Wisdom for the practice of leadership

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Complementary Contradictions (part 9): If It Doesn’t Work, Do Something Different

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of a coin, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, in part 8, we talked about doing what works, and this week, in part 9, we will talk about what to do when it doesn’t work.

In the 1993 blockbuster movie Jurassic Park, actor Jeff Goldblum played a character named Ian Malcolm, who was a “chaos mathematician.” His character’s role was to apply the ideas of chaos theory to the operation of the dinosaur-themed amusement park, with the hope of being able to give approval so that the park could move forward. However, in his view, chaos theory purported that everything is unpredictable, because tiny environmental factors and influences mean that nothing ever happens the same way twice. The result was that he believed the forces that the Jurassic Park scientists were trying to control were, in fact, uncontrollable.

While that was a science fiction movie, the reality is that life is unpredictable and constantly changing, and those changes are uncontrollable. Sure, we can maintain some semblance of control with planning and structure, but there are always circumstances and factors that are unexpected and that we can’t control, like when you drive over a nail and get a flat tire, or you get in an accident caused by another driver, or when severe weather cancels your plans, and so on. These types of things force you to change in some way, but if you cannot adapt to change, you will live a life of eternal frustration. So, since you can’t avoid it, what you must do instead is learn to navigate it, by learning to become flexible, and there are three things you can do to help you with this.

First, relinquish control. It begins by accepting the fact that you cannot control everything that happens. It’s foolish to think that you can. This truth has been reflected often in the financial industry, where unpredictable events impact the value of stocks. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book What the Dog Saw (2010), discussed this in one of the book’s articles, entitled “Blowing Up.” In this article, he discussed the financial practice of investors and suggested – according to his interview with one particular advisor – that you must accept that you can’t predict the unexpected event. Therefore, you must always be prepared for losses.

A number of years ago, I read a book by Peter Schwartz called Inevitable Surprises (2004), in which Schwartz made the claim that certain future surprises were actually inevitable and, therefore, could be predicted and harnessed. One of his primary examples was the “inevitable” impending increase of retirees from the large baby boomer generation, which he then identified as a resource to be tapped into. However, what he could not predict was the change in longevity of life, combined with later retirement ages, which meant that the expected volunteer force of retirees had not emerged (ironically, an increase in volunteerism had occurred among the younger generation, not the older). The point is, you cannot control unpredictable events, and therefore, you must be willing and able to accept that lack of control in order to keep it from defeating you.

Second, be willing to try something different. If you know that some things will happen outside of your control that change your plans, you need to be willing to change your plans and do something different. This is a lesson I learned early in my administrative experience, in the first school in which I served as a headmaster. There was an expectation that I implement noticeable change, because the school had been struggling, and so I began to develop and initiate a strategic plan. However, as you might expect, some of my plans did not work well, because unexpected circumstances would influence the outcome, or people would resist, or it simply didn’t work the way I thought it would. I could tell that people were watching me to see how I would respond to these obstacles and unpredictable events, and so I got in the habit of saying, “If it doesn’t work, we’ll do something different.” This was not only for their benefit but also for mine, to reassure both them and me that it wasn’t an end, only a change. It helped them to be willing to try something different, and in the process of trying something different, we learned, improved, and found the best solutions.

As I discussed in the previous related podcast episode, Jim Collins, in Great by Choice (2011), addresses a similar idea when he talks about firing bullets and then cannonballs. The idea, he explains, is that effective leaders spend a small amount of resources trying out a variety of ideas (firing bullets), dismissing the ones that don’t work well, and pouring more resources into the ones that do (firing cannonballs). We often don’t know with certainty what is going to be effective and produce the desired outcome, and we also don’t know what unexpected factors will hinder our plans, therefore we ought to be willing to try ideas and test plans with the understanding that, for various reasons, it may not work (either at this time, or in this place, or under these circumstances), and so we need to be able to let it go, change, and do something different. It may mean changing the time, or the place, or the circumstances, or perhaps even throwing it away and starting over, but regardless, it means being willing to do something different.

Third, develop creativity. We are not all naturally creative in our thought processes or in our expression, but we can all do things that help us to become more creative. When we develop creativity, looking for new ways of thinking, doing, and expressing, we begin to startle people (in a good way), helping us to get and hold their attention. I learned a little about this when I first became a history teacher. I felt like I had had history teachers in the past who were very boring, and so I wanted to get the attention of my students and make history an enjoyable and valuable class. I remember early in the year, in an American History course, when I was teaching about Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the new world, trying to explain what it felt like to be on his ship sailing across the ocean with a hope but not a certainty, when I suddenly leaped on top of my desk and yelled “Land ho!” as loud as I could. The class jumped, laughed, and then engaged in an active discussion. By being unexpected, I helped to develop an interest in the course.

Daniel Pink, in his book, A Whole New Mind (2006), discusses the value of creative thinking and its importance to leadership and progress. He proposes that those who can learn to think creatively will have an advantage in a global marketplace. He then offers six “senses” that are necessary for cultivating creativity and provides practical advice on how to develop these skills. The main point is that creativity is a skill that can be nurtured and grown and is necessary for growth and leadership in the world of information and concepts in which we live.

We cannot ignore the fact that life throws curve balls and that much of what happens around us and to us is unpredictable. Try as we might to prevent it or avoid it, change happens, and if we are not willing and able to have a degree of flexibility, we will be frustrated, disappointed, and defeated. To be an effective leader, then, you must be able to be flexible. Doing this will require that you are willing to give up control (specifically, over those things that you can’t control), willing to do something different with a positive (not a defeated) attitude, and willing to learn to become more creative. Developing these characteristics will help you to have the flexibility you need, in order to lead well in a changing world. Because if it doesn’t work, you may just need to do something different.

