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).
Use what helps you and your colleagues improve! Why?
(1) Because using what helps you and your colleagues improve gets all of you flourishing.
(2) Because using what helps you and your colleagues improve increases the likelihood that you’ll enjoy working to improve, that you’ll work effectively and efficiently, and that you’ll successfully improve.
(3) Because using what doesn’t help you and your colleagues improve increases the likelihood that you’ll be frustrated as you work on school improvement, that you’ll work ineffectively and inefficiently, and that you won’t successfully improve (about 70% of improvement efforts are unsuccessful). Not good.
(4) Because using what helps you improve is a best practice.
So, what helps and doesn’t help you and your colleagues to improve? When think about what helps and doesn’t help international Christian school staff improve, what comes to mind for me include the following:
| What helps… | What doesn’t help… |
| Having a clear, documented purpose for school improvement that galvanized you and your colleagues. | Having an unclear, undocumented purpose for improvement or having one that doesn’t galvanize you. |
| Having a unified perspective of school improvement—making it easier to work together. | Having a fragmented perspective of school improvement—which makes it harder to work together. |
| Using a process that includes reviewing your purpose for improvement, assessing the current situation, taking action steps, assessing and celebrating progress, and determining next steps. | Having no documented process, or having a process that doesn’t include key components. |
| Having a documented, evidence-based plan that addresses root causes, includes key components, is formatted effectively, and gets you and your colleagues experiencing the 5 elements of flourishing. | Having an undocumented plan that isn’t all that helpful and doesn’t get used. |
| Using practices that get results and get used. | Using practices that look good but don’t really help and that are hard to use. |
My first point: What can really help you and your colleagues improve is your school’s 5P improvement engine:
I say your improvement engine “can help” because how much it helps depends on the quality of your improvement engine. If your engine is great, your engine will really help. If your engine isn’t great (like if you’re missing components or if your components aren’t of good quality), it might not help all that much.
Photo by Tim Meyer on Unsplash
My second point: Your 5P improvement engine is what actually drives school improvement. So check your engine before taking action on your goal.
Let me put it another way: Imagine your goal is to drive from Miami to Anchorage and back, a trip of over 9,800 miles. Before driving, you’d want to make sure your engine (not to mention the rest of your car) is in good working order.
Before taking action on your goal, make sure you have a great 5P improvement engine!
What can you do to enhance your school’s 5P improvement engine? Here are some suggestions:
(1) Purpose: Ensure your purpose is galvanizing—meaning, it focuses on improvement (not maintenance), it’s specific, and it’s about people (about you and your colleagues).
(2) Perspective: Use the School Improvement Framework to collaboratively develop a unified perspective of school improvement.
(3) Process: Ensure your process is ongoing, documented, collaborative, contains key components, and gets you and your colleagues experiencing the 5 elements of flourishing: passionate purpose, resilient well-being, healthy relationships, transformative learning, and helpful resources.
(4) Plan: Explore various school improvement plan templates, using what you learn to enhance your engine. Click here to explore a basic plan (tab 1) and an upgraded plan (tab 2).
(5) Practice: Start each school improvement meeting with a review of the purpose, the improvement goal, and the meeting’s focus.
Note: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems” (James Clear).
Image by felicities on Freepik
Bottom line: Use what helps you and your colleagues improve! Enhance your school’s 5P improvement engine: purpose, perspective, process, plan, and practices. (See also School Improvement Reflection Protocol.)
Get flourishing!
Michael
Get Flourishing 