At GLP, we believe that staying abreast of new ideas, trends, and information is essential to visionary leadership. This newsletter seeks to help leaders cut through the noise and find resources that are worth reading. Visit our website to explore earlier editions!
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Thanksgiving always offers just one or two days more than a typical weekend to relax with family and step away from work. Not much, but each year the gift of a couple of days feels right on time, and this year more than ever! With this Blueprint, we at GLP want to share our gratitude for you - our readers, colleagues, and friends. We are humbled by all you do for your schools, your organizations, your students, and the missions that inspire you.
Happy Thanksgiving!
We wish you a peaceful, healthy, and happy few days to relax and celebrate with people you love.
Stephanie, Katie, Georgy Ann, Sarah, Julie and Tom
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Distracted Students (and Trustees) |
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Distraction is not new, but it's probably fair to say it's on the rise. And Zoom may not always be helpful. This is true for students and adults - and any guidance to help us recenter or reengage is welcome!
In the Chronicle for Higher Education, James M. Lang (professor of English and director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College) has been publishing a series of articles based on his new book Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It. In this ongoing series, Lang — also the author of the well-received book Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons From the Science of Learning — offers both thoughtful discussions and concrete strategies that are sure to be useful. You can find part one here, part two here, and part three here.
While classroom educators are clearly the target audience for these pieces, we believe that there are some valuable takeaways for leadership and governance. In particular, we’re interested in the implications of Lang’s recommendations for meeting facilitators, especially for board meetings. At GLP, our view is that lifelong learning should be a key component of a trustee’s role, so board meetings need to be seen as valuable opportunities for growth and engagement. Board chairs, trustees, and leaders may want to borrow some of Lang’s techniques.
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Calling In vs. Calling Out: How Might We Do Better? |
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In earlier Blueprints and blog posts, we've been exploring strategies for civil discourse, and fostering dialogue that invites and includes all voices. In the New York Times, Jessica Bennett profiles Loretta J. Ross, a visiting professor at Smith College who is “challenging [students] to identify the characteristics, and limits, of call-out culture: the act of publicly shaming another person for behavior deemed unacceptable.” Ross advocates for what she calls “calling in,” - a strategy for private and respectful dialogue that assumes good intentions and avoids the public shaming intrinsic to calling out. As Ross defines it: “It’s a call out done with love.” Even more powerful, she stresses the practice as truly inclusive:
"We have a saying in the movement: Some people you can work with and some people you can work around. But the thing that I want to emphasize is that the calling-in practice means you always keep a seat at the table for them if they come back"
Click here to read the piece.
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In MIT Technology Review, Matthew Hutson shares an intriguing discussion of the philosophical notion of “epistemic dependence:” the idea that we all rely on the knowledge of others in order to form our own knowledge of the world. Put differently, none of us have all the information: we all hold pieces of the puzzle. While Hutson focuses on some deep scientific questions throughout the piece, his article also offers useful provocations and insights for learning as well as for organizational strategy.
For example, in an experiment where groups of three assembled a radio, the researchers compared the outcomes of trios who had trained as a team versus trios where each member had trained on their own. In the team-trained groups, because the knowledge was better coordinated across the team (each member specialized in certain areas), the assembly error rate of those groups was less than half of the individually-trained teams. “Each individual in those trios may not have known how to assemble a radio as well as those who had trained as individuals,” Hutson writes. “But as a group—humans’ normal mode of operation—their epistemic dependence bred success.”
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Millennials and Market Trends and Data |
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A recent blog post by NAIS President Donna Orem offers a clear framework for thinking about where your school sits relative to its market. Part of Orem’s piece involves an overview of challenging economic factors facing millennial families, which may be a review for some but is likely useful for most. The heart of the article lies in her summary of a recent webinar by NAIS Vice President Mark Mitchell that outlines how a school might approach four different market scenarios. Some schools (especially schools that primarily serve students in grades nine through twelve) may have been relatively insulated from the economic trends facing millennials, but schools with younger students have already started to be impacted by these realities, and all schools will need to be making plans for the future based on these projections.
Another interesting piece comes from Jeff Selingo, one of the top journalists writing about colleges and universities today. While his bylines usually appear in publications such as the New York Times and the Atlantic, we wanted to share his recent white paper published in a somewhat unconventional venue: the website of Salesforce, the cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software company. We bring this up because it underscores the main focus of this white paper: the relationship between data management and admissions marketing. Selingo touches on a wide range of topics involving the evolution of higher ed institutions, but while some of that discussion might seem familiar, the data and marketing-focused pieces could provide some valuable new insight. Click here to read a summary of the white paper and for the link to download the full version.
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What Inclusive Leaders Sound Like: Takeaways from the research of Quantified Communications, a firm that combines data and behavioral analytics to help people measure and strengthen the way they communicate. This piece is a super practical and clear framing of how inclusive leaders communicate, from content to delivery to body language.
Don’t Get Blindsided by Your Blind Spots: This piece outlines four learning experiences that leaders and leadership teams can use to improve their self-awareness (interpersonal skills lab, team simulation, coach, and skilled facilitator) and discusses which pathway might be best for your organization’s needs.
How to Brace Yourself for Disappointment: We use this technique all the time in facilitation and coaching. It centers leaders and takes some of the anxiety out of the mix when navigating complexity — and it forces a “plan” and perspective that prevents paralysis. It's a good tactic for working with students and colleagues too. In essence, you start by asking: What’s the worst thing that can happen? Which leads to: Ok. Now what? (Usually, it feels better than people think it will…)
Are You Ready to Be Coached?: This piece provides a helpful overview of how leadership coaching works and what matters to be successful. Relatedly, GLP believes that coaching is a skill set that every educator needs — in the classroom, in the meeting room and with your team. We’ve written about this on our blog: click here to read “Why Coaches and Facilitators are for Everyone,” and click here to read “Why All Teachers Should Learn to Lead.”
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