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Podcast Episode 35 (part 8): Do What Works

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part eight in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of the same coin, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, in part 8, we are talking about doing what works; next time, in part 9, we will talk about what to do when it doesn’t work.

We all have things that we do over and over and over again without thinking about it. Usually, that’s because they are things that work for us, things that make our lives simpler. Things like the way we brush our teeth or put on our clothes. Somewhere along the way, we develop a pattern or method that accomplishes what we want to accomplish in a way that works well for us, so we keep doing it. That’s the idea we are discussing today – finding what works and then doing it.

At one point early in my school leadership, I came across what appeared to be a great idea. I was attending a professional development conference, and one of the breakout sessions was a presentation by a head of school in another school, in which he explained a program they had implemented that was transformative for students. It was a program that created a way for students to experiment with job-shadowing and internship experiences and to participate in learning experiences that would not be a typical part of an academic education.

After listening to this presentation, I believed it had great potential for my school. So, I went home from the conference and spent the next few months thinking, organizing my thoughts, and crafting a plan to implement a similar program. I talked with teachers and other school administrators I knew, created rough drafts, conducted surveys, and, in the end, rolled out a version of this learning and shadowing experience that would fit my school and my students. It included out-of-the-box learning experiences for students (like how to do basic home maintenance, an introduction to cooking, digital portrait photography, careers in animal science, and so on.), as well as opportunities that had been arranged for upperclassmen to job shadow in career fields related to the majors they were intending to pursue in college. And it was a success! Students loved it, parents loved it, and it became an annual component of their learning experience.

Then, in my calling, God moved me to a different school in a different part of the country.  As soon as I arrived, I knew that this had been such an excellent program experience that I immediately began planning how to implement it in this new place.  It was a different place with a different culture and different opportunities, but the idea was still just as valuable. I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel because I had already figured out something that worked.  I just had to evaluate and modify something that already worked, to fit it into a new environment and context.  And again, it was a success.

The point is that, in the world of my particular career field, I had found something that worked. I saw something that looked like it would work. I created a plan for implementation and carried it out, and it really worked! It worked so well, in fact, that I implemented the same program in the next two schools where I led, in a way that applied to each of those school settings. Because it worked so well, I continued to do it.

That lesson applies to your leadership as well. Over time and with experience, you often learn or discover ideas, methods, tools, and programs that work well. It is important for you to be aware enough that you see these things and then take the intentional initiative to do something that works. The first time around, there will be a larger learning curve as you explore and try things. Jim Collins, author of the books “Good to Great” and Great by Choice,” talks about firing bullets, then cannonballs. By that, he means that first, you fire test shots at the target by trying out ideas and getting feedback, and then when you have found the bullseye, you can focus your efforts and expend your energy. Using that process, you can hone in on what will work, and then you can do it and do it well.

Here’s the big idea:  wherever you are, put in the effort to identify what works. That may be something new that you have not been doing; it may be something that you have already been doing; or it may be something you have been doing that just needs to be modified. Regardless, figure out what works, start doing it, and keep doing it.

In the schools where I led, I would oversee the curriculum review process, which was necessary to ensure that the academic program was representing excellence, maintaining relevancy, meeting needs, and continuously improving. In that process, I was always asking people to think about what we were not doing that we needed to do, what we were doing that we no longer needed to do, and what we were doing that we could keep but needed to modify. Essentially, we were always trying to pay attention to what was working and what was not, and then making sure that we did what worked. That’s what you need to do. Find what works and do it . . . until it doesn’t, but that’s the topic for next time.

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Complementary Contradictions (part 8): Do What Works

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of a coin, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, in part 8, we are talking about doing what works, and next week, in part 9, we will talk about what to do when it doesn’t work.

It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly but expecting different results. Sometimes, it seems this definition characterizes companies and organizations because they will continue to do something even though it doesn’t work. Perhaps it is because it is tradition, or because it takes too much work to change, or even because the leadership doesn’t recognize that it doesn’t work, so they keep doing it.

Motorola is a great example of this. In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, they were a leader in the analog phone business. They were doing what worked at the time, but then something happened: digital technology was developed for cell phones, which completely changed the cell phone service industry. Analog phone technology would no longer be the technology that would drive cell phone production and use, but Motorola continued to invest in its analog technology and, as a result, ceased to be relevant in the cell phone business. They were no longer doing what worked but continued to do it anyway.

Effectiveness depends on discovering what works and doing it. Often, it is at a micro-level within an organization that people figure this out. Schein, in Organizational Culture and Leadership (2010), describes it like this: “The general phenomenon of adapting the formal work process to the local situation and then normalizing the new process by teaching it to newcomers has been called ‘practical drift’ and is an important characteristic of all operator subcultures. It is the basic reason why sociologists who study how work is actually done in organizations always find sufficient variations from the formally designated procedures to talk of the ‘informal organization’ and to point out that without such innovative behavior on the part of the employees, the organization might not be as effective”. In simple words, the people who are on the ground floor tend to figure out how to adjust formal processes and procedures in a way that works best, and they then teach it to new employees, which helps the organization to function better. In spite of what may be the written procedures, they do what works. An effective leader pays attention to this, maintains awareness and understanding of what is working and what is not, and will then use that understanding to help shape decisions.

