Elevate... from Good to Great

I chose elevate as my #OneWord for 2023. The next step is sometimes forgotten. For me, it is to begin consideration of the application of my one word. Early on in my one-word journey, I was content to simply reflect on my one-word and then commit to continuing to reflect on it as the year went along. I am confident that I did not get the benefit from the one word that I might have. In recent years, I have really made an effort to move from being content to just hanging out in the adoption phase to purposefully and meaningfully moving into an implementation phase.

This brings me to 2023 and my selection of elevate as my one word. I also chose three areas of focus: my work, the profession, and promoting kindness. How do I elevate my work? How do I elevate our profession? How do I elevate kindness? On a recent run, I found myself pondering these questions and found myself reminiscing back to a book I read many years ago, a book first published in 2001. In this Information Age, with writers suggesting that human knowledge is doubling every two years, what could a 22-year-old book possibly have to teach me or anyone else about elevating my work in 2023? Depending on the book, perhaps quite a bit. I’ll let you judge for yourself the timeliness and timelessness of the book’s lessons.

The book I am referring to is the book titled, “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap …and Others Don’t” by Jim Collins. For me, it is a touchstone text that continues to pop up in random discussions because of the power of the lessons.

Perhaps one of the greatest takeaways from the book and one of the most repeated phrases that I have heard from others is Collins’ assertion that good is the enemy of great. He surmised that few people manage to achieve greatness in their lives as they settle too quickly for a comfortable life. We can probably all name an Edleader who seemed destined for greatness, on the fast track to ever-increasing responsibilities, who just seemed to fizzle out, or who reached a particular level and never moved beyond it. If we are not careful and if we do not actively seek continuous improvement, we stagnate.

I tend to be very generous with praise for the EdLeaders I serve with, primarily because I hold them in such awe and because I do believe they are praiseworthy. I do worry sometimes though that if a teammate in the school system hears from the superintendent how well they are doing, they may believe they have arrived and stop working hard to improve. Now, for most, that is simply not going to happen, but for some, good is the enemy of great. They become good and they become comfortable and they never become great, they never maximize their skills and opportunity to make a deep and lasting difference in the lives of students.

My #OneWord2023, elevate, is my determination not to be comfortable. As one of the more experienced School Superintendents in our state, I might be tempted to think that I have the answers and that I know how to be a great superintendent. I don’t. I am not satisfied. The students and team members I serve deserve the very best I can be, not the very best I have been.

So then, prepared to elevate, I turn to the eight lessons in “Good to Great.” I call them “lessons” because I am an educator and I learned from each. In the book, he refers to the eight shared qualities they found in great companies as the factors that decide whether a company can become great.

I will pause hear to share that in a later monograph, Jim Collins wrote that schools should not strive to be more business-like. He said:

“We must reject the idea—well-intentioned, but dead wrong—that the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become "more like a business." Most businesses—like most of anything else in life—fall somewhere between mediocre and good. Few are great. When you compare great companies with good ones, many widely practiced business norms turn out to correlate with mediocrity, not greatness. So, then, why would we want to import the practices of mediocrity into the social sectors?”

The point is that when we attempt to learn from other leaders in other areas like businesses, professional athletics, non-profits, governments, etc., we are not trying to make education exactly like any of them because we have a different purpose and mission. We are trying to tease out great practices that can help us grow as leaders.

So then, I turn back to Jim Collins’ book and what he learned about great companies in his research.

First, in each of the 11 great businesses he studied, he found “Level Five Leadership.” A level-five leader is an executive who creates an enduring legacy of greatness through a blend of humility and professional determination. Level Five Leaders are focused on the organization being successful rather than focusing on personal success.

Level Five Leaders are humble, giving all the credit to the team and accepting any and all blame for any mistakes made by the organization. They also ensure that the company is set up for long-term success that outlives the tenure of the current leader. The truth is that if a school or a school district or a company falls apart after the principal, superintendent, or CEO leaves, then any previous success was on the short-term, person-dependent success of the previous leader rather than growth in the organization.

Truly, to measure the difference a leader makes you really need to check back in with the organization a year, two years, and five years after they leave to see how the organization is doing.

Jim Collins points out that Level Five Leaders use self-reflection, personal mentors, teachers, coaches, and learning from significant life experiences to grow as leaders.

