Mission: The Heartbeat Of The School

‘Not What A School Does, But The Difference A School Makes’

The Mission Statement of an independent school provides the ‘why’ an organization exists, and is the basis for the long-range strategic process or architectural plan for implementing the school business. Strategic process evolves out of mission and provides the scaffolding for direction. An organizational development plan emerges next with steps to take the school toward its intended direction. Specific fund-raising campaigns are launched in support of it all.

The strategic process needs to be clearly articulated and needs to define defensible programmatic initiatives and their respective costs.  This well defined process allows for the creation of overarching fund-raising plans from which specific fund-raising campaigns are organized and implemented.  In this way, a school secures annual giving, endowment, and major gifts/capital funds.  However, an organization’s mission statement is the HEART of the process and defines it all.

So developing an understanding of how to establish an effective mission statement is vital.  The priority is ensuring that your school has a lucid mission statement and that it is revisited and reviewed regularly.

The mission of each independent school should come from its core competitive advantages. Therefore, it must be clearly articulated, fully understood, and completely embraced by the school’s diverse constituencies. It must elucidate the difference the school community will make for all those it serves, rather than simply providing a description of what the school’s function. Finally, it needs to convey all of this as succinctly as possible.

1. Establish limits “What is our reason for existence?”
2. Motivational to constituents.
3.  Succinct enough to remember and easily share.
4. Strong enough to inspire.
5. Helpful in measuring the school's success —The mission statement helps in the process of organizational effectiveness- a school’s mission statement becomes a measure against which results and benefits of the services provided are assessed.
         

“Ends, not means

Does your mission statement address what difference your organization will make for those you serve, or does it merely describe what your organization does? Remember, your mission statement doesn’t relate how, but rather why. It should focus on the results your organization accomplishes through its programs and services.”  Center for Not For Profit Organizations

A Personal Effort Toward an Attitude of Gratitude

I am hardly a Thanksgiving expert—though I may know how to make a tasty turkey and savory stuffing, but as I mature, I have become more aligned with what I shall call an attitude of gratitude.  And, I do believe that acts of appreciation and thanksgiving beget other good acts in our society. I guess it is a bit like the pay it forward mentality.

Medical professionals seem to agree that there are great social, psychological, and physical health benefits associated with giving thanks. So, it seems only logical that developing regular habits around being grateful would help one enjoy those benefits.

I endeavor to think of all I am grateful for often and to write down the good things that I am grateful for regularly.  This was a simple step I started when I became concerned as a parent, with raising my children to be hopeful, contributing members of our community.

Along the way, I learned about studies, where people were asked to record a few things they experienced recently for which they were grateful.  The idea was simple and brief -  a single thought – a recent good moment – something you love in this world – a book, a friend – music.  The results were positive. The research suggests that many discover a lighter, happier attitude toward life in the process.

I think what makes this click for me is that I have made a conscious decision to be happier and more grateful.  A new frame of reference to use even in life’s difficult moments. Keeping it personal allows me to hone in on people to whom I am grateful, which in turn seems to give me more patience where I used to dismiss people. This helps me consider what my life would be like without certain experiences – even ones I find trying – there are gifts in all of it.  And living it all with as much appreciation as is possible, empowers me to put things in perspective thereby, finding new ways to be grateful for the sources of goodness in my life.

Anger Gives You a Creative Boost

One of the more compelling aspects of schools as a workplace, is how conflict avoidant school cultures tend to be.  As a female administrator, I have mulled this phenomenon a lot.  I have seen women in the workplace treated poorly for expressing anger and men less so.  I have come to think of this as a gender issue. So, I have witnessed and personally experienced other's anger and my own anger in all of my jobs.  Schools are people intensive, and therefore, chock full of opportunities to encounter and to feel anger. 

When I came accross this article in the Scientific American, I was intrigued by new notions and new ways of thinking about my own frustrations at work, and a possible new approach to handling all too familiar scenarios.

A bit of fury helps you think outside of the box

We all know anger is bad… right? Generally, it’s unpleasant to feel and it often leads to undesirable outcomes. After all, when was the last time you lost your temper with your boss and was pleased with the outcome?

However, perhaps you can also think of times when anger wasn’t so bad. Perhaps, in some contexts, feeling angry was actually beneficial. This counterintuitive idea was pursued by researchers Matthijs Baas, Carsten De Dreu, and Bernard Nijstad in a series of studies  recently published in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. They found that angry people were more likely to be creative – though this advantage didn’t last for long, as the taxing nature of anger eventually leveled out creativity. This study joins several recent lines of research exploring the relative upside to anger – the ways in which anger is not only less harmful than typically assumed, but may even be helpful (though perhaps in small doses).

In an initial study, the researchers found that feeling angry was indeed associated with brainstorming in a more unstructured manner, consistent with “creative” problem solving. In a second study, the researchers first elicited anger from the study participants (or sadness, or a non-emotional state) and then asked them to engage in a brainstorming session in which they generated ideas to preserve and improve the environment. In the beginning of this task, angry participants generated more ideas (by volume) and generated more original ideas (those thought of by less than 1 percent or less of the other participants), compared to the other sad or non-emotional participants. However, this benefit was only present in the beginning of the task, and eventually, the angry participants generated only as many ideas as the other participants.

These findings reported by Baas and colleagues make sense, given what we already know about anger. Though anger may be unpleasant to feel, it is associated with a variety of attributes that may facilitate creativity. First, anger is an energizing feeling, important for the sustained attention needed to solve problems creatively. Second, anger leads to more flexible, unstructured thought processes. This flexibility involves the use of broad and inclusive categories and the increased ability to find new connections between categories. People who feel angry (vs. sad, for example) are less likely to think in systematic ways, and are more likely to rely on broad, global cues when judging information. This kind of global processing tends to be associated with literally seeing the “bigger picture.”