Then, if it is working, keep doing it (as the old saying states, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”). This truth was evident in the research conducted by Collins & Hansen and published in Great by Choice (2011). They defined a SMaC (Specific, Methodical, and Consistent) recipe as “a set of durable operating practices that create a replicable and consistent success formula,” and then noted that highly successful companies “adhered to their recipes with fanatic discipline to a far greater degree than the comparisons, and . . . they carefully amended their recipes with empirical creativity and productive paranoia.” However, they also found that these companies “changed their recipes less than their comparisons.” Their research revealed that companies that were doing things well and were thriving tended to continue doing what was working without great change. They were not subject to changing with the wind, panic, or the latest fad but held to the practices that they knew worked.

This has been one of my personal frustrations in the world of education. In my years as a teacher and school administrator, it seems like I have seen countless new programs and initiatives established, often to have another new one rolled out the following year. They have always been communicated as necessary for effective education, but many times, it has reminded me of “stage one economics” – there appears to be an immediate short-term gain or value, but in the long term, it is more detrimental than it is beneficial. But before that becomes apparent, the world of education has moved on to a new program.

As leaders, we need to be intentional about doing what works (which is generally evident in the results). We need not be afraid of allowing the people who would know best to have input, so we need to give people a voice in the process. This does not mean we don’t periodically assess and analyze, because we do need to make sure it still works, and we can often make minor tweaks that bring improvement. Don’t change for the sake of change when what you have is working, but if what you have is not working, don’t keep doing it. Do what works. And keep doing it.

Collins, J., & Hansen, M. T. (2011). Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.

Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership (4th Edition ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Podcast Episode 34 (part 7): When A Plan Falls Apart

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part seven in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of the same coin, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, in part 6, we talked about what happens when a plan comes together, and this week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

In the last discussion we established the importance of having an intentional and methodical process for assessing where you are, determining where you need to be, and drawing the map that shows how you will get there. The map is your plan, and therefore it is crucial for getting from here to there without getting lost. If you do it well, you will experience the joy of arriving at the destination that you have been eagerly anticipating. And it happened because a plan came together. However, sometimes (to continue the road trip map analogy), the car breaks down, there is road construction and detours, or the rest stop is closed. Everything you planned out starts to fall apart, and you have to figure out what to do. You may have had the best of intentions, but it just doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to.

I experienced a great example of this during a Christmas season, when I attempted to get my wife a special present. For some time, she had wanted a record player so that she could get some old jazz records to listen to. There was one particular color and style of record player that I knew had drawn her attention, and when I went to the store to purchase it, to surprise her with it as a Christmas gift, the only one left was the display model, and that’s when the adventure started.

Because it was the display model, the power cord – a DC adapter – had been misplaced, and the store manager could not find it. I agreed to purchase it at a discounted price and then planned to go to Radio Shack and find a cord. However, much to my dismay, Radio Shack did not have a power cord that would work. Desperate, I emailed the manufacturer to order a replacement cord, but by this time, I accepted the realization that it would not arrive by Christmas, and so I was forced to wrap a gift that she wouldn’t be able to use when she opened it.

So, of course, when she opened it, I immediately had to explain what happened. The cord arrived only a few days later, and without telling her it had arrived, I plugged in the record player and put on a record to surprise her with the sound. But then, again to my dismay, I could hear no sound coming out of the speakers!   I opened up the record player, and everything inside seemed to be properly connected and in working order, so I put it back together. Then I discovered the source of the problem – the arm had been bent and broken right at the base and then bent back to appear as if nothing had happened. Finally, I accepted the inevitable, that the record player was a bust, and I would need to buy another one. My wonderful plan had fallen apart. 

 Sometimes, that happens in leadership (and in life). You have great plans and good intentions, but then everything falls apart, and nothing works the way that you had planned. You find yourself in a quandary, and in spite of all the work you put into preparing your next steps, starting your big change initiative, or creating your strategic plan, you feel like you need to go back to the drawing board or give up altogether. Much like my attempt to make this meaningful purchase for my wife, you ended up running into unexpected challenges or obstacles that threw off your plans and forced you to have to rethink it, redo it, or let it go.

What matters after that is how you respond, and I think that you probably have five options.

  • The first option is that you can try to fix it. Sometimes that’s possible, with minimal damage or loss, but it’s also just as likely that you’ve gotten to a point that is beyond fixing.

  • Your next three choices are to blame yourself and beat yourself up; blame someone else, react in anger, and take it out on others; or put on an act and pretend like it works, even though it doesn’t. In my experience, these three seem to be the most common responses people take. The reality is, though, that none of these make things better, and in fact, they will most likely make things worse. So that leaves the final option:

  • The fifth option is to acknowledge the failure and start over.

In the end, that is most often going to be the best answer: to decide to accept reality and learn from it. Now, the best thing you can do is to do things differently, or start again, or make adjustments and corrections, or even throw it all out and move on to something else. In any event, your plans fell apart. Regardless of what happened, sometimes the best of intentions come to naught, and all you can do is accept the circumstances and move forward.

Incidentally, the following week I found a similar record player in the exact same color. I had needed to accept the fact that the first one was broken and that I needed to find a different one. When I did, I found what I was looking for, and I was finally able to give my wife the gift she had wanted. While it is important to prepare a plan, sometimes that plan falls apart. At that point, accepting the reality becomes the first step in moving forward to a new plan that will work.

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Complimentary Contradictions (part 7): When A Plan Falls Apart

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of a coin, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, in part 6, we talked about what happens when a plan comes together, and this week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

I tried many different ways to lose weight, and yet, for 25 years, I remained within the same 20-pound range. I’d spent money on weight-loss programs, I’d purchased books on specific weight-loss plans, I’d followed pre-determined menus, and I’d tried various exercise regimens. Every time, I would lose weight up to a point, then it would stop. Most of the time that was because I couldn’t maintain the routine or the plan, yet that didn’t stop me from trying to do it again anyway. I kept trying, but it kept not working.

