Leadership+Design
"We design experiences for the people who create the future of teaching and learning."
In our work, we build capacity, create conversations, and make connections.
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Plan your professional learning adventures with L+D in 2017.
Leadership+Design Bootcamps
Coast to Coast
March 10+11, 2017
Los Angeles, CA
Philadelphia, PA
Coming this Summer . . .
4D Studio: Design. Dare. Disrupt. Dream.
June 26-29, 2017
The Steward School/Bryan Innovation Lab, Richmond, VA
Wonder Women!
July 10-13, 2017
Castilleja School, Palo Alto, CA
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L+D Board of Directors
Ryan Baum
VP of Strategy
Jump Associates, CA
Lee Burns
Headmaster
McCallie School
, TN
Sandy Drew
Non-profit Consultant, CA
Matt Glendinning
(Secretary)
Head of School
Moses Brown School,
RI
Trudy Hall (Board Chair)
Interim Director of High School
Forest Ridge School, WA
Brett Jacobsen (Vice Chair)
Head of School
Mount Vernon Presbyterian
, GA
Barbara Kraus-Blackney (Treasurer)
Executive Director
Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools (ADVIS), PA
Karan Merry
Retired Head of School
St. Paul's Episcopal School
Carla Robbins Silver (ex-officio)
Executive Director
Leadership+Design, CA
Mary Stockavas (Treasurer)
Director of Finance
Bosque School,
NM
Matthew Stuart
Head of School
Caedmon School, NY
Brad Weaver
Head of School
Sonoma Country Day School, CA
Paul Wenninger
Retired Head of School
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| Be Super-Human: Leading through Paradigm Shifts |
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Carla Silver, Executive Director, Leadership+Design
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This year, our newsletter has focused on the "future of school"  and how, in a rapidly changing, global innovation economy and in VUCA* conditions, all of us can lead our school communities more effectively, humanely, and joyfully. We've written so far this year about the future of space, of pedagogy and curriculum, and of ed-tech. We've also written about making schools "life-worthy" and about the history of planning for the future. This month, we are focusing on the future of leadership - nothing seems like a more timely and important topic to tackle.
I've thought long and hard about what I can offer this month, at a time when I often wake up feeling uneasy, distracted, and disheartened about the leadership of my own country. It's a good time to break out Edwin Friedman's book A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. While this book, published in 1999 (three years after Friedman's death), is hardly new or "futuristic", Friedman, a Rabbi and family systems therapist, sees the writing on the wall and the early signs of our descent into a highly anxious and somewhat emotionally regressed society. Instead of adopting a Renaissance mindset - eager for adventure and novelty - our society seeks familiarity and security, and is overly nostalgic. In turn, leaders find themselves trying to manage over-wrought communities characterized by blame, immaturity, reactivity, and a quick-fix mentality, which results, according to Friedman, in a failure of nerve on the part of leadership. Friedman is hopeful, however, which is why you might read the book and try to adopt the qualities of Renaissance explorers that are surprisingly relevant to the contemporary paradigm shifts we are experiencing.
Inspired by this book (again), I've reflected on the qualities of highly effective and impactful school leaders that - knowing what I do about the rapid rate of change, about managing increasingly divided (and perhaps divisive) perspectives, and about the abundance of data and information - would be the most valuable and essential to possess if I were to fire up the DeLorean and travel into the distant future.
- Managing and even embracing high levels of ambiguity - In the future, there will be plenty of data but it will become increasingly meaningless when it comes to solving complex challenges and leading change successfully. There will be more scenarios where expertise and knowledge of specific skills and content will have almost no relevance, because the conditions will be so unprecedented. Leaders will need to welcome the unknown and create solutions to challenges that have no precedents.
- Attuning to self - Leaders of the future will need to possess the ability to be completely grounded and knowledgable in one's own principles and influence and impact on others. Successful leaders will need to be able to take honest inventory of themselves every single day and be fully responsible for their own role in a group or situation. They will be curious and not defensive about feedback - explicit or implicit - that they receive and they will be fearless in seeking the truth about themselves.
