Keeping the world connected through issues that impact urban and regional policy and development.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Robert Reich Delivers The Truth about the Economy... in Two Minutes
With all the political posturing and dodginof real solutions about our economy coming from D.C., this video short brings to light the drastic measures that are needed to pull us out of economic freefall. As professionals, I hope you can leverage this information in your decision making and strategic planning.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Making Harsh Decisions Brought Starbucks Back from the Brink of Disaster
On 7 April 2011, I attended a lunch event at which Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks Coffee Company) discussed his new book, Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul
. For those of you who don't recall, Starbucks found itself with an identity crisis in 2007. It's passion for coffee and customer experience had gotten lost behind a subconcious appeasement of Wall Street. By focusing on P/E ratios and stock price, Starbucks was losing its soul.
Schultz had stepped down from the helm of the company, but he still served as chairman of the board. "I should have been paying attention," he said when commenting on the company losing its way. Schultz re-took the helm and worked hard to steer the company back in the right direction. That meant making tough decisions. Starbucks retooled its business model to focus heavily on the customer experience. In fact, the company spent $7 million to close all of its North American stores for a day to retrain its employees. The move drew harsh criticism and sank their share price to an all time low of just above $6. They closed store locations and laid off employees for the first time in its history. This was hard-hitting for Schultz, who grew up in the projects in Brooklyn. He watched his father take a major blow to his career when he lost his job, worker's comp, and health insurance. He did not want to do the same to his own employees, but found he was faced with no choice. Making these tough decisions saved Starbucks and put them on a path to recovery.
Making tough choices can be painful and emotional. Many of the company leaders and entrepreneurs who read this blog don't have to turn a battleship the size of Starbucks. But making significant changes in times of challenge and struggle require significant investment. Your entire team has to be on board. And if they aren't, then it's time to get rid of them. Schultz knew that with the changes they were making, they needed people who not only had the skills and shared the company values, but also believed in the change. Nine of 11 of its leadership did not, and as a result, they are no longer with the company. It's only when leaders can make tough decisions like these in times of challenge that good companies can grow to become truly great -- and in a case like Starbucks, recapture its former glory.
Mr. Schultz also made it clear that in today's marketplace, principles and values matter the most. If companies "wash" their marketing with green or social claims that aren't true, consumers will go elsewhere and not purchase from you. Tracy A. Corley & Associates works with company to capture their vision, mission, values, and position so that they have a clear framework for articulating and communicating their souls. I asked Mr Schultz how growing companies could do a better job of creating consistency in their cultures. He was direct in stating that human resources must have a seat at the big table (ie. not just be relegated to subordinate role in the organization), otherwise the message would not be embedded throughout the culture.
If you have experienced a setback like Starbucks in recent years and would like to recapture your market position while retaining your soul, it's not too late. Though painful and emotional, I can turn your ship around and help you make the tough decisions like the ones that brought Starbucks back from the brink of disaster. Call me at 206.782.4040 to capture your strategic framework, create a strategic plan, map your business model, and assess your organization for efficiency and growth.
Information on how to capture the values and principles that drive your organization can also be found in my book, The Strategy String: An Organizational Primer for Tying Strategy to Performance
.
. For those of you who don't recall, Starbucks found itself with an identity crisis in 2007. It's passion for coffee and customer experience had gotten lost behind a subconcious appeasement of Wall Street. By focusing on P/E ratios and stock price, Starbucks was losing its soul.Schultz had stepped down from the helm of the company, but he still served as chairman of the board. "I should have been paying attention," he said when commenting on the company losing its way. Schultz re-took the helm and worked hard to steer the company back in the right direction. That meant making tough decisions. Starbucks retooled its business model to focus heavily on the customer experience. In fact, the company spent $7 million to close all of its North American stores for a day to retrain its employees. The move drew harsh criticism and sank their share price to an all time low of just above $6. They closed store locations and laid off employees for the first time in its history. This was hard-hitting for Schultz, who grew up in the projects in Brooklyn. He watched his father take a major blow to his career when he lost his job, worker's comp, and health insurance. He did not want to do the same to his own employees, but found he was faced with no choice. Making these tough decisions saved Starbucks and put them on a path to recovery.
