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 2019.
Design Studio
April 19, 2019
Tacoma, WA
Equity and Inclusion Action Lab
Design Studio
May 16 and 17
Indian Wells, CA
Human Centered Design for Admissions Professionals
(with AISAP)
Wonder Women
June 24-27, 2019
Oakland, CA
Uncovering your Superpowers and Leadership Presence
UnMastered
July 15 - August 1, 2019
Online
Because the game has changed.
Design Studio
October 2-3, 2019
Washington, DC
Designing for Student Civic Engagement
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L+D Board of Directors
Ryan Baum
VP of Strategy
Jump Associates, CA
Matt Glendinning
(Secretary)
Head of School
Moses Brown School,
RI
Trudy Hall (Board Chair)
Director of Strategic Initiatives
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
Brenda Leaks
Head of School
Seattle Girls School, WA
Karan Merry
Retired Head of School
Brooklyn, NY
Jeanette Moore
CFO
The San Francisco School, CA
Natalie Nixon
Founder
Figure 8 Consulting, PA
Kaleb Rashad
Principal
High Tech High School, CA
Carla Robbins Silver (ex-officio)
Executive Director
Leadership+Design, CA
Matthew Stuart
Head of School
Caedmon School, NY
Brad Weaver
Head of School
Sonoma Country Day School, CA
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L+D Fellows
2018-19
RIPL Designer
McGillis School, UT
Michael Ecker
Principal
Calavera Hills Middle School, CA
Kristen Erickson
History Department Chair and Art Gallery Director
Greenwich Academy, CT
Jon Freer
Director of Technology and Innovative Teaching
Solebury School, PA
Rhonda Hewer
Learning Services Consultant
Waterloo Region District School Board, Ontario, Canada
Louise Lindsay
Innovation Coach
Knoxville Jewish Day School, TN
Sonja McKay
Teacher
Exploris School, NC
Stephanie Mendrala
Director of Professional Development
STEM School Highlands Ranch, CO
Ingrid Moore
Director of Lower School
The Steward School, VA
Brian Mull
Innovation and Learning Design Coordinator
Trinity Episcopal School, NOLA
Hannah Nelson
Science Teacher and Academic Dean
Watershed School, CO
Gwenyth Nicholson
8th Grade Humanities Teacher
Saco Middle School, ME
Bobby Pollicino
Upper School Principal
Bullis School, MD
Sara Slogesky
K-12 Social Studies Curriculum Specialist
Capital Region Education Council Magnet Schools, CT
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| More Pooh, Less Eeyore:
Reframing Worry to Wonder and Concern to Curiosity
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Carla Silver, Head L+Doer
Leadership+Design
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Over the past five years, Leadership+Design has partnered with dozens of schools, helping them to navigate their strategic planning processes. I've been consistently surprised by the sense of anxiety and dread about a process that, to me, should feel hopeful and invigorating. Planning for the future should be fun, exciting and a little like preparing for an extended travel adventure, with a little bit of foresight waring off any bumps, detours or wrong turns. But two words seem to be emerging from schools with ever more frequency:
worry and concern.
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"We are worried that we won't be bold enough. (or we will be too bold.)"
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"I'm concerned that we will lose our way if we aren't careful."
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"We worry that we won't be able to successfully implement the plan."
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I'm worried that someone will have a really great idea but we will never be able to pay for it!"
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"I'm concerned our strategic planning team members won't have a good experience."
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"We are worried about managing too much change."
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"We are concerned that there won't be buy-in for this plan."
The list goes on.
I understand how planning for the future might be the source of some anticipation. Alas, I'm simply not wired for worry, and while my empathy muscle is generally toned, this is one place it fails to flex. 1) I'm a Possibilian by nature and optimistic about most things. I generally assume good intentions and good will. Leadership+Design is built on a "can-do spirit" and our core values favor action over perfection. 2) I'm a proud "Type B" personality in a "Type A" world - and it serves me well. I've never sweated the small stuff. It's not that details aren't important - experience design is all about details.