Then something seemed to change. Perhaps it was a different plan that was more lifestyle-based, perhaps it was motivation, perhaps it was simply a personal choice, but I did something different, and it worked. Over a period of several months, I lost 50 pounds and increased my overall health, and over the next several months after that, I maintained the weight loss. What was different? Probably several things: I made use of an app on my phone to help me maintain awareness of what I was eating, I incorporated moderate exercise, I weighed myself daily (again, to help me stay aware), I ate a piece of chocolate every evening. I’d done variations on these in the past, but this time, they were done in moderation and in combination, rather than with radical, significant change. I continued to eat what I enjoyed but modified and in moderation (smaller portions, more fresh foods, still with lots of flavor); I exercised consistently but moderately (not trying to run a triathlon); I ate something sweet every day, but not in excess; and I maintained awareness every day. The other thing I did was an idea that came from my children: I set two mason jars next to each other where my family could see them, filled one with the number of marbles that equaled the number of pounds I wanted to lose, and each week would move marbles from one jar to the other (or back again) based on what I had lost (or not) until the original jar of marbles was empty, and the empty jar was full. The end result was that I successfully reached my goal weight. I did something different, and it worked. (And I learned some lessons on leadership along the way.)

I’ve experienced the same process numerous times in organizations. Several times, I’ve found myself doing the same thing over and over again even though it hasn’t worked before, and I needed someone or something to shock me into the realization that I needed to do something different. Other times, I’ve entered into a new organization and discovered frustrations over things that were not working, but when I confronted the issues, I was met with resistance because of tradition or history. It took me approaching the issue with an outside perspective to come up with a different way of doing things that worked much better. In one organization, it almost became my unofficial motto to say, “Then we’ll try something different,” as I worked to resurrect a struggling school. In fact, it was in that environment that I recognized the importance of thinking differently, thinking outside the box, and being willing to question how things were done and explore doing them in different ways.

Jim Collins, in Great by Choice (2011), explains the importance of trying different things as part of the process of identifying what works. From his research, he identified several key practices that were necessary for maintaining long-term success. One of those was something he called “empirical creativity,” which he described as “relying upon direct observation, conducting practical experiments, and/or engaging directly with evidence rather than relying upon opinion, whim, conventional wisdom, authority, or untested ideas.” (p. 26) This concept is explained with the illustration of first firing bullets, then cannonballs; or, testing ideas in a low-risk and low-cost manner, using that information to empirically validate what will actually work, and then concentrating resources on those ideas that have been validated. The idea is, very simply – try different things until you find what works, then put your efforts into that.

One of the challenges for a leader is realizing the need to do something different. Sometimes tradition gets in the way – “We’ve always done it that way.” Sometimes we get stuck in routine and don’t think about doing something different. Sometimes, we simply don’t see that we need to do something different because we think that it will still work if we find what needs to be fixed. Then, we keep doing what we have been doing, it keeps not working, and we keep getting frustrated. Black and Gregersen talk about this in their book, Leading Strategic Change (2003), when they say, “the need for change is born of past success – of doing the right thing and doing it well . . . but then something happens: The environment shifts, and the right thing becomes the wrong thing” (p. 11). They go on to describe the process of change as something that happens in four stages (p. 13):

  • Stage 1: Do the right thing and do it well
  • Stage 2: Discover that the right thing is now the wrong thing
  • Stage 3: Do the new right thing, but do it poorly at first
  • Stage 4: Eventually do the new right thing well

The bottom line is that, regardless of the work you have done in preparing a plan, it sometimes (often?) doesn’t work the way you expected it to work, and “the best-laid plans of mice and men” seem to fall apart. Perhaps that’s where you find yourself right now. Maybe you are in a circumstance or environment where what you are doing is not working. The right thing is now the wrong thing (or perhaps it was never the right thing). Maybe it never has worked in the past (like my previous weight loss attempts), maybe it worked at one time but not any longer. Regardless, whatever plan you had seems to have fallen apart and it’s not working; and when it doesn’t work, it’s time to do something different. 

Black, J. S., & Gregersen, H. B. (2003). Leading Strategic Change: Breaking Through the Brain Barrier. Prentice-Hall: New York, NY.

Collins, J., & Hansen, M. T. (2011). Great by Choice:  Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.

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Podcast Episode 33 (part 6): When A Plan Comes Together

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part six in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite sides of a coin, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, in part 6, we talk about what happens when a plan comes together, and next week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

In the last two weeks, we talked about zooming out and zooming in, in order to first see the big picture and then to take care of the details piece by piece. You have heard the saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees,” and that was our primary metaphor for these contradictory, complementary ideas; contradictory in that you cannot do both things at the same time – see the forest AND see the trees – and complimentary in that you have to go back and forth – look at the forest, then at the trees, and back to the forest – repeatedly in order to successfully navigate where you are going and what you are doing. That pair of principles is a great prerequisite to the next pair of principles, which is all about having a plan and managing the detours.

In my experience as a school administrator, I was committed to cultivating an environment that challenged students to think well and to think biblically. That involved constantly seeking out the best ways to do that, including trying to identify the methods that would help me do that most effectively and efficiently. For example, I took typing on a physical typewriter my senior year of high school to prepare for typing papers in college. By the time I became a teacher, I was learning to type on a computer with a word-processing application. By the time I became an administrator, students were learning word processing applications in 9th grade, and it wasn’t long until they became junior high courses instead. And now, it has reached the point where students are learning to type and code algorithms in kindergarten and lower elementary. 