The second factor, or in our world, the lesson, is “First Who…Then What.” In the book, Collins writes that the leaders of companies that made the transition from good to great “said, in essence, ‘Look, I don't really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we'll figure out how to take it someplace great.’” Good-to-great companies first get the right people on board before working out the vision of their company.

This concept of getting the right people on the bus is absolutely crucial in our work in education. It is perhaps more difficult than ever to get the right people because of the talent pipeline issues we are currently working through right now, but it has never been more important.

When we have the right people, we don’t need to micromanage them or encourage them to do a good job; it is ingrained within them. They believe in the school or the school system because they believe in the value of their teammates.

New leaders, particularly those new to a school or a school district, must learn about their new teammates, to learn their strengths and areas of improvement. Often, they find amazing teams ready to take off and do great things. Sometimes, they find teams in need of improvement.

“Collins suggests a three-step system for improving a team, without resorting to mass firings:

1. When in doubt, don’t hire, keep looking. It is much more costly for a company to hire the wrong person in the long run than to delay the process and find the right person eventually.
2. When it does become evident that a group or an individual is a bad match for the company, act quickly, but not before assessing whether that group or individual would be better matched elsewhere within the team.
3. Allocate the best team members to the company’s biggest opportunities – not its biggest problems, ensuring that you get the best out of your existing workforce.” (McFarlane)

The third lesson is to “Confront the Brutal Facts but Don’t Lose Faith.”

A good-to-great company must hold tight to the belief that it can and will prevail against all odds, while also accepting the (often brutal) facts about the company’s current reality.

I strongly believe that a principal must be the school’s greatest cheerleader just as a superintendent must be the school district’s greatest cheerleader. This cheerleading must be authentic and come from a deeply-held belief that the school or district can and will succeed. The leader must truly believe that the team they serve has the capability and capacity to improve student outcomes.

At the same time, we must be informed by data. For quite a while, the en vogue jargon for educators was “data-driven.” Later, recognizing the multitude of factors going into our work, including the realities our students live in, we began to more appropriately use the term, data-informed. Regardless of the terminology, we have to understand the data we have and we have to use it to inform instructional decisions.

When we know our own “brutal facts,” we can tease out the strategies that will work for our students. There are no silver bullets, no one-size-fits-all, and no cure-all in education. Our students are individual and unique. Our schools are individual and unique. We have to understand our own uniqueness by knowing our data. Jim Collins writes that we must create a “culture of truth.”

A culture of truth adheres to the following four principles:

• Lead with questions, not answers. Asking questions is an excellent way of getting a better understanding of the truth. To ask questions also indicates that one is willing to be vulnerable enough to demonstrate that they do not have all of the answers. It’s in this safe environment where reality-based problem-solving can occur.
• Engage in dialogue and debate, not correction. Instead of just creating sham debates to make employees feel like they’ve all had their say even if the CEOs have already chosen the course of action, genuinely let a team debate the issues to come up with some more informed solutions.
• Conduct autopsies without blame. In doing so, a culture in which the truth can be heard without fear of backlash can thrive.
• Build “red flag” mechanisms. This mechanism means entitling every member of a workforce to the right to be heard without judgment on any issue that may be concerning them, equipping them with a metaphorical “red flag” that they can raise at any time.

The fourth lesson is not a new one to longtime listeners of the EdLeader podcast. Listeners may remember that Dr. Tanya Turner, Superintendent in Perquimans County, has been on the podcast twice and each time referenced “The Hedgehog Concept.” She was referring to this lesson in "Good to Great."

The Hedgehog concept comes from Isaiah Berlin’s essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” which is based on an ancient Greek parable in which he divides the world into two categories: Hedgehogs and foxes. The fox knows a vast variety of different things, but the hedgehog knows one thing and knows it well.

In talking with Dr. Turner, she discussed literacy as being the hedgehog concept in the school district she serves. Her high-performing district focuses on literacy. It is what they want to be best in the world at. It is what they want to be known for. In having a clear focus, the entire school district, from teachers across content areas and grade levels to student support personnel know what is being focused on and direct their efforts in that direction.

Great leaders lead their organizations to identify the one thing that they know well, focus on, and that they are passionate about. From this place of focus and passion comes the power to overcome complacency.