Making tough choices can be painful and emotional. Many of the company leaders and entrepreneurs who read this blog don't have to turn a battleship the size of Starbucks. But making significant changes in times of challenge and struggle require significant investment. Your entire team has to be on board. And if they aren't, then it's time to get rid of them. Schultz knew that with the changes they were making, they needed people who not only had the skills and shared the company values, but also believed in the change. Nine of 11 of its leadership did not, and as a result, they are no longer with the company. It's only when leaders can make tough decisions like these in times of challenge that good companies can grow to become truly great -- and in a case like Starbucks, recapture its former glory.
Mr. Schultz also made it clear that in today's marketplace, principles and values matter the most. If companies "wash" their marketing with green or social claims that aren't true, consumers will go elsewhere and not purchase from you. Tracy A. Corley & Associates works with company to capture their vision, mission, values, and position so that they have a clear framework for articulating and communicating their souls. I asked Mr Schultz how growing companies could do a better job of creating consistency in their cultures. He was direct in stating that human resources must have a seat at the big table (ie. not just be relegated to subordinate role in the organization), otherwise the message would not be embedded throughout the culture.
If you have experienced a setback like Starbucks in recent years and would like to recapture your market position while retaining your soul, it's not too late. Though painful and emotional, I can turn your ship around and help you make the tough decisions like the ones that brought Starbucks back from the brink of disaster. Call me at 206.782.4040 to capture your strategic framework, create a strategic plan, map your business model, and assess your organization for efficiency and growth.
Information on how to capture the values and principles that drive your organization can also be found in my book, The Strategy String: An Organizational Primer for Tying Strategy to Performance
.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
When Leaders Fail to Mentor, They Fail to Lead
Last week, I had the honor of attending a presentation by Jack Smalley. Jack did a great job of breaking down the top 10 qualities of a great leader. At the top of his list was Mentorship.
Mentorship is one of those things that business leaders forget about if they get caught up in the roles and accountability of leading an organization, large and small. Sometimes, they use the mantra "do as I say, not as I do," forgetting that what they do is what will lead their organization into success or failure. Additionally, effective leaders take time out of what they do to spend quality time with their charges.
I know that as a leader, I have failed dramatically with my mentorship role in the past. Specifically, I recall one key employee. She was wickedly smart, bringing a wealth of knowledge to our organization. And what she did not know, she knew how to find it quickly. Unfortunately, I as a leader did not take the time to mentor her on the differences between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom combines knowledge and experience with the judgement to know when and how to use the information you have. So my superstar employee was a great asset in her knowledge, a bit low in experience, and definitely did not have the judgement to know when to speak up and when to shut up. As a result of her foot-in-mouth disease, I found myself repairing relationships and putting out smoldering brush fires from where she scorched important relationships.
Image via WikipediaThe marketing firm that handled Chrysler's social media found this out, too. Their Twitter snafu dropped the f-bomb to its followers. Many Baby Boomer leaders are enamored with the generation of Millennials and their tech prowess. They forget, however, to teach discretion and the repercussions of actions made both in the workplace and at home. Facebook and Twitter, like all information on the internet, is forever. Top organizations need people who not only know how to work the technology but also how and when to use discretion with all those technology tools. This is not to hamper the activities of our young workers, but a call for executives and managers to step up and make mentorship a number one priority of their leadership development.
Have you been serving as an effective mentor recently? Ask you team for their feedback, and make it a regular part of your schedule to be engaged and active with each member your team.The difference between the knowledge and wisdom can make a huge difference is the success of your organization.
Many thanks to Michael Lee of Express Employment services for hosting the event.
So how can lead as a mentor?
First, tell me your story. We then decide together what resources, like training and executive coaching, will sharpen the leadership skills of you and your management team. We can also improve your mentoring program. Don't wait until your employees have a major malfunction and destroy relationships. Call me today at 206-782-4040 or connect on Skype at tracy.corley.
Mentorship is one of those things that business leaders forget about if they get caught up in the roles and accountability of leading an organization, large and small. Sometimes, they use the mantra "do as I say, not as I do," forgetting that what they do is what will lead their organization into success or failure. Additionally, effective leaders take time out of what they do to spend quality time with their charges.