With that understanding of the progression of technology as the background, I reached a point in my leadership experience when I came to believe that in order to teach students with excellence, it was important for every student to have a device in their hands in the classroom, either a laptop or a tablet. So, I began to research. I looked up studies and data on the use of devices and their impact on learning. I visited other schools that were already considered “1-to-1,” meaning one electronic device for every student. I researched specific devices and apps, with the pros and cons of each. With the help of the IT director, I explored the hardware (network speed and strength, Wi-Fi devices, charging stations, etc.) and software (Learning Management System, programs, and apps). I prepared a pilot test run with a teacher and a classroom. And finally, I prepared for the rollout of this next step in how we were educating our students to prepare them for college and career. 

Essentially, I had created a plan that resulted in every student having a tablet in their hands when they came to school in the morning. It was the result of a lot of things – research, preparation, identification of needs and potential solutions, getting feedback and listening, establishing a process, and eventually implementing it. It was thrilling on that first day of school of a new school year when it was now normal for a student to walk into a class, take out an electronic device, open the app and take a quick pre-assessment to give the teacher immediate feedback before the lesson, or start collaborating on a research project with other students, or begin typing a paper, or watch a supplementary video to the lesson to improve understanding. This was all the result of a plan to do something new, but to do it intentionally and well.

That’s what it looks like for you when you put a plan together first, before jumping into a new change. There are important steps for you to follow and a strategic plan to prepare that are necessary in order to set you up for success. Maybe there is something new you need to do that you haven’t been doing. Maybe there’s something you have been doing that hasn’t been working. Maybe there’s something you have been doing that has been marginally working but needs to be better. Before that happens, and so that you can implement and navigate well, you need to create the plan.

What does that plan look like? It looks like a step-by-step process of analyzing, evaluating, identifying, defining, and implementing a plan for future direction and growth, otherwise known as a strategic plan. I would encourage you to read the article that matches this podcast, where I list eight specific steps in the planning process that I believe are essential. Understand that my steps are not necessarily the only way to do it, but it’s a starting point for you. You may find other strategic planning methods, or you may modify the steps I have given to match you, but regardless, you need a plan. 

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What matters for you is that you have an intentional and methodical process for assessing where you are, determining where you need to be, and drawing the map that shows how you will get there. The map is your plan, and therefore it is crucial for getting from here to there without getting lost. If you do it well, you will experience the joy of arriving at the destination that you have been eagerly anticipating. And it happened because a plan came together.

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Complementary Contradictions (part 6): When A Plan Comes Together

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, in part 6, we talk about what happens when a plan comes together, and next week, in part 7, we talk about what happens when a plan falls apart.

I was fairly young and had just become the headmaster of a small Christian school. I knew that the school had been operating with an interim headmaster, that enrollment had drastically declined over the previous couple of years, that they had recently gone through a major shift in identity, that resources were very limited, and that a desired plan for building a new school facility appeared to be stalling out. I felt the emotional mix of excitement about the possibilities and the anxiety of feeling overwhelmed and in over my head, but I also knew that God had clearly and specifically directed in my life to put me in this position. I had previous administrative experience, but not as a head of school, and I had no real training in strategic planning. I simply knew that I had a major project ahead of me, so I rolled up my sleeves and began to assemble a plan of action.  

I started with an intentional process of trying to determine the current status – resources, people, programs, obstacles, etc. – and identify direction and goals, followed by prioritizing those goals and deciding what steps would need to be taken to achieve them. It began with the simple process of first zooming out and then zooming in, the pairs of principles I put together in the last couple of articles and podcast episodes, which I described last time as writing things down on individual, notebook-sized sheets of Post-it notes and placing them on a large empty wall. When they were all up on the wall, I stepped back and began to look at them, individually and together, and then began to sort them into categories and themes and to look for connections, arranging them by groups, priority, and sequential order of process. When I was all done, I had my first official strategic plan.

Strategic planning could be defined as the process of creating and initiating a specific plan to address a determined and identifiable goal need, and my own process in that school was a very crude (although efficient and effective for me at that time and place in my leadership development) form of strategic planning. In the years since, I have learned from experience, education, and training much more about effective – and ineffective – strategic planning. Therefore, even though I helped to facilitate excellent change and growth (with credit actually going to God much more than me; I was only the instrument He chose to use), I now know a number of things I would have done differently or additionally, in my first attempt at strategic planning.

There is an experience that takes place in the book of Ezra, in chapters 9 and 10, that provides a great source of learning for us on this topic. Ezra had already successfully led a group of leaders back to Jerusalem from their place of captivity. The physical temple had already been reconstructed, and now Ezra had returned to facilitate the restoration of the spiritual temple – the hearts of the people. After he arrived in Jerusalem, he took the time to assess the situation and determine the issues (in this circumstance, they were the issues of unfaithfulness and unholiness) and prepared a strategic plan to address the issues and restore the people and the nation before God. This is the process we see when we focus on in Ezra 10:6-17. There we find a description of the process, from inception to implementation, of a specific and measurable plan to address the issue that they faced. In this process, Ezra led the way by his example and his intentional methods, showing us how we, too, can undertake the task of strategic planning for our ministries and organizations.

