One theme that has popped up over and over again in writing this newsletter is that change is hard. It just is. Transitions present challenges and take energy, whether it’s getting back into your day to day routine after a vacation or after leaving a job. I’m not saying it’s bad and that everyone hates it (I’m looking at you, the “I love change!” people - although I always wondered if these people doth protest too much.)
I was thinking recently about a conversation I had back in the day with my 9th grade English teacher, Mrs. Bennett. The poor woman had to lead us through Great Expectations (interestingly, many years later I had to lead my first tenth grade English class as a teacher through the same novel and they had about the same amount of interest as my peers had back then, despite there having been an Ethan Hawke/Gwyneth Paltrow movie version. Magwitch? Chipwich? Who-witch?)
- Spoiler alert - needed for anecdote relevance! -
Estella pretty definitely rejects our hero Pip even though she seems to feel love for him. This totally bothered my tender 14 year old heart and I talked to Mrs. Bennett about my frustration and puzzlement If she loves him, she should just change! And Mrs. Bennett said to me, in, as I recall, a rather sad and resigned tone:
It’s really hard to change who you are and sometimes you know you just can’t do it.
That was a sobering, and honestly, at the time, an unfathomable idea. I have seen her point more over time - although I still stubbornly cling to the ideal that change is possible for all.
Then I also think of something a mentor said to me a few years ago:
It’s not about whether or not someone can change - it’s about how much, and when.
Strategy formulation is a key tool to support a school in change management. In an environment where it can be hard to detect what is an enduring trend or an emerging need vs what’s a flash in the pan, strategy should provide a clear direction/focus and a scaffold for decision making.
But what change is needed for your school to thrive - and how much change can happen, when?
“Strategic planning” is one of those facts of institutional life. Evidence of it is typically part of a school re-accreditation process. But how you achieve the plan has evolved over time. Thirty years ago, it was an all-school process, run by consultants, and inextricably linked to shaping fundraising. It was both a detailed blueprint for the way forward and a case for a capital campaign. It was comprehensive, expensive and exhausting with a five year window before you did it all again.
The landscape has changed radically and now there is more urgency to utilize strategic planning as a tool to achieve differentiation and market position for a highly competitive enrollment environment. We are in an era of more nimble fundraising with capital fundraising that more or less goes on continuously as projects develop.
I do wonder how many heads now look at the prospect of traditional, year long strategic planning with the same enthusiasm they would about a root canal. There are certainly fun and exciting aspects of it, but it is also an extensive interpersonal exercise with all areas of the school - Board, faculty, staff, families, kids - when heads have so much on their plates. The prospect once again of all those Post-Its, of all different colors and sizes…
But just like with capital fundraising today, there are multiple ways to get to the goal of formulating strategy.
It amused me to no end what came up when I started to surf around the web researching for this article. There are so many school strategic planning TAKES! There are the disrupters who write about it in kind of an angry way, telling schools they are doing it all wrong and no one is being ambitious enough. There is the gentle take, reassuring schools you can do it yourselves if you set up the right committees. There’s the consultant you-need-us-to-live-with-you-for-a-year take. It’s the belief that the right person or team or approach is going to add that special sauce that will get you to strategy nirvana.
Here’s my take - there is no wrong takes, there are only two factors leadership needs to get clear on:
Where your school is at
What process it needs to start moving forward
How much change is necessary? How much change is possible? How quickly can change happen?
And typically - schools have one of two immediate needs;
Financial stability/sustainability
Program relevance
Of course, they go hand in hand but sometimes before you can proceed with anything else, you need to shore up your revenue source.
When Financial Stability is Paramount
Strategic planning needs to be simple if there are clear and urgent needs that leadership and the board agree on. It is important that solutions to these issues be approached in a strategic rather than a haphazard way, echoing the mission, leveraging the school’s strengths and supporting the experience of the current students and families. But it will likely not be a cast of thousands coming up with a multipage plan - and if you have a talented enough group in you leadership team and board, they can do a lot of the heavy lifting. But it seems likely you may need to engage some specialized consulting help for a board or senior team retreat or both, an admissions audit or brand refresh, etc.