I know that as a leader, I have failed dramatically with my mentorship role in the past. Specifically, I recall one key employee. She was wickedly smart, bringing a wealth of knowledge to our organization. And what she did not know, she knew how to find it quickly. Unfortunately, I as a leader did not take the time to mentor her on the differences between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom combines knowledge and experience with the judgement to know when and how to use the information you have. So my superstar employee was a great asset in her knowledge, a bit low in experience, and definitely did not have the judgement to know when to speak up and when to shut up. As a result of her foot-in-mouth disease, I found myself repairing relationships and putting out smoldering brush fires from where she scorched important relationships.
Image via Wikipedia
Have you been serving as an effective mentor recently? Ask you team for their feedback, and make it a regular part of your schedule to be engaged and active with each member your team.The difference between the knowledge and wisdom can make a huge difference is the success of your organization.
Many thanks to Michael Lee of Express Employment services for hosting the event.
So how can lead as a mentor?
First, tell me your story. We then decide together what resources, like training and executive coaching, will sharpen the leadership skills of you and your management team. We can also improve your mentoring program. Don't wait until your employees have a major malfunction and destroy relationships. Call me today at 206-782-4040 or connect on Skype at tracy.corley.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Could Shortsighted Futurists Cripple Our Economy?
The new year is in full swing and everyone is full of hope. I read the articles and see that everyone is making their new year's predictions on when the economy will return to "pre-2007 levels."
What these shortsighted futurists fail to realize is that the economic standards of 2007 no longer apply. For decades, our economic models and measures of prosperity used derivatives of industrial age standards. The Great Reset of 2008-2009 brought all those antiquated philosophies face to face with modern economic realities. The upswing in economic prosperity we're experiencing today requires new paradigms on how we measure, analyze, and monitor growth to deliver a true picture of prosperity and growth.
Few - if any - have written concrete rules on what the economy of the future will look like. Some have speculated, like William Knoke in his groundbreaking 1997 guide to the twenty-first century, Bold New World. Furthermore, Erik Brynjolfsson and Adam Saunders give us a clear look at the disruption that information technology brought to economic models in their book Wired for Innovation. These top economic thinkers from MIT examine official measures of the value and productivity of technology and suggest alternatives that better measure this economic contribution. Their explorations for the real sources of value apply not only to information technology, but other intangible inputs that drive nearly 85% of our nation's businesses, including intellectual property, services, and research and development.
To get a true sense of when we will see 2007-like prosperity return to the U.S. economy, we need to rethink our current measures, like the output of goods, retail sales, and credit card spending. True measures of gross domestic product, productivity, and prosperity will come when we are able to quantify intangible assets and integrate them into everyday practices. This means that small business lending will systematically include intangible assets in its risk assessments; service-based business valuations will be more in line with their goods-producing counterparts; information goods will take on the real value they deserve; and we will no longer rely on consumerism and debt as the driving factors for measuring consumer confidence.
According to Brynjolfsson and Saunders, information technology created the lion's share of the resurgence in productivity in the U.S. since 1995. It's time for our economic models to better measure the value that IT and other intangible assets bring to prosperity, productivity, and quality of life. Wired for Innovation delivers a first step at outlining how we can now measure, analyze, and manage the intangible assets of an information-based, mentisfacturing economy. Let's hope that our economic and government institutions catch on before the opportunity to leverage the Great Reset has passed.
What does this mean for you?
Our national economic policies have not caught up with the economic reality. That doesn't mean you have to sit around and wait for them to catch on. I've been working with a number of small business, mid-market, and nonprofit organizations who realize that they don't want to be at the mercy of misaligned economic policies. They hired me to solidify strategic plans, build strategic foundations, and map effective business models. Our process includes a gap analysis that exposes the holes in all critical area of your business model, including key partnerships, key activities, customer segments, cost centers, and revenue streams.
I invite you to take action now to optimize your products and services so that you don't get left behind by using old business models in a new economy. Call me at 206-782-4040 to schedule an initial consultation.
What these shortsighted futurists fail to realize is that the economic standards of 2007 no longer apply. For decades, our economic models and measures of prosperity used derivatives of industrial age standards. The Great Reset of 2008-2009 brought all those antiquated philosophies face to face with modern economic realities. The upswing in economic prosperity we're experiencing today requires new paradigms on how we measure, analyze, and monitor growth to deliver a true picture of prosperity and growth.
