick Smith

• The idea FedEx

-Shurnyu Suzuki

“In the beginner’s mind there are many

possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”

System Innovation

Sustaining Innovation

Next Practice

Disruptive Innovation

NEXT PRACTICE THINKING• The Iterative Process

• Versions

• Create a disciplined, managed space for development of new ways to accomplish difficult tasks

THEME

• Closing Thoughts

Talking with kids…

It’s not us against them!

First practice must change, then results, then policy.

ThanksRay@leadered.com

Raymond J. McNulty, President

International Center for Leadership in Education

Springfield, IL.

April 15, 2011