Leaders, what 3 things can you do to be even more successful at school improvement?

/ mkessenburg

This blog post is part of a series on your improvement engine—make sure you have a great improvement engine (purpose, perspective, process, plan, and practices) before you start working on your improvement goal! (See also School Improvement Reflection Protocol).

Photo by Marcel Eberle on Unsplash

If you want to be even more successful at school improvement, (1) create value, (2) lead people, and (3) manage process (Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager, loc 273). 

Let’s explore what doing this involves:

(1) Create Value: To create even more value from school improvement, use the chart and…

(1A) Determine the current level of value (see chart below): Full disclosure—for school improvement plans I was involved in, some were completed (but late), most were completed on time, some resulted in deep change, and only a few got people flourishing. When determining your current level of value creation, round down.

Note: Be sure to check out the ChatGPT prompt at the bottom, which allows you to apply the above 4 levels to the school improvement plan of your choice.

(1B) Determine your preferred level of value (see chart above): Previous to ACSI emphasizing flourishing, I would have said I wanted deep change—real change. Now, I want to see Level 4—people flourishing and the further cultivation of a flourishing culture. Definitely don’t settle for Level 1 or Level 2, and see if you can go for Level 4!

(1C) Take action (provided there’s a gap between your current level and preferred level): Based on my involvement in school improvement, there’s a gap between my track record (often Level 2) and my preferred level (Level 4). 

To close my gap, I could…

  • Collaboratively develop a vision script to define the value we want to create—what deep change looks like (Level 3) and what flourishing looks like (Level 4) for a given improvement plan.
  • Use the vision script to remind staff of what we’re really after (which is much more than completing the plan or maintaining accreditation).
  • Use the vision script to assess the level of value actually created and determine next steps.

How about you? How can you close the gap between your current level and your preferred level? 

Image by freepik

(2) Lead People: To lead people so they are more inspired, engaged, and accountable…

(2A) Identify 4-5 leadership best practices you want to use: Kory Kogon (author of Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager) suggests 5 practices: listen first, clarify expectations, extend trust, practice accountability, and demonstrate respect (p. 20). Or you could use LIFE skills: listen, inquire, focus on others, and encourage.

Try this ChatGPT prompt: Act as a consultant for international Christian schools. You believe that school improvement involves leading people, meaning getting people inspired, engaged, and accountable. What are 5 specific best practices for leading people on an improvement plan on _____. For each practice, give a title, a description, an example of what that looks like, and a non-example.

Whatever practices you choose, be sure they help you get others inspired, engaged, and accountable—help you get others flourishing.

(2B) Assess how effectively you are currently using those practices, using the following scale: Poor • OK • Good • Great. When determining the current level of value, round down. 

Let’s say I want to use LIFE skills. When it comes to focusing on others, I want to rate it as Good, but I know I should say OK—because I have a tendency to want to share what I think, rather than deeply understand others.

(2C) Determine how effectively you want to use those practices: Definitely don’t settle for OK or even for Good—go for Great! 

(2D) Take action (provided there’s a gap between your current level and preferred level): For me to move from OK to Great on the LIFE skill of focusing on others, I need to listen, inquire to get others thinking, check to be sure I understand, and ask, “What are your options?” (instead of giving advice).

How about you? What practices will you use to get people inspired, engaged, and accountable?

Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik

(3) Manage Process: To manage process even more effectively…

(3A) Determine the process you’ll use when working on a school improvement goal: Make sure the process works and is user-friendly (easy to understand, represented in graphic form). I’m considering using the process from Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager (loc 497):

  • Scope: define what the project is (aka: improvement goal), the value to be created, and who’s involved (click here to learn more)
  • Plan: develop the map for getting from here to there
  • Engage: get people engaged
  • Track & Adapt—so we keep working to create value
  • Close: celebrate and reflect

(3B) Determine the best practices you’ll use to manage the process: Two practices I like to use are scoreboards (which make progress visible) and team meetings during which team members report on progress and determine their own next steps.

How about you? What process will you use? What best practices will you use to manage the process? 

Here are some related resources:

Source

Here’s what else I’m learning from Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager:

  • “…a Harvard study shows that only 35 percent of the projects undertaken worldwide succeed—which means we’re wasting a lot of time and resources” (loc 229).
  • “It’s a strange world, but often projects are called successful if they end on time and stay on budget. Oddly enough, achieving an important, worthwhile, or useful outcome is rarely mentioned! It’s as if you were to make dinner on time and on budget but serve up lousy food nobody wants to eat. But you could still claim, ‘My project succeeded!’” (loc 279).
  • “Without a clear and shared picture of the value you’re trying to create, the project is doomed” (loc 561).
  • “What does it take to execute the project successfully as a team? How do you keep the team fixed on the goal? How do you keep them alert, absorbed, and motivated? In a word: accountability” (loc 1404).
  • “Simply put, things happen to reactive people. Proactive people make things happen” (loc 1815)

Bottom line: To be even more successful at school improvement, create value, lead people, and manage process!

Get flourishing!

Michael
P.S. Here’s the ChatGPT prompt that allows you to apply the 4 levels of value creation to a school improvement plan of your choice:

Act as an international Christian school consultant who specializes in school improvement. You believe that school improvement should create value, and you have developed a 4-level model to assess the value created. 

Heres’s the 4-level model: 

  • Level 1: The improvement plan is completed (but it’s late and/or over budget). 
  • Level 2: The improvement plan is completed within parameters for time and cost (but does not result in deep change or in people flourishing). 
  • Level 3: The improvement plan is completed within parameters and results in deep change. Deep change includes addressing 1 or more root causes of the improvement plan (such as unhelpful mindsets, insufficient staffing, inadequate policies and processes, faulty assumptions and misunderstandings, a lack of training/expertise, and insufficient shared understanding of a given facet of Christian education ), and deep change includes noticeable, lasting change, especially in terms practices that increase institutional effectiveness. 
  • Level 4: The improvement plan is completed within parameters, results in deep change, and results in people flourishing during and after the implementation of the plan, further cultivating a flourishing culture. Flourishing means that people consistently experience 1 or 2 of the 5 elements of flourishing (passionate purpose, resilient well-being, healthy relationships, transformative learning, and helpful resources) and means that people consistently help others do the same. Remember, (A) only include 1 or 2 of the 5 elements of flourishing and (B) specify what this looks like both during and after plan implementation.

Now, please apply the model to an improvement plan on _____. For each of the 4 levels, write 4 or more sentences describing the results. Use present tense verbs and give 5-15 specific descriptions for each level.