Few - if any - have written concrete rules on what the economy of the future will look like. Some have speculated, like William Knoke in his groundbreaking 1997 guide to the twenty-first century, Bold New World. Furthermore, Erik Brynjolfsson and Adam Saunders give us a clear look at the disruption that information technology brought to economic models in their book Wired for Innovation. These top economic thinkers from MIT examine official measures of the value and productivity of technology and suggest alternatives that better measure this economic contribution. Their explorations for the real sources of value apply not only to information technology, but other intangible inputs that drive nearly 85% of our nation's businesses, including intellectual property, services, and research and development.
To get a true sense of when we will see 2007-like prosperity return to the U.S. economy, we need to rethink our current measures, like the output of goods, retail sales, and credit card spending. True measures of gross domestic product, productivity, and prosperity will come when we are able to quantify intangible assets and integrate them into everyday practices. This means that small business lending will systematically include intangible assets in its risk assessments; service-based business valuations will be more in line with their goods-producing counterparts; information goods will take on the real value they deserve; and we will no longer rely on consumerism and debt as the driving factors for measuring consumer confidence.
According to Brynjolfsson and Saunders, information technology created the lion's share of the resurgence in productivity in the U.S. since 1995. It's time for our economic models to better measure the value that IT and other intangible assets bring to prosperity, productivity, and quality of life. Wired for Innovation delivers a first step at outlining how we can now measure, analyze, and manage the intangible assets of an information-based, mentisfacturing economy. Let's hope that our economic and government institutions catch on before the opportunity to leverage the Great Reset has passed.
What does this mean for you?
Our national economic policies have not caught up with the economic reality. That doesn't mean you have to sit around and wait for them to catch on. I've been working with a number of small business, mid-market, and nonprofit organizations who realize that they don't want to be at the mercy of misaligned economic policies. They hired me to solidify strategic plans, build strategic foundations, and map effective business models. Our process includes a gap analysis that exposes the holes in all critical area of your business model, including key partnerships, key activities, customer segments, cost centers, and revenue streams.
I invite you to take action now to optimize your products and services so that you don't get left behind by using old business models in a new economy. Call me at 206-782-4040 to schedule an initial consultation.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Take the plunge with your Strategy String
Happy holidays, everyone! As we bustle about getting last minute gifts and attending the myriad of get-togethers, many entrepreneurs, business leaders, and managers find themselves consumed with year end planning.
The start of 2011 is looming. Many organizations have faced immense challenges in the past three years that are shuttering doors and sending hardworking employees into the streets. Yet, some organizations are thriving. How can you beat the odds and make 2011 your best year yet?
Go deep with your Strategy String. When times are uncertain, logic tells us to hold back and play it safe. But setting strategy today requires amping up your competitive edge (as well as being nimble and vigilant, regardless of your organization's size). That means setting aside your fear and telling your story with increased fervor.
For example, Sarah Lateiner of Arizona changed directions when launching her small business. Instead of doing the logical thing and sticking with her educational path of becoming a lawyer, she used a personal experience to launch 180 Automotive, an auto mechanic shop. Instead of competing solely on being another "me-too" service provider, she uses her shop to educate and empower women to take care of their vehicles. The result is a strategic advantage that shapes a deeply-defined Strategy String. With educating and empowering women, her vision, mission, and values clearly show through in everyday actions, and her positioning sharply delivers a competitive edge that no one else can touch. Watch her story.
So take the plunge when crafting your Strategy String: don't hold back. Bring the core of your organization and its passion to the forefront. Use the Strategy String to continuously tell the story to your employees, your vendors, your customers -- all of your stakeholders. If you can substitute someone else's products and services into your vision and mission and it still makes sense, then your Strategy String lacks the depth to highlight your competitive advantage. You can survive without depth, but it's hard to swim when your knees keep bumping the bottom of the lake. Without taking the plunge, your purpose, people, and profits will always be wading in the shallows.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Does your Strategy String have the depth needed to showcase your competitive advantage? Do all of your stakeholders know about it? If your strategy is missing depth and keeping you from thriving in 2011, call me to schedule a planning session: 206-782-4040.