But the right details.
Not all details are created equal. Some need attention and others are distractions. Type B people are quite good at differentiating between the two. And the space that is left by not dwelling on the distracting details allows us to step back, reframe and not get lost in the trees when we should be attending to the forest. "Worry" and "concern" are distracting words that often have us myopically focusing on all the wrong details.
Great leaders understand that words have meaning and impact. Author Don Miguel Ruiz in his iconic book The Four Agreements, advises: "Be impeccable with your word." The words "worry" and "concern" are often carelessly tossed into conversation like logs onto a fire, and the impact unsurprisingly ignites anxiety and contributes to a narrative that is both dangerous and unhelpful. These two little worlds do little to move a process or a culture forward and instead lead groups to analysis paralysis. I've watch these words take down an otherwise productive and lively meeting. The devil's advocate strikes. "I'm worried this isn't feasible."
My ten-year old has just been cast as Winnie the Pooh in a local
children's musical production, so I've been running lines with her. I've been reading lines for Piglet, Rabbit, Tigger and Eeyore and reminded of how Pooh's rather "half-brained" ideas fueled by optimism and general common sense save the day for his more pessimistic, overly concerned friends who get so worked up that they can't see the obvious answers. They worry, while he just acts.
What if strategic planning was more like Pooh and less like Eeyore? What if we took the words
worry and concern
out of strategic planning, and we replaced them with
wonder and curiosity
instead? Imagine the questions above with these new words:
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"I wonder how we can be bold."
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"I'm curious about the experience our strategic planning team might have."
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"I wonder about how to get buy-in for this plan."
Suddenly we have control of the outcome. We have many possibilities. We are action and solution oriented, not passive bystanders of the situation.
And it's not just strategic planning. Consider practicing this vernacular switcheroo in your daily conversation. Wherever you hear yourself say "I worry. . ." replace it with "I wonder." When you think aloud "I'm concerned about," just stop and say, "I'm curious about." My guess is that you, along with everyone in the conversation, will find yourself less anxious and more capable, less stressed and more solution-oriented.
The following articles by Brad Weaver (Sonoma Country Day School), Chelle Wabrek (Episcopal School of Dallas), and Antonio Viva and Suzanne Carpenter (Walnut Hill School for the Arts) all offer different analogies for strategic planning. "What if strategic planning was more like ___________ and less like _____________?" For those of you considering a strategic planning process, you might find one article to inspire you - or consider your own analogy for strategic planning that might guide you in your work.
Now that it is March, I want to highlight two really exciting summer options that are capacity builders for leaders at all points in their career. If you want to lead at your highest potential and are ready to do some important work then consider joining us for one of these.
Wonder Women!
is our program for women leaders who want to develop and practice their signature leadership presence. This year we are back in Oakland, CA at
Head-Royce School.
We also have a brand new summer online program.
UnMastered
is not your typical online experience. It is a three week intensive and deeply human experience where you will engage with a cohort of leaders and work collaboratively on six different challenges. We promise all of the human interaction of our face to face experiences with the opportunity to learn from home. But don't expect it to be easy- just a little more convenient.
Of course if you want a place-based experience with L+D,
Santa Fe Seminar
registration is open for our November program. It is always filled with the most amazing individuals - and this year, it could be you!
Warmly,
Carla Silver
Executive Director
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| From a Perspective of Delight |
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Brad Weaver, Head of School, Sonoma Country Day School
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What if strategic planning was more like gardening and less like clear cutting?
One of award winning poet Ross Gay's favorite pastimes is gardening, and his poems and essays are richly imbued with the imagery and language of his garden. In an interview with PBS NewsHour he shared that, "Gardening slows me down. I want to stop and observe everything."