The fifth lesson is to create a “Culture of Discipline.” When we serve with a disciplined team, the hierarchy becomes irrelevant. Teammates should not have to come to the leader for every decision, nor should there be an atmosphere of chaos, with no rhyme or reason to decisions that are made. In education, every single member of the team should be seen as a leader with the freedom and flexibility to make decisions within an agreed-upon framework.

Using the word discipline in a conversation with educators always worries me a bit because “discipline” can be a big part of an administrator’s day. We have to be careful in considering this lesson to not conflate the tenets of student discipline with its layers of meaning and issues with Collins’ concept of discipline where team members have developed habits of thought, action, and speech toward reaching school and school system goals of improving student outcomes, improving efficiency, etc.

When the Hedgehog Concept of the organization is known and zealously followed in a disciplined environment, great performance is achieved.

The sixth factor on the road from good to great is the use of “Technology Accelerators.” There is no question that technology is an integral part of the work we do. Our work during the pandemic would have looked very different if students did not have individual digital learning devices like laptops, iPads, etc. We could not have operated the way we did without the internet, handing out hot spots allowing access via cellular signals, being able to create wi-fi zones in school parking lots, and all of the many things we did using technology to allow students to learn away from school.

That being said, there are also examples in each of our careers where an over-zealous, hopefully well-meaning, vendor attempted to sway an educator into purchasing the latest, greatest piece of technology or software with little regard for whether it was actually needed. Worse is when those purchases are made and then the shiny new object becomes a dust collector on a shelf in a classroom or a closet because it wasn’t needed, wanted, or didn’t really make a difference.

Rather than fall victim to an impulse purchase, Collins recommends that the following be considered before selecting a new piece of technology:

• Does this piece of technology match the Hedgehog Concept?
• If yes, then the company needs to become a pioneer in the application of this technology.
• If no, then is it worthwhile using this technology at all? If not, then the technology is irrelevant.

If our Hedgehog Concept is accelerating the academic growth of our students, then anything that does not help us achieve that goal is a waste of time and resources. If we are not careful, we become reactionary to new technological advancements. We become terrified of being “left behind” and, therefore, do everything we can to alter operations to incorporate the latest pieces of technology, often leading them away from our mission and purpose.

The seventh lesson is the “Flywheel Effect and the Doom Loop.” The biggest takeaway from the flywheel effect and the doom loop is that sustainable transformations follow a prolonged period of buildup before a lasting breakthrough can take place. There are no quick fixes. The good-to-great process doesn’t happen overnight. Success comes after much-focused attention is applied to moving a company in a single direction over a long period until a point of breakthrough is breached.

In the book, Jim Collins asks the reader to imagine a 5,000-pound metal disc mounted horizontally on an axle. Initially, the heavy disc is extremely difficult to rotate. However, with subsequent pushes, it begins to pick up speed and becomes much easier to push as it flies forward with an almost unstoppable force. Getting to that moment took many pushes, all in the same direction, over time. This “flywheel effect is what occurs when leaders keep organizations focused on their Hedgehog concept, working together, and aligned in their efforts.

The “doom loop” is employed by organizations or schools that try something, but do not experience immediate success, give up, and go try something else. Over and over, they fall victim to the latest and greatest thing to come by, give it a try, and move on before there is any chance of making a real difference.

Keeping the team spinning the same flywheel until it becomes that “unstoppable force” is achieved easier when the intermediate results are tracked, reported, and celebrated. These celebrations become motivators for teammates to keep going.

The eighth and final lesson comes from a book that Collins actually wrote before “Good to Great.” The concept is “From Good to Great to Built to Last.” To ensure that greatness endures, core values and purpose must underpin every decision. He recommends that leaders lean into the genius of “and” instead of falling victim to the tyranny of “or.” When possible, when confronted by either/or scenarios between two positive choices, great leaders will look for ways to incorporate both instead of simply choosing one.

Granted, the book is 22 years old and the concepts are not new. However, the process of simply reflecting on these timeless lessons as I consider my one word and my desire to elevate my work, elevate my profession, and elevate kindness wherever I go, has been productive. I am sure that I will find myself thinking through these lessons as the year progresses, probably while out for a run where I do some of my best thinking.

Again, Happy New Year! May it be your best year ever!



References:
Book Summary: Good to Great by Jim Collins by Elle McFarlane [Article]

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't by Jim Collins

Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer by Jim Collins [Monograph]