Order the Strategy String today! They make a great gift for your entire team and your clients. Call me for discount information on orders of 12 or more. 206-782-4040
The start of 2011 is looming. Many organizations have faced immense challenges in the past three years that are shuttering doors and sending hardworking employees into the streets. Yet, some organizations are thriving. How can you beat the odds and make 2011 your best year yet?
Go deep with your Strategy String. When times are uncertain, logic tells us to hold back and play it safe. But setting strategy today requires amping up your competitive edge (as well as being nimble and vigilant, regardless of your organization's size). That means setting aside your fear and telling your story with increased fervor.
For example, Sarah Lateiner of Arizona changed directions when launching her small business. Instead of doing the logical thing and sticking with her educational path of becoming a lawyer, she used a personal experience to launch 180 Automotive, an auto mechanic shop. Instead of competing solely on being another "me-too" service provider, she uses her shop to educate and empower women to take care of their vehicles. The result is a strategic advantage that shapes a deeply-defined Strategy String. With educating and empowering women, her vision, mission, and values clearly show through in everyday actions, and her positioning sharply delivers a competitive edge that no one else can touch. Watch her story.
So take the plunge when crafting your Strategy String: don't hold back. Bring the core of your organization and its passion to the forefront. Use the Strategy String to continuously tell the story to your employees, your vendors, your customers -- all of your stakeholders. If you can substitute someone else's products and services into your vision and mission and it still makes sense, then your Strategy String lacks the depth to highlight your competitive advantage. You can survive without depth, but it's hard to swim when your knees keep bumping the bottom of the lake. Without taking the plunge, your purpose, people, and profits will always be wading in the shallows.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Does your Strategy String have the depth needed to showcase your competitive advantage? Do all of your stakeholders know about it? If your strategy is missing depth and keeping you from thriving in 2011, call me to schedule a planning session: 206-782-4040.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Keep Eager Beavers from Damming Productivity
 Image via Wikipedia |
| Great new team member or a potential source of terror and rabies? |
How? New employees can get antsy. Our culture delivers instant gratification in so many ways: instant messages, on demand entertainment, personalized learning experiences, customized jeans. New recruits wonder, "Why can't I get instant results at work? I have a great idea that could save this place thousands/millions of dollars. And I've only been here a few weeks; why doesn't everyone else see it?"
Eager beavers bring fresh energy and ideas that at first glance, could generate thousands, if not millions, of dollars in increased productivity, new opportunities, and cost savings. Leadership, however, must be thoughtful before implementing new ideas. Balancing great ideas with due diligence and proper governance can be a challenge for any growing organization or one that is undergoing a significant change. Eager beavers often don't realize that building a dam at one location might improve the resources and depth of one line of business, but can dry out systems and revenue sources downstream. Each idea should be evaluated for effectiveness in the organization as a whole. And, more importantly, those ideas - and the talent - must fit with your Strategy String
and organizational culture. So how do you keep eager beavers from damming the flow of productivity without stifling their creativity?- Start with a trial period. All new people, including those who have been promoted or moved into new roles, should be given a trial period in which to demonstrate consistent performance. Trial periods also give new team members time to learn and understand culture, stakeholders, and direction. On his first day, make it clear how long the trial period lasts. Define what happens at the end of the trial: what if the employee cannot meet expectations? What additional responsibilities does he gain with successful completion of the trial period? Set a time frame that allows for the eager beaver to learn the needs of his position and that allows the manager to see if he can meet expectations and fit with the culture. The greater the role that person will take on in the organization, the longer the trial period. The last thing you want is a team member who doesn't play well in the swimming hole with others and constantly misjudges the depth of the stream.
- Set clear, realistic expectations. When on-boarding any new team member, establish minimum expectations for him to meet. If these expectations differ in any way from the job description used to recruit him, point out those differences. If expectations can change over time, point out how they will change and how they will impact his career. Managers should also be asking if the minimum expectations are realistic for one person to take on. If you set the bar too high, you guarantee that your talent will fail. Don't let good beavers spend all their time swimming upstream: they can get tired and drown if they don't find another organization's stream first.