- Attuning to others - Leaders of the future will be capable anthropologists and keen observers of human behavior. This skill is different and perhaps more useful than empathy (which Friedman actually sees as a disservice to leaders). Anthropologists are emotionally removed from the observation process. Anthropologists don't make value judgments but do make inferences from what they see and hear. Tim Brown of IDEO writes in his book Change by Design that "for designers, behaviors are never right or wrong, but they are always meaningful." Designers must be cultural anthropologists to successfully design products for others, and I would suggest that leaders will need to adopt the same ability to observe carefully and astutely, but without bias, in order to understand, develop insights, and lead with those insights in mind.
- Possessing a sense of humor and play - Friedman said, "Playfulness can get you out of a rut more successfully than seriousness." I believe this is true. A sense of humor and the ability to play keeps our brain synapses firing in ways that suppress judgment, help us to be more creative, persevere through challenges, and bridge divides. Laughing at ourselves and laughing with others enables us to appear as "a non-anxious presence," as Friedman would say.
In short, leaders of the future will actually need to be more human than ever before, and this, to me, is wonderful news. At least for now, leadership might still be immune to automation and competition from artificial intelligence. So relax (for now), and enjoy your job security leading your school community and leverage your humanity. Be super-human.
Also, for those who are interested in exploring this topic in depth, you might consider joining us this summer for
June 26-29 at the Steward School, in Richmond VA, We will be going deep into this work of leading in a rapidly changing world.
I hope to see many of you at the NAIS Annual Conference early next month!
Warmly,
Carla Silver
Executive Director
Leadership+Design
*volitile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous
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HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN
IS OUR JAM
Whether you are new to design thinking or a seasoned design thinker, this program will build capacity as a human-centered problem solver.
It's also really fun!
Join us in Los Angeles or Philadelphia
March 10+11, 2017
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Christian Talbot, Head of School, Malvern Preparatory School
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What might the example of an unknown, African American
 protester teach us about the future of school leadership?
I first came across the name DeRay McKesson on July 10, 2016. Our nation had just witnessed the killings of two African American men--one in Baton Rouge, La., one in Falcon Heights, Minn.--followed by the killing of a Dallas, Texas police officer, seemingly in retaliation. In short order, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and demonstrations emerged across America.
In my Twitter feed, the name DeRay McKesson appeared over and over. Who was this guy? And why did people care that he had been arrested?
As it turns out, DeRay was not an unknown protester. He was only "unknown" to me. A quick internet search revealed a
New York Times Magazine profile of him from April 11, 2016. At that
 time, he already had 325,000 followers on Twitter because of his prominent role in the BLM movement. (Since April 2016, his following has doubled.) So on July 10, I clicked the "follow" box on his Twitter. Since then I have observed the steady mobilization of a network of people concerned about not just Black Lives Matter, but other social justice issues too.
For the moment, put DeRay's politics aside. How did a 31-year old African American, gay man, with no official title and no official office and no official institutional support become an influential leader?
I think the answer boils down to two things: networks and purpose.
Entwined like the double helix of DNA, networks and purpose may very well define the future of leadership of all types, and especially school leadership.
When DeRay McKesson flew from Baltimore to Baton Rouge for the BLM demonstrations in early July, he wasn't one person relocating: hundreds of thousands of his followers shifted their attention too. And, DeRay wasn't one person communicating to many; through his Twitter feed, he became a center of gravity for hundreds of thousands of people to interact--with him, with the news, and most of all with one another.
At first I was only reading updates from DeRay, but I soon followed some of the people tweeting at him or about him. And then some of them started following me. Bit by bit, the "nodes" in DeRay's network grew more enmeshed. Along the way, I learned more about BLM, and I encountered a wider range of responses to last summer's shootings than I ever could have done if I had remained outside that network.