I wonder if there are lessons from gardening to be learned for how to approach strategic planning, starting with "slowing down and observing everything." Too often, organizations take a "clear cutting" approach to strategic planning, clearing out the ways of doing things that have previously sustained an organization to pursue the latest in fashion strategy, later to abandon that when the next strategic plan is being developed. Out with the old and in with the new! Clear cutting as a forestry practice, when practiced thoughtlessly on a large scale, results in degraded soil, loss of habitat and species diversity, and even encourages invasive species to take over an ecosystem. Obviously, when we engage in strategic planning our intentions are not to degrade or make our organizations less diverse or less creative.
If we apply a gardener's eye to strategic planning, what might happen if we slow down and observe everything first? What would this look like? If your organization is a school, perhaps shadowing students as they go about their day, interviewing all constituents, spending time in classrooms observing teaching and learning, and looking at a wide range of data that provides evidence of how your mission is being fulfilled.
Most importantly, perhaps starting with a question to guide your inquiry. Our school's board of trustees practices the mantra "inquiry precedes assertion." Observant gardening should naturally lead to questions: what are the conditions that will make my garden thrive, would this plant do better in a spot with less sun or more water, how will this amendment affect my harvest, where did all these slugs suddenly come from??? Ross Gay uses poetry in the same manner. He told PBS that "he writes poems about things that he has powerful questions about, 'questions that a poem won't answer. But maybe they will further illuminate the question.'"
In preparation for a recent leadership team retreat for our school that Head L+Doer Carla Silver facilitated, we read A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas by Warren Berger. At the retreat we practiced the art of asking questions about challenging strategic questions and persistent problems within our organization. Many of these questions provided the focus for our next strategic planning effort, which we are about to conclude.
Gardening is also about finding delight: the joy of hard work with the earth, bringing in a first harvest, sharing gardening with children, the incomparable taste of a homegrown tomato. Delight is another muse for Ross Gay. He recently published a collection of essays stemming from the beautiful questions: could he write an essay every day for a year finding delight in his daily experiences, and how might his perception change if he approached his life from this perspective of delight? The resulting collection of essays is aptly entitled The Book of Delights.
In the introduction to The Book of Delights, Ross Gay writes, "It didn't take me long to learn that the discipline or practice of  writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study... Which is to say, I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight."
Clear cutting somehow implies a deficit. This forest land has more value for its timber, as agricultural land, as a shopping mall or an apartment complex. Strategic planning runs that same risk when approached from the perspective that "our organization has the following limitations or weaknesses, and this new strategic plan will address those."
Imagine if, like delight nurtured by a garden which we have devoted countless hours to cultivating, we approached strategic planning from a perspective of delight. Perhaps a strategic planning effort should be preceded by a year long study of all the things in a school community that elicit delight in students, faculty and staff, and parents, followed by the beautiful question: "How might we cultivate all those things that bring delight in learning and sustain the conditions to help them continue to grow and prosper?" I suspect that would result in a very different strategic plan.
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Chelle Wabrek, Interim Head of Middle School, Episcopal School of Dallas
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What if strategic planning was more like Netflix and less like Blockbuster?
At a recent Middle School faculty meeting, teachers were challenged with a "mad libs" structure to explore the meaning of demerits, lovingly called "community violations." Demerits can easily become the black hole of a faculty meeting (like "carpool" at a Lower School faculty meeting, or "attendance" at an Upper School one), and the goal was to create a lively dialogue about the value of this accounting system. The storytelling that ensued was revealing, provocative and connective as the metaphors allowed direct, honest communication without finger-wagging. Their ideas provided a treasure trove for reflection on the "why" and began to reveal the networks at play in our school ecosystem.
What if demerits were:
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less like Panda Express and more like Benihana.
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less like going to the dentist and more like teeth whitening.
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less like a dropped stitch and more like a seed stitch.
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less like a roller coaster and more like a bridge.
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less like a speeding ticket and more like a defensive driving class.
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less like a barium swallow and more like a shot of tequila.
The exercise put my brain in gear for the strategic planning on deck for our executive team : "What if strategic planning was less like Blockbuster and more like Netflix?"