- Measure performance each day. Can the eager beaver meet expectations and meet them consistently? Effective performance by anyone in your organization (new or old, eager or resigned) is measured by how well they consistently meet expectations each day. Exceeding expectations is inappropriate if employees fail to meet minimum expectations. Document how well the eager beaver meets minimum expectations, and ask her to document her performance as well. Check in at least every two weeks with her to compare notes on performance. Are expectations being met 100% of the time? If not, should her responsibilities be revised? Or does she lack the capacity to meet the baseline expectations needed for the role? Beavers who cannot swim should not be in the stream.
- Link great ideas to your Strategy String
- Translate great ideas to performance-driven actions. When the eager beaver demonstrates that she can consistently meet minimum expectations and link ideas to your Strategy String, reward her with the opportunity to put those ideas into action. If she has a great idea for a new injection molding process and can keep up with minimum expectations, accommodate her by making the talent, space, funding, and other resources available to pursue the concept. Set a deadline by which she should present the results and demonstrate how the new idea will deliver long-term positive return on investment. If the candidate can translate the idea into sustainable, performance-driven actions, let her manage or lead the idea. If not, ask that the idea is not pursued further, and encourage her to come up with more great ideas to test in the future. Don't let eager beavers get discouraged: promote creativity and innovation.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Manual High School's Strategy String Puts Students at the Head of the Class
As Rob Stein completed his third year as principal of Manual High School in Denver, Colorado, he knew that he had done what he set out to do. Stein managed to perform a turnaround that would make turnaround consultants jealous. In just three years, Stein converted a failing inner city high school into the third highest performer in the Denver Public School system.
So how did he do it? Stein interlaced Manual High School with a Strategy String.
Manual High School had been shut down due to poor performance. In an impoverished neighborhood where more than 70% of its students qualifying for free lunches, Manual boasted the lowest test scores in the entire state of Colorado and was stricken by low attendance and sky-high drop out rates. By organizational standards, the school had given up on its customers (the students) and allowed poor performance to close its doors.
In August 2007, Manual reopened as an Innovation School (a public school that thinks and acts a bit differently). This experimental school clenched a vision that committed the management team and staff to do “whatever it takes to ensure that students stay in school and are prepared for success in college, career and in life.” They then transformed that vision into an actionable strategy.
They began by scrapping the strategic plan. "Strategic plans are never fruitful," said Stein. The long-term strategic planning process of old turns into a massive "to-do list for lower level people" that disconnects from performance results. Instead, Stein and his team of volunteers worked collaboratively to answer, "Who do we want to be?" Through this collaborative process, they created a mission statement and Core Principles to support the vision of doing everything needed to keep kids in school. They linked the Core Principles to performance by creating Core Practices that state clearly how Manual's day to day operations would address performance and drop out rates.
For example, all teachers use daily learning goals to communicate and act on daily agendas. Daily learning goals and other consistent practices ensure that students get bell-to-bell learning and no time is wasted. "You will never see a teacher sitting behind [his] desk," said Stein. At Manual, day to day performance demands interaction. When teachers and students are required to provide evidence that they are reaching incremental and long term goals, there is no time for dilly-dally.
With regulations and reporting required by school districts, success measures require a mind-numbing amount of communication for the team at Manual. But constant, open communication with all stakeholders -- students, teachers, administrators, district leaders, and school management -- breaks through the hierarchy and keeps the Strategy String at Manual High School tightly woven to ensure that each student has a chance at a prosperous future. Students are the number one stakeholder at Manual, and its daily practices constantly remind you of that. Without open communication and participation by everyone involved in doing what it takes to ensure student success (including the students), stakeholders disengage and lose sight of the commitment that they signed on for at the school's relaunch. The same is true of businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations.
Aligning Core Practices with stakeholder needs also meant decentralizing decision making and putting more responsibility into the hands of the principal and management team. Like an entrepreneur, Stein was allowed to negotiate many of Manual's contracts to focus school functions on the needs of its students. For example, weekly access to psychotherapists and counselors often work in affluent, suburban schools. Not so much in intercity schools. If a student is dealing with a problem at home and has to wait a week for support, they are more likely to disengage or drop out than wait for that support. By providing regular resources like counseling services on site each day, the school was able to immediately address student cultural, emotional and social needs and quickly re-focus them on learning. That's not common in public schools. But with efficient management and the ability to negotiate services independent of school district mandates, Manual was able to shape a school that met the unique needs of its at-risk student population.