And it wasn't just a network. It was a network of purpose. DeRay was personally animated by a deep sense of social justice. Through his network, he harnessed the same sense of purpose in others. I would venture to guess that in some of those "nodes in the network," DeRay catalyzed a sense of purpose that was either dormant or that hadn't existed before.
What impact might "networks of purpose" have on the future of school leadership?
I hesitate to generalize, but here is a modest example. In the wake of the violence of July 2016, I knew that I bore a responsibility as Head of School to my school community. In reflecting on the example of DeRay McKesson, I wondered: What if we could use our school's Mission to activate a sense of purpose in both students and adults? What if that sense of purpose could inspire them to seek out and to ask questions of someone unlike them? So we chose to
design a dialogue. For the effort to work, I felt that I needed to put my money where my mouth was in a
series
of
four
interviews.
I knew that some members of the community would object, but it seemed a much greater risk to pretend that the events of July 2016 were isolated acts of violence and not part of a deeper, systemic problem.
In the numerous, quiet responses of gratitude, relief, and hope from employees, parents, and alumni, I heard something noteworthy: people in a school's network expect their leaders to act as stewards of the community's sense of purpose. One email to me captured that sentiment this way: "
This response was crafted thoughtfully and with a spirit of inclusiveness on what has unfortunately become a divisive issue. This messaging makes me proud and grateful to be part of this community!"
20th century leadership hewed to an industrial model, but as
 General Stanley McChrystal writes in
Team of Teams, "The organization as a rigidly reductionist mechanical beast is an endangered species." What metaphor does this decorated military leader prefer? Gardening. He goes on to say, "Watering, weeding, and protecting plants from rabbits and disease are essential for success. The gardener cannot actually 'grow' tomatoes, squash, or beans--she can only foster an environment in which the plants do so." If that sounds familiar, you probably have heard
Sir Ken Robinson say something similar about schools. Just as gardens are diverse networks of living things nurtured by consistent, healthful resources, so too are schools diverse networks of people--children and adults--nurtured by a shared sense of purpose.
DeRay McKesson wasn't engineering the Black Lives Matter movement. He was watering that network with the values of social justice.
When you look at the future of leadership in your school, are you thinking first of formal titles, and reporting structures? Or can you see through to the invisible, pulsing connections of a network of purpose?
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L+D is ready to help you answer your
NEXT BIG QUESTION.
Join us for a year-long learning adventure.
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School Leadership: In Need of a Structural Renovation?
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Meredith Monk Ford, Executive Director, Folio Collaborative
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School leadership is an increasingly complex balancing act for administrators. There are the immediate fires that crop up on a daily basis, combined with the day to day work of running a school, as well as different expectations from parents and employees all vying for time and attention. In addition, our schools are feeling the pressure to evolve pedagogically. Based on recent brain research we have about how students learn and the increasing complexity of the world we are preparing our students to enter, school leaders have to change the game plan.
As a result, schools are looking for ways to encourage innovation  and more creative teaching practices amongst their faculty. These schools recognize that an important component of school growth and leadership is faculty support, growth, and evaluation, and each institution has a different way of approaching it based on their individual school culture.
So, you have decided that you want your school to enhance the experience of students through better support of the faculty and staff who fuel your school's engine. Below, are some of the issues that might crop up as you implement a process for faculty and staff growth and development:
- Who should supervise whom? While this seems like a simple question, it is not. Cross-over teachers and teacher-coaches are just some examples of challenges to a school's hierarchy.
- "I have too many supervisees to be effective as a leader." This is especially challenging in lower and middle schools where there is very little in the way of "middle managers."
- Those people who are supervisors have not been placed there because of their ability to coach and support instruction, so they resist having growth conversations.
- There is also the age-old challenge of time. This process will add time and responsibility to employees who are already very busy.
In an effort to address the above challenges, some schools have developed their own solutions:
- Use department chairs and grade level leaders as middle managers who manage this process for their departments.
- Create/change positions such as Dean of Faculty and Dean of Curriculum and Instruction to oversee, manage, and support the process.