  1. Step one: Preparation (v. 6) – Enter the process ready, so spend time preparing yourself for the task ahead; this includes your spiritual preparation, humbling yourself before God.
  2. Step two: People (vv. 7-9) – Gather the right people together, including (a) those who will be affected, (b) those who will help make the process, and (c) representative leadership from among the followers.
  3. Step three: Need (v. 10) – Identify the issue(s) or need(s) that must be addressed; before you can prepare a plan, you must be able to articulate what it is that needs to happen, or where it is that you need to go, based on where you currently are and what you are currently doing. Don’t make it complicated.
  4. Step four: Goal (v. 11) – Identify the goal or goals that are to be achieved; this implies identifying the means and steps of correcting or resolving the need that has been identified, and determining what will need to be accomplished that, when done, will fulfill the plan.
  5. Step five: Listen (vv. 12-13) – Listen, giving people a voice in the process, especially those people who may be impacted or affected and those people who have “ground floor knowledge.” Listen to what they say and let them know that they have been heard.
  6. Step six: Process (vv. 13-14) – Establish a process for implementing the plan in four pieces: (a) determine the steps in the process, from start to finish; (b) select leaders to oversee the process of carrying out the plan (this also helps to provide accountability); (c) create a calendar, schedule, or timeline; and (d) when all is said and done, it needs to be more than just talk, and so the process has to be initiated.
  7. Step seven: Obstacles (vv. 13, 15) – Identify and prepare for obstacles and opposition so that you are ready to respond.
  8. Step eight: Implement (vv. 16-17) – Take the action step of implementing the plan and the process, keeping the end in focus, and identifying when the goals have been reached.

The A-Team was a popular television show in the ‘80s, and one of its iconic lines came when the leader of the team, Hannibal, would say, “I love it when a plan comes together!” That’s the joy of a strategic plan. It’s the opportunity to zoom out and see the big picture, zoom in and craft a strategy for the details, and zoom back out to see what will be when you put your plan in place. When you are stepping into a new situation, facing a need for change and growth, have carried out or completed the last strategic plan, or have simply stagnated . . . it’s time for a plan to come together.

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Podcast Episode 32 (part 5): Zoom In and See the Trees

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part five in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last time, in part 4, we explored the idea that you need to be able to zoom out and see the forest, and this time, in part 5, the idea that you need to be able to zoom in and see the trees.

Last time, in the complementary episode to today’s discussion, we talked about taking the time to see and understand the big picture.  We said that, in successful leadership, you need to be able to get above the clouds and see the whole picture before you can drop back down to ground level and begin the process of directing, guiding, leading, and moving. If you don’t do that first, you won’t know where you are, you won’t know where you’re going, and you will end up someplace else. The point was that you can’t see the forest and the trees at the same time, so start by first zooming out to see the whole picture. But then, you need to zoom in, which is our topic for today.

As I started as the head of school at a new school, I set about getting an understanding of where I was. That began by learning the history and context and gathering information to first have the big picture of the place I had stepped into. In other words, I started by zooming out, which is what we talked about last week. I did that by spending my summer before the start of the school year meeting with people – faculty and staff, parents, alumni, students, and board members. I asked everyone I met with to tell me about the school and their experience with it. I also asked specific questions about topics that would come up in the conversation. By the end of the summer, I felt like I had a pretty good map of where I was. I had developed a picture of the school, its history and culture, its strengths and weaknesses, and the sore spots. Then I began to zoom in.

Now that I could see the whole forest, I could start focusing on the trees, and I could help everyone else see the same thing. I started communicating, loudly and often, the positive message of who we were, how we had thrived and excelled, and where we shone. I painted a big picture of why and how we were a school of excellence. Then, I focused in and identified the specific areas of improvement and prioritized them. I transparently communicated what we were addressing first, and the steps we were taking to address those issues. I also acknowledged the other areas of need that we were not addressing first, and communicated how we were prioritizing things. For example, my big picture review revealed that one subject area – science – seemed to be lagging behind the other subjects in its level of excellence. It was not intentional, but it seemed that in the previous years, a focus on some of the other subjects had inadvertently led to a neglect of attention to science. And it suffered because of it. The big-picture review also revealed that we need to restructure and reinforce our Parent-Teacher Fellowship program.  But, as Verne Harnish said in Scaling Up, “If everything is a priority, nothing is,” so I had to establish priorities, and addressing the academic subject area of science took priority over making changes to the PTF.  So, I established a curriculum review cycle that set a schedule of curriculum and subject area review once every 6 years, and made science the first subject we would review. I assembled a committee of teachers, parents, and administrators, and we spent time analyzing and making recommendations, and the end result was a noticeable improvement in science almost immediately (so much so, that when the cycle came back around to science 6 years later, the science program was excelling and producing student who were getting accepted into top colleges in engineering and premed programs). In the process of addressing the priority of the deficiencies in the science program, we ensured that we had a process to evaluate and preserve the strength of every academic program moving forward (not only taking care of one tree, but a grove of trees!).  The next year, we were able to address the specific area of parent involvement and support through the PTF and made changes that dramatically improved the organization and activities of this program. 

The point I am making is that, once I could see the whole forest – where we were, what we had, how we were doing – I could then zoom in and focus on individual trees – the science department, the parent-teacher fellowship, and other spots – and begin to clear or treat the trees to improve the health of the whole forest. I couldn’t address the shortfalls in the science department, restructure PTF, improve extracurricular student opportunities, develop more detailed written procedures and processes, and a number of other things, all at the same time. We didn’t have the capacity to do everything at once, nor would that have been healthy, because too much change too fast can do more harm than good. Rather, with the big picture in mind, I could address one thing at a time that gradually moved the school and the people into a much different – and better – place.

That’s part of your responsibility in leadership. You must understand the big picture so that you can then zoom in on the details as they relate to the whole picture. That helps you to see what is important and what is not, or what is more important and needs to be addressed first. Knowing that big picture helps you see the individual pieces through the lens of your identity, your location on the map, and your broad culture and history, so that you can bring those individual pieces into alignment with your mission and values and can make the necessary changes.