At the end of the 2009-2010 school year, Manual claimed the title of the 3rd highest performer in the Denver Public School district. This year, Manual will celebrate its first graduating class since the relaunch. By creating a responsive strategy that emphasizes daily check-ins with Core Principles and adherence to Core Practices, Manual High School possesses a Strategy String that will allow it to course correct for any changes to the needs of its teachers and students. Now that Rob Stein has turned over the reigns, I hope that the new principal can keep the string from unraveling. With Manual's collaborative, responsive method for connecting strategy to performance, if the ends start to fray, students, teachers, and community will do whatever is needed to keep its kids in school.
Check out the new movie about our education system:
Waiting for "Superman"
Great information resources for improving our country's education systems
So how did he do it? Stein interlaced Manual High School with a Strategy String.
Manual High School had been shut down due to poor performance. In an impoverished neighborhood where more than 70% of its students qualifying for free lunches, Manual boasted the lowest test scores in the entire state of Colorado and was stricken by low attendance and sky-high drop out rates. By organizational standards, the school had given up on its customers (the students) and allowed poor performance to close its doors.
In August 2007, Manual reopened as an Innovation School (a public school that thinks and acts a bit differently). This experimental school clenched a vision that committed the management team and staff to do “whatever it takes to ensure that students stay in school and are prepared for success in college, career and in life.” They then transformed that vision into an actionable strategy.
They began by scrapping the strategic plan. "Strategic plans are never fruitful," said Stein. The long-term strategic planning process of old turns into a massive "to-do list for lower level people" that disconnects from performance results. Instead, Stein and his team of volunteers worked collaboratively to answer, "Who do we want to be?" Through this collaborative process, they created a mission statement and Core Principles to support the vision of doing everything needed to keep kids in school. They linked the Core Principles to performance by creating Core Practices that state clearly how Manual's day to day operations would address performance and drop out rates.
For example, all teachers use daily learning goals to communicate and act on daily agendas. Daily learning goals and other consistent practices ensure that students get bell-to-bell learning and no time is wasted. "You will never see a teacher sitting behind [his] desk," said Stein. At Manual, day to day performance demands interaction. When teachers and students are required to provide evidence that they are reaching incremental and long term goals, there is no time for dilly-dally.
With regulations and reporting required by school districts, success measures require a mind-numbing amount of communication for the team at Manual. But constant, open communication with all stakeholders -- students, teachers, administrators, district leaders, and school management -- breaks through the hierarchy and keeps the Strategy String at Manual High School tightly woven to ensure that each student has a chance at a prosperous future. Students are the number one stakeholder at Manual, and its daily practices constantly remind you of that. Without open communication and participation by everyone involved in doing what it takes to ensure student success (including the students), stakeholders disengage and lose sight of the commitment that they signed on for at the school's relaunch. The same is true of businesses, nonprofits, and other organizations.
Aligning Core Practices with stakeholder needs also meant decentralizing decision making and putting more responsibility into the hands of the principal and management team. Like an entrepreneur, Stein was allowed to negotiate many of Manual's contracts to focus school functions on the needs of its students. For example, weekly access to psychotherapists and counselors often work in affluent, suburban schools. Not so much in intercity schools. If a student is dealing with a problem at home and has to wait a week for support, they are more likely to disengage or drop out than wait for that support. By providing regular resources like counseling services on site each day, the school was able to immediately address student cultural, emotional and social needs and quickly re-focus them on learning. That's not common in public schools. But with efficient management and the ability to negotiate services independent of school district mandates, Manual was able to shape a school that met the unique needs of its at-risk student population.
At the end of the 2009-2010 school year, Manual claimed the title of the 3rd highest performer in the Denver Public School district. This year, Manual will celebrate its first graduating class since the relaunch. By creating a responsive strategy that emphasizes daily check-ins with Core Principles and adherence to Core Practices, Manual High School possesses a Strategy String that will allow it to course correct for any changes to the needs of its teachers and students. Now that Rob Stein has turned over the reigns, I hope that the new principal can keep the string from unraveling. With Manual's collaborative, responsive method for connecting strategy to performance, if the ends start to fray, students, teachers, and community will do whatever is needed to keep its kids in school.
Check out the new movie about our education system:
Waiting for "Superman"
Great information resources for improving our country's education systems
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