- Seek opportunities for teacher leaders to take more of a role in the growth and development process.
But even in those models...
- Some supervisors are overloaded, and the experience is not consistent across the institution.
- Many employees in supervisory positions still do not feel equipped to have important but sometimes tough conversations about the work.
So, it seems that school leaders still do not have the perfect  recipe to successfully support and challenge employees while also performing their other managerial responsibilities. Administrators are pulled in too many directions to give attention to issues that are not on fire. Teachers continue to feel unsupported and/or unclear about what and how they are supposed to be teaching differently in this quickly evolving and demanding climate. In many cases, the old structure is also not designed to foster leadership and ownership in young ambitious faculty. Perhaps now is the time to step back and reconsider the leadership structures of most schools. It is not that we have the wrong people in leadership positions; it's that the structure of the organization does not set anyone up for success. While I do not have the perfect solution to this dilemma, below are some questions to consider that will help you strategically rethink your current school leadership structure and ultimately lead to better results:
- What is it that we are trying to accomplish as an institution on a daily and annual basis, and who/what skills do we need to get that done? What kind of people do we need to attract to accomplish this vision and what are they looking for in a work environment?
- What kind of environment are we preparing students to enter and how can we mirror/model that in our own institution?
- What does good teaching look like and how do we know when it's happening (or isn't)? Is everyone in our institution in agreement about that definition? Is everyone working in a common direction? Who should be setting that direction and vision? How is it communicated? How is it evaluated?
- In an age of collaboration and more skills-based learning, does our current departmentalized structure support that kind of education effectively?
As someone who works with schools around the country to help them think through institutional change, I am not under the illusion that the answers to any of these questions are clear or easy. However, I believe that the schools who are willing to ask these questions will emerge the instructional leaders in our community. They will attract the most innovative talent and they will get the best results from students.
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| Toggle: Mining the Gap Between Perspectives and Timeframes |
| Greg Bamford, Head of School, Watershed School |
Toggling is at the heart of learning and action. When at Watershed, we ask students to do rigorous work in the field, and  then toggle back to what they learned in the classroom. Meaningful learning comes from mining that gap between one way of learning and the other.
As a Head of School in the joyful day-to-day mess of school life, I am also challenged to toggle between one way of learning and the other.
Here's what I mean:
Toggle between short term and long term. Every day, do something that matters on that day: checking in with a kid after a victory or a suspension. Picking up trash as you walk down the hall. Listen to the murmurs in the hallway that indicates excitement about class, and the sudden change of topic when you walk into the faculty workroom.
But every week, you need to do something that no one will notice for one year, or five. Start to collect the data that will lead to a change in faculty compensation two years from now. Ask for the first gift of one hundred that will lead to a new campus. Find a way to give better feedback, so that classrooms two years from now will be transformed.
The power of this toggle is not in separating these two domains, not saying, "I'm looking at the big picture now." It's in finding the connection between the two time horizons, the way in which the long-term work sets up changes in the day-to-day.
Toggle between implementation and evaluation. Use early data to make changes, while also understanding that "everything looks like a failure in the middle." Leaders must think about what's not working right now while shifting to a confidence in where the process is going. The power of toggling between these perspectives lies in using current problems to pivot and make sure you get where you're headed.
Evaluating too early can have you declaring initiatives a failure before they've had the chance to take root. But data collection is critical to making an early pivot By mining the gap between what you're doing and how it's going, you can make small adjustments that keep your initiatives on track.
Toggle between listening and reflecting. The heart of this action is personal vulnerability tethered to clarity of purpose. Leaders must be willing to live in a difficult and unstable space where they are willing to be open to new information and outside perspective. At the same time, they have time away from others to discern what really matters in those messages.
Making an intentional practice of shifting between two dialectic ways of knowing helps leaders to separate the signal from the noise around them.
Mining the gap between two modes of action helps leaders pivot in the moment, adjusting toward a future state that may not not yet seen.
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