When Program Relevance is Paramount
The wolf may not be at the door… yet.
The law of entropy is at work in schools, too - all systems fall apart. Systems that worked really well ten years ago might have some rust on them - or be completely irrelevant due to technology changes. (Remember the days before wifi or LMSs?) Best practices in teaching and learning seem to be evolving at a supercharged rate since the pandemic. And pandemic learning loss is a real phenomenon making families very anxious.
In this case, a more extensive, community wide process is crucial because to effect durable change to best serve kids you need to get your constituencies on the same page. And likely an intentional culture shift is required. This still doesn’t necessarily have to be the traditional year long structure, but there should be ways you are engaging the entire community to get to a strategic vision.
Here are some other questions beyond financial stability vs. program relevance to ask as you think about your next strategic exercise:
What level of change can the culture withstand? People can only take so much change and there has been a lot during the pandemic.
How much additional work can your community take on, realistically? The mood at the moment indicates that faculty want more input into decision making but they are also feeling overloaded.
What are the obstacles to change? Which constituencies will you need to work hardest with to get on the same page? What data or arguments might you need to employ?
How skilled is your community at hashing out different opinions? How robust and “real” are conversations at board meetings? Senior team meetings? Faculty meetings? Are there “canaries in the coal mine” topics you can use to test this capacity?
What is the risk of pushing too far and what is the risk of not pushing far enough?
A strategic exercise doesn’t necessarily mean you need to reinvent the wheel. And that might not be what your school needs.
And don’t forget - be loud and proud about all the many things that ARE working in your school! Really thinking about what is working - and what evidence you have that it’s working - can be a key to nurturing a powerful strategy.
If the school’s survival dictates a need for change, then it may be bumpy but you may have no choice. And then it becomes an explicit, joint effort of the head, the board and the leadership team to manage the cultural resistance to change. You can’t prevent it because remember my rules #1 and 2 - People Lead Complicated Lives and Change is Hard. (Full disclosure: rule #2 keeps changing and I have a #3 I never can remember…). But you can be a powerful team using straightforward, compassionate communication strategies.
A strong strategic vision, achieved through a thoughtful process, can be durable and be a school’s lodestar for longer than five years. It should be connected to a well-articulated mission statement that spells out why the school exists (not what it does or how it does it) and it should be a reflection of the school’s core values.
Consultant or No Consultant
That is up to you! It depends on the size and scope of your pressing issues and the talent on your current team.
However, in my experience, a well-chosen consultant can be a game changer, whether it is as a thought partner working with a head and/or board chair to figure out what path to take for a strategy process, to get a board on the same page with the head, or consultants who can provide very specific feedback on enrollment or marketing, or maybe that outside expert the school collaborates with over the course of a year.
It’s all about whether the time and money you invest in assistance and collaboration is the best investment. And only you can be the judge of that.
Happy Thanksgiving to all! Enjoy some time off and relax.
Julie
Talking Out of School - Coming in December:
Thoughts on Head of School Transition
So important, so complicated, such a big lift for the Board of Trustees
Tips on Salary Negotiation
From my CS&A Women’s Institute presentation, tips that can be helpful to anyone who wants to talk to the head about a raise this winter
Stony Creek Diaries
I was just about floored that the first edition of Stony Creek Diaries, last Tuesday, had an 80% open rate! You guys! Thank you, readers! I am so delighted and rather humbled that my little personal “side project” got so many readers.
I will be sending out another SCD in the next week or two. Stay tuned.
Stony Creek Strategy is excited to partner with schools on their strategy journeys. As articulated in our principles:
Above all: reaching clarity on leadership’s fully articulated core values and beliefs can be a bulwark against leader burnout, a light for an aspirational vision, a fulcrum for all institutional communications, and a safe harbor in times of crisis.
jfaulstich@stonycreekstrategy.com