Don’t underestimate this half of the pair of principles, though. Yes, it is vital to see the big picture, but it is just as vital to see the trees. You need to be aware of the areas that are struggling and need to be addressed, as well as the places that are thriving. An understanding of these enables you to know where to praise, where to encourage, where to confront, and where to change. Without knowing that, your forest becomes entangled and overrun. You have to take the time to zoom in, see the trees, and care for those individual pieces of the puzzle. You have to apply the vision and values to the day-to-day operation to put them into practice. Otherwise, you have a lot of words without any action.

As you can tell, these two ideas – zooming out to see the forest, which we talked about last time, and zooming in to see the trees, our topic for today – work in tandem, and I believe they are inseparable. You cannot lead well without doing both. If all your energy is being spent only one or the other, you are going veer from your mission, lose focus, and experience deteriorating quality. You can’t do one and not the other. So, zoom out, zoom in, and do it again, and again, and again.

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Complementary Contradictions (part 5): Zoom In and See the Trees

Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, in part 4, we explored the idea that you need to be able to zoom out and see the forest, and this week, in part 5, the idea that you need to be able to zoom in and see the trees.

Last week, we pointed out that a good leader needs to be able to see the big picture. Like jigsaw puzzle pieces, each piece of the context, the environment, the organization, or the situation fits into a larger context, and you can best see how it fits when viewing the whole picture. In order to see the whole picture, you, as a leader, must be able to get on the balcony, zoom out, and get above the forest to be able to see clearly. Being able to do this will keep you from getting lost among the trees, and will provide the perspective necessary to implement changes and adjustments when you zoom back in.

Most of us probably remember doing “connect the dots” picture puzzles when we were young.  The page would have dots all over the paper, usually numbered in a sequence.  The task was to place your pencil tip (or crayon) on the first dot, draw a line to the second dot, then another line from the second dot to the third, and so on until all the dots were connected.  At that point a recognizable picture had emerged (at least, if you connected the right dots together, it did).  The reason they formed that picture was that they were not a random smattering of dots; rather, they were each specifically and intentionally a point on a bigger picture, and therefore, connecting those dots allowed the picture to take shape.

Astronomers do something similar by grouping stars together (constellations) and drawing imaginary lines between those stars in such a way as to form a picture or a symbol.  This makes it easier to identify and remember groupings and locations, relative to direction, season, and time.  The real significance of the picture is not the picture itself, but rather their arrangement, and the connectedness of the stars in that arrangement.  In other words, these specific stars appear in this particular place, in relation to each other, at this time of the night and year.  This knowledge is what was used by mariners of the past to navigate ships, providing a map in the sky for direction and location.

One of the skills that an effective leader learns to harness is connecting the dots.  Generally, a leader is responsible for providing and shaping vision, which requires the ability to see and communicate the big picture. Part of seeing the big picture includes seeing how various pieces fit together to form that picture.  It is an understanding that certain events, actions, and ideas are going to complement each other in a way that produces a positive impact.  Therefore, a good leader is able to identify those connections in order to harness their connectedness.  He also helps others to recognize those connections.  In an article originally published in the Harvard Business Review, Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas describe this as the importance of grasping context, saying, “The ability to grasp context implies an ability to weigh a welter of factors, ranging from how very different groups of people interpret a gesture to being able to put a situation in perspective. Without this, leaders are utterly lost, because they cannot connect with their constituents” (p. 112).

Rath and Conchie, in Strengths-Based Leadership (2008), also speak to this when they categorize 34 leadership strengths into four basic categories, and then identify one of those strengths as Connectedness.  They explain, “People strong in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason” (p. 139). This involves helping people to see how various pieces are parts of a whole, or part of a bigger picture.  The person with this ability recognizes interrelatedness between events, people, or both. It is the ability to connect the dots and then help others see the connection.

This happens to be one of my strengths (it showed up as one of my top five when I took the StrengthsFinder profile).  Part of the reason stems from my faith in the sovereignty of God, which in turn leads to confidence that things don’t happen by chance. Part of the reason simply stems from an ability to recognize connections.  The realization of this emerged over time, and eventually, I understood that it was one of the things that made me more effective as a leader.  I could identify factors in the environment that were impacting outcomes, see how specific individuals were influencing culture, or spot the connection between seemingly unconnected events.  This, in turn, helped me to understand how to shape vision, make adjustments, or communicate information.

For example, when I began working in one school, I discovered that the students as a whole were performing poorly on standardized tests, like the SAT and the ACT.  As I reviewed the curriculum, I could also see that many of the classroom tests were focused on details and memorization but at the expense of critical thinking and interacting with ideas.  I also learned that most students did not take practice standardized tests (like the PSAT or PLAN) because it was voluntary, and so they had little familiarity with those tests.  Although those pieces were not the only reasons, I could see the connection between those factors and poor test scores.  My response was to create tests that improved critical thinking and reasoning, require all students to take the PSAT and PLAN, and create and institute a Test Prep course.  The result was a notable improvement in average scores.  But it began because I recognized the connections.

In two different organizations, I experienced an initial lack of trust and resistance to my efforts.  When I took the time to do some research and understand some of the history and culture, I learned in each place that the organization had been through a period of harshness, excessive control, and poor treatment of employees.  It was clear that there was a connection between their past experience and their responses to me.  An understanding of that connection helped me to determine my own actions and responses, enabling me to intentionally restore and rebuild trust.

More recently, connecting the dots of environmental factors led to changes that I implemented in the instructional process.  Over the last ten years, I could see that young people were being affected by technology.  The onsite of the Internet, with accessibility to information, social media, and electronic devices are all factors that combined to influence how children interact with the world around them.  Global communication became possible, making the world smaller.  Technology was incorporated into the workplace environment in many fields.  When I connected these dots, the conclusion was clear – digital integration needed to be part of the classroom.  As a result, I initiated a 1:1 program, one in which each student carried an electronic device into the classroom as an educational tool, and teachers incorporated the use of those devices in the learning process.