In my young life, I worked at the Sound Warehouse on Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans when it was acquired by  Blockbuster in the early 90s. So, as a former extremely low-level Blockbuster employee (read cash register operator), the metaphor has great meaning to me, having worn that navy blue polo and khaki pants to work for exactly one year.
At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster ruled the video rental world with 9,000 stores worldwide. No plans on Friday night? Let's go rent a movie. It captured the spontaneity of those without a plan and perusing the shelves for just the right move was almost as much fun as watching the movie itself......until it was a day late. Or two days late. Or, God forbid, a week late. Sixteen percent of Blockbuster's revenue came from late fees, almost $800 million in the year 2000 -- the same year the company passed on a $50 million option to buy a small upstart Los Gatos company called Netflix.
Blockbuster CEO, John Antioco, had been watching consumer behavior carefully and studied off the chess board of home movie rentals with an eagle eye. Blockbuster ran like a well-oiled machine within a tightly-efficient network, making profit hand over fist by penalizing customers. A fortune built on punitive charges, on the assumption that people would screw up, miss deadlines and lose tapes-- the demerits of the video rental world! In fact, it was Antioco's dabbling with the removal of late fees and investment in an online component for the company that got him fired......just as Netflix, thought to simply be a niche business, burst onto the scene.
Blockbuster was resistant to change and felt their brand would continue to thrive into perpetuity. Their found safety in viewing strategy as a series of moves, rather than a deepening and widening of connections. Netflix, on the other hand, was nimble, flexible and moved with agility to create systems (not solutions) that would be able to respond to a changing ecosystem of entertainment.
Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix, works to continually deepen the networks and connections that make up the entertainment industry. He knows that the company's success is not about the ideas they have but about the questions they ask. Why can't we create content instead of just streaming someone else's? Why can't we release a whole season in a single day? Why can't we change the relationship between people and entertainment? Netflix is a company of learners, and explorers - not knowers - continually seeking out feedback, viewing their users as members of a broadening ecosystem.
As Rita Bunther McGrath, Columbia University professor and author of Seeing Around Corners (2019), notes, Netflix's braintrust spent their time "planning to learn," rather than "learning to plan." They focused on their ecosystem instead of their institution and built a platform, not a conglomerate that works to continually expand connections in an effort to deepen capacity. This mindset allows them to notice the transformative opportunities that appear and to manage competitive threats in a way that carries their vision forward.
How do we do this in schools? How do we make our strategic planning less like Blockbuster and more like Netflix? Or, stated in nautical terms, how do we make our strategic planning less  like an anchor and more like a sail? A plan that is a
verb
, not a
noun
. As believers in the transformative power of education, the mindset of learning, not knowing, must sit at the heart of "planning to learn," instead of "learning to plan." Looking five, ten and fifteen years out, we might imagine exponential change in our ecosystem, and any guiding plan must propel us forward as learners, continually asking the questions that allow our work to engage the minds of students and teachers and parents.
Netflix created a revolution -- and that is our charge. Our educational institutions are anchored in industrial era thinking and our students and teachers deserve the sail to propel them into an uncertain future. Does your planning strive to keep your institution safe (and stuck), or does it show how you will plan to learn in the coming decade, expanding your ecosystem in service to children? Schools that survive (a topic for another article) and thrive over the next few years will be those that are asking the good, hard questions and those with the mindset and agility to adapt to needed change.
As Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at Google X, pushes, "Imagine you're Willy Wonka. Your chocolate factory should be staffed by Peter Pans with PhDs wearing t-shirts that say, 'Safety Third.'" Have you developed the culture of continuous learning, harnessing the creative optimism and abundance of the minds in your ecosystem to see the invisible networks in which you are enmeshed? Like Netflix are you brainstorming questions that get you to a new horizon instead of focusing on what you are going to "fix?" Make your plan a verb and put on those t-shirts that say, "Safety third!"
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| No Need to Climb Kilimanjaro |
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Antonio Viva, Head of School and Susanne Carpenter, Assistant Head of School, Walnut Hill School for the Arts
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What if strategic planning was more like talking a daily walk and less like climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro?