These findings join the growing body of work showing that negative emotions, like anger, may have beneficial effects in our daily lives. This work, however, is usually accompanied by caveats – anger is not likely to be beneficial in any and all contexts. Rather, anger is likely to be beneficial only in certain situations, or for certain people. Supporting the situation-sensitive nature of the benefits of anger, research I was involved in found that angry people were more likely to perform better in a negotiation, but only when that negotiation was confrontational in nature. Indeed, in these studies, we found that in situations in which anger is likely to be useful – like a confrontational negotiation – participants actually wanted to feel angry and took steps to foster this emotion within themselves.

Supporting the person-sensitive nature of the benefits of anger, another paper  recently published in Psychological Science reported that angry people were actually perceived as better leaders, but only when leading people who were less sensitive to conflict. This finding suggests that successful relationships may depend on the alignment between the emotional natures of the partners, even if this alignment involves the experience of anger. Overall, these lines of research demonstrate that anger isn’t all bad news. Rather, feeling angry may be downright beneficial, depending on what one is trying to achieve or whom one is trying to impress.

Brett Q. Ford

Five Dysfunctions of a Team

In his groundbreaking book - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable - best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, identifies 5 dysfunctions of teams that consistently hold them back from reaching their full potential. The book is written in a very engaging manner - Lencioni describes The Five Dysfunctions of a Team as a "leadership fable". Lencioni not only identifies the five common dysfunctions of teams, but also shares a powerful team building model to overcome the Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

The story is about a high tech startup company.  They have more talented people, more money, and a better connected board than their competitors, but still, they are third in sales.  Morale is quickly eroding. The CEO steps down and a retired manager, Kathryn, is hired as CEO. And so begins the story of Kathryn working to build teamwork among her staff.

The last 40 pages contain a model for teamwork, including suggestions for improvement in each component of the model, and suggestions for the leader.  There’s also a 15-question assessment for evaluating each component of the model for your team.

The Model

Description of each component of the model

Trust

Trust is the foundation. 

One type of trust is credibility, the trust that one will meet her commitments. 

Another type of trust, the type at the foundation of this model, is for one to trust the team enough that he feels he can say what he really thinks in difficult conversations. He feels he can be vulnerable to the team without undue concern for ramifications or perceptions to others or to himself.  This type of trust is important because it enables constructive conflict to thrive.  

Constructive conflict 

Constructive conflict is the passionate and unfiltered debate of ideas.  Constructive conflict is important because it enables the team to come to a good solution more quickly. This is especially true for difficult problems.  If trust isn’t there and people hold back, then certain critical information and perspectives may not be included.

Constructive conflict is also needed to build commitment within the team.  Until each team member has had a chance to be heard, and issues considered, she will not make a deep commitment. She may give passive commitment, but that commitment will dwindle when the going gets tough.

Commitment

Commitment is important because it drives accountability. If there is a deep commitment, team members will tend to hold each other accountable. Also, team members will tend not to dodge individual or team accountability. 

Accountability

Accountability is important because it drives attention to results. Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where inattention to results can thrive.

Attention to results

Attention to results drives attainment of the team’s goals. The morale of the team members will tend to rise or fall with the results, which is healthy for the team. The morale of the team members will tend to be less affected by needs that aren’t connected to success of the team (such as individual ego.)

The leader’s role 

The leader’s role in each of these functions is two fold; to model the behavior, and to set up a structure to facilitate the behavior. An example of modeling a behavior would be to show one’s willingness to be vulnerable, to model Trust. An example of setting up a structure to facilitate a behavior would be to go around the table in a meeting to give each person a chance to state concerns, to facilitate Commitment.

Priorities in the hierarchy of teams 

If you are a manager, you have a role in at least two teams. You lead a team of your staff (level 1 team), and you are a member of a team of your peers in your boss’s staff (level 2 team).  There can be a tendency to have a higher allegiance to your level 1 team than to your level 2 team. In cases where you must prioritize between the needs of the level 2 team and the needs of the level 1 team, you should chose the priorities of the level 2 team, and conform the priorities of the level 1 team to meet those higher needs. 

source: therainmakergroup.com

Managing the Torrent of the New

It often feels to me that things around me are moving fast.  It also seems as though the current mantra is: keep going, just try it, but that sometimes my efforts to live into that feel more like: failing forward and then succeeding and then failing anew.   As I navigate, I sometimes feel that I am being pushed beyond my limits as I exert effort to “keep up” and respond to the constant waves of the new.

I know that if I can slow down and think of my own learning curve in the face of this torrent as grounded in my capacity to adapt to changes in the environment rather than control them, then I might steward myself through this all more effectively.

As an educator, I know that living is learning and learning is changing, adapting, evolving, transforming and allowing myself to be transformed. This suggests to me that I need to take in my failure and success as information or data. Perhaps from there, I can use that data to establish footing that empowers me by providing me with a little balance.  A balance that comes from filtering what I use in the face of ‘all of  it’; and some self-discipline in setting boundaries.  To achieve this, I need to use some sound critical thinking skills:  How does this new concept/technology/idea connect with what I already know?  Can I use that to engage with it?  Is this relevant? On the other side of this – what skill or disposition will I have that I want or need?

If I can live into this myself than maybe I can help children know that simple truth and then maybe I have conferred something of lasting value and significance that they can use in life as they face their own unforeseen torrents of the new.