The lesson for you is this: you will be more effective if you can learn to connect the dots and see the trees.  Find the connections and use those connections to make decisions that will result in positive changes and improvements, decisions that will move you and the organization forward.  And here’s a tip: it’s easier to zoom in, see the trees, and make connections if you can zoom out, see the forest, and understand the big picture.

Bennis, W., & Thomas, R. (2011). “Crucibles of Leadership” in HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership. Harvard Business Review Press: Boston, MA.

Rath, T., & Conchie, B. (2008). Strengths-Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow. Gallup Press: New York, NY.

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Podcast Episode 31 (part 4): Zoom Out and See the Forest

This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part four in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.

There are times when you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, you may hear conflicting counsel that seems to be contradictory to each other, but which is actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. That’s what we are talking about in this series, in both the www.LeadershipEzra.com website articles and on the weekly podcast. We are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader.  Today, in part 4, we explore the idea that you need to be able to zoom out and see the forest, and next week, the idea that you need to be able to zoom in and see the trees.

In the last two episodes, we talked about two complementary ideas: first, the idea that you see what you’re looking for and then, that you don’t see what you’re not looking for. The point we made was that, whether we realize it or not, we all develop perceptions of how we need to experience the world around us. Those perceptions tend to be based on either past experience or future expectation, or a combination of both.  We either have an experience, positive or negative, real or imagined, or we have a specific expectation that we are anticipating, and we then form a perception based on which we look for a certain outcome, and only see the things that confirm that outcome. Consciously or not, we decide what we are looking for, and only see what affirms or confirms what we expect to see.

At the same time, and although we believe we notice everything, especially if we are looking, we tend to miss a lot of what is right in front of us, primarily because we are not looking for that specific thing in that specific way. When I am looking to see or find something, without realizing it, I am expecting it to look a certain way or be in a certain place, so I then overlook it when it is not in that place, or it looks different than what I remember or expect. Because our tendency is to only see what we are looking for, it takes a conscious effort to see things that we are not looking for.

Now we are tackling another pair of ideas.

In my first experience as a head of school, I stepped into a situation in which the school had been struggling significantly. Enrollment had declined dramatically over the previous couple of years, the upper grades were meeting at a rented facility on the other side of town that was in terrible disrepair and not conducive to learning, the new building program was stalled, and there was not a clear and organized budget (the school was under the leadership of a church, and its budget was literally a single line in the church budget). I, however, was young and inexperienced.  So what did I do?  One of the first things I did was purchase 5” x 7” post-it notes. Then, I started writing down everything I could think of that I needed to know about, take care of, fix, protect, and do.  Everything I thought of, I wrote on a single Post-it note. I found a room with an empty wall and started sticking all of the Post-in notes on the wall.  After I had them all on the wall, I stepped back to the other side of the room and stared at the wall.  After staring at the notes for a while, I started sorting the notes that were there into related groups, and adding new notes of things I could see were missing.  I did this for about a week, and by the end of that time, I had begun to form a good picture of the puzzle I needed to put together to bring wellness, healing, and excellence to this school. Only then was I able to begin to zoom in on the smaller groups and individual pieces and get to work.

 You see, before I could create, inject, establish, repair, and restore all that I needed to do, I first needed to gain a big-picture understanding of what was in front of me. Similar to mapping out a trip, I needed to see the whole map, with the routes and stops and detours, so that I could plan the individual steps of the journey.  One of the downsides of modern vehicle GPS screens is that, in my personal opinion, you can readily see where you are, but not where you are trying to get to. It takes you there step by step, but you don’t see the whole picture along the way. In contrast, the exercise I went through in that first head-of-school role was intended to help me see the whole picture before I started on the journey.

In leadership, it is crucial that you take the time and effort to zoom out and see the big picture before you start your journey, and again periodically, or even frequently, along the way. You need to be able to step back, gather all the information that you can, and see the big picture, like the picture on a puzzle box that shows you the image you are trying to assemble before you put the individual puzzle pieces together. If you don’t do that, you end up with three issues:

  1. You don’t know where you are. Sure, you can see the spot you are standing in, but you only see where you are relative to yourself, not to the big picture.  In marine terms, that’s called dead reckoning.  It means you are trying to establish your position and direction based solely on where you think you are at the moment.  That will derail your plan if you are not where you think you are because you didn’t place yourself in the context of the whole picture.
  2. You don’t know where you are going. It only makes sense that if you can’t place yourself in the present, then you have no frame of reference to know the direction you are going in the future. You end up lost and wandering without a map.
  3. You will end up someplace else. This only makes sense.  If you don’t know where you are or where you are going, then eventually, you will end up somewhere, but you will have no idea where. Then you have an even greater mess because you now have to figure it where you ended up so that you can start over and try to get to where you need to.

The big picture today – pun intended – is that successful leadership requires taking the time to see and understand the big picture.  You need the vision and mission.  You need to know your intended outcome.  You need to survey the landscape.  You need to see the forest.  However you want to say it, you need to be able to get above the clouds and see the whole picture before you can drop back down to ground level and begin the process of directing, guiding, leading, and moving.

I just said GPS systems don’t show you the whole journey, only the steps along the way. Technically, you can see the whole route if you zoom the screen out, but if you do that, you can’t see the individual turns, stops, and steps. You can see one or the other, but not both at the same time. Therefore, you need to choose one or the other at any given time. Isn’t that the lesson of today’s topic? You can’t see the forest and the trees at the same time, so start by first zooming out to see the whole picture. Then you’ll be ready to zoom in, but that’s the topic for next time.

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