Have you climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro? While some of you have, for many this is a bucket list dream or something you have no interest in ever accomplishing. So we wonder why so many schools approach their strategic planning process in the same way that one would climb one of the world's major peaks. Have you ever considered how strategic planning might look more like taking a daily walk and less like climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro?
Neither of us have actually climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro or any of the other major world peaks. Walnut Hill's annual tradition of climbing Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire provides yearly insight on the much needed preparation for a day hike much less a major trek. We do our best to prepare the senior class for the day through careful preparation and information about the necessary gear needed. Despite this planning when the day finally arrives, it proves challenging for many, easy for some and often life-changing for all. And yet, it pales in comparison to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.
When it comes to strategic planning, why do schools approach this important school effort in the same way as climbing a mountain? Just Google "Preparing to Hike Mt. Kilimanjaro" and thousands of websites pop up with advice. You need to prepare for a climb of this nature. Important equipment is needed. You must train for weeks and months before your actual climb. Plus you'll need to book plane tickets and places to stay, deal with entry and passport issues, as well as vaccinations and medications you might need. In many ways, the preparation is just time consuming as the actual climb.
Once you arrive at the base to begin your climb to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro, your days usually start at midnight. You hike for eight hours and this will continue this process for anywhere between five to nine days. When you finally reach the top, it becomes clear that the effort was worthwhile, you take a celebratory photograph, post it to your Instagram and you begin the arduous task of descending down. This can be more dangerous than the original ascent and is often when injuries occur. You are tired, you know that the exhilaration of making it to the top is over and now your bag feels overwhelmingly heavy and you begin putting one foot in front of the other other trying to keep your balance and focus on the task ahead.
We believe most schools approach strategic planning in this same way. Boards often oversee this process and work with heads and leadership teams to establish steering committees. Consultants are interviewed and selected. Employees are sorted into a variety of committee structures, and the process often involves looking at data, collecting surveys, drafting, redrafting, and rewording. Feedback is given and received. This usually requires considerable school time, a precious commodity, until 12 to 18 months later a plan is generated, including anywhere between 3 to 8 large institutional goals with subsequent initiatives totaling 6 to 10 initiatives per goal. Schools share and publish this plan with anywhere from 3 to 5 years out for full implementation. Think of it like the weight of your pack, for all of this to happen, the more you stuff in, the heavier the pack gets.
The strategic planning process often doesn't get many opportunities for breaks, or catching your breath. And if weather conditions change, you are already making your way up the mountain and all this effort could be for nothing. Why do we try to emulate a process that requires this kind of substantial institutional effort when we could approach this work more like a daily walk? Daily walks are good for your overall health. Anyone can do it. A daily walk, requires no special equipment other than comfortable shoes and appropriate clothing for the weather that day. If it's raining, you just slip on a rain jacket. If it's cold, you put on a hat. Daily walks become a routine practice that you look forward to and build into your regular schedule.
Daily walks can be done in groups or alone. They can take ten minutes or can last for multiple hours. The effort to build up your stamina occurs over a period of time and provides the ability to increase your goal with manageable, every day effort. Imagine if schools approach their strategic work in this way. Meetings would look different. Department or division work would look different. The institution now approaches it's overall health in the same way. It doesn't wait for perfect conditions. It doesn't need you to acquire special equipment, and it certainly doesn't need to exert extraordinary effort for a specified period of time. The school now has a daily practice of walking all the time and as such, strategic priorities, initiatives and work become the fabric of everything a school does.
It seems obvious, sometimes, making it a life goal to climb one of the world's largest peaks might make sense for some people. Some schools may choose to approach their work in this way because it feels right or it may be necessary for long term sustainability and survival. However, we imagine that for many schools, if they took a good, long hard look at how they work every day and how they spend their time, what they focus their efforts on, approaching those tasks strategically would benefit the institution and provide a path for success over the long term. Take a look outside right now and ask yourselves, if the weather seems nice for a walk, why are are you still sitting down?
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