 In business, and increasingly in philanthropy and other areas, we want to know the return on investment (ROI) when we consider a new technology, a new practice, or even a new policy. And, in some cases, this is an easy measure and a direct correlation. A new piece of equipment purchased saves X amount of time, increasing productivity and/or decreasing costs by Y dollars.
Wise leaders understand, however, that returns aren’t always that direct. Investing in products or services that enhance a company’s culture or improve its communication requires a broader understanding of “return” and typically requires a different time horizon and calculus for measurement. Employee retention, talent recruitment, employee affinity and resulting productivity, trust in your company, quick access to organizational knowledge, less time wasted managing emails resulting in lower employee stress, organizational goodwill: these returns are often difficult to put a dollar value on, or to correlate to a singular investment or action by the company. Yet, their benefits impact nearly every interaction within our company every day, and ultimately find their way to the bottom line. They build the workplace, not just the work. Good leaders know these kinds of returns are critical to company success. And, focusing on them may just require a different question: what is the consequence of NOT investing? What are the hidden costs when we fail to invest in culture? What are the efficiencies we will never know if we choose not to invest in better communication? What are the wasteful work-arounds we cannot even see but that are already in place as a result of our failure to invest? Explicit returns on investment in culture and communication are often nebulous, and the fact that they cannot be clearly defined too often means we don’t invest in them. It’s a self-reinforcing loop that cuts at the heart of our companies and challenges our leadership, our productivity, and impacts our bottom line. While writing this blog, I came across an article in the New York Times that included the following quote: “(In our research) We often ask senior leaders a simple question: If your employees feel more energized, valued, focused and purposeful, do they perform better? Not surprisingly, the answer is almost always “Yes.” Next we ask, “So how much do you invest in meeting those needs?” An uncomfortable silence typically ensues.” The article goes in depth in exploring this contradiction of acknowledged value and persistent lack of investment. Although long, it’s definitely worth a read. At the most basic level, however, I think we need to start by changing the question, or at least asking another question. Instead of only asking about the ROI, we also need to ask about the consequence of not investing (CNI).
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 Every year, my family watches the Music City Marathon from our front porch. It’s humbling and inspiring to watch 5000 strangers pass you by, 20 miles in with 6 more to go.
I always tell people I am not a runner, so part of me thinks these 5000 people are crazy. On the other hand, watching them makes me question my “I am not a runner” statement in the first place. Watching these “runners” pass for hours, you realize there is no such thing as “a runner.” These are just people. These are people challenging themselves. These are people reaching for a goal. It’s a 90-pound, 70-year-old woman, and a 270-pound, 20-year-old man. It’s a graceful Kenyan, and a rickety man with scoliosis. It’s the parents pushing their physically disabled children in strollers, and a fallen soldier’s Mom running in boots. It’s a survivor “running for a cure,” and a loved one running in memory. Some take long strides, some shuffle. Some have bodies that remain still and calm. Others seem held loosely together by thread, body parts clacking and crashing with every stride. Some ignore our cheers; some are in a zone; some cheer back. As with most of my experiences, I wondered if there were a lesson to learn here about education, about community, about life. Surely, there is a metaphor in this profound example of human endurance. Surely, there is a reason that watching this marathon is so emotional. Here’s what I’ve got: Each has his own motivation. Whether we are talking about marathons, relationships, education, or careers, we are all motivated by something – and our motivation is unique to us. Even those we deem “unmotivated” are simply motivated to do nothing. Either way it is motivation. And, if we want to engage them, relate to them, or educate them, we must tap their motivation. Each has his own style. Running, learning, or communicating, our “style” is a combination of our nature and our nurture. It is in some ways developed and managed by our motivation and our opportunities, and in other ways by things beyond our control or beneath our consciousness. So, if we want to relate to others, to love them, to learn with them, we must be open to their style. We must see style as part of who they are. Each has his own pace. We live in a do-more, be-more society and our culture tells us that winning is the goal. Winning, however, doesn’t have to be externally defined or culturally recognized. It can be individual and internal. Self-actualization comes when I can define what winning is for me. So, if we believe in each other and that each of us has purpose and power, we must broaden the parameters of success and celebrate each at his own pace. In a marathon of 5000 runners, there are 4999 losers, and none of them lost.  In a variety of conversations, workshops, and planning sessions over the years, whether around technology adoption, organizational culture, or school climate, I have referenced the following change model out of Harvard:
Change = Dissatisfaction x Vision x Plan Why is this simple model so powerful? At the most basic level: what happens when you have a zero for any of these elements? No change. It’s simple multiplication, but profound in that so many of our traditional change efforts are built on addition strategies. If we do this, and then we buy that, then it will add up to change. But, addition alone doesn’t generate real change. Change is multiplicative. The elements necessary for change are interdependent and are thus magnifiers of each other. So, why do we struggle to pull this simple multiplication together on some of our most persistent organizational, educational, and community issues? After all, we have built countless strategic, community, and organizational plans. We have crafted mission and vision statements for our organizations, collaborations, task forces, committees, and initiatives. We’ve brought in trainers, consultants, data wonks, and various other experts from out of town. We have invested millions to develop, implement, and evaluate new models and new technologies. The list goes on and on. No real change. Applying the Harvard Change Model to largely fruitless visioning and planning efforts, we are left only to reflect on our dissatisfaction. Now, it may seem ludicrous with all of the time, money, and effort we have invested into change to wonder if we are really dissatisfied. All those meetings…all that discussion…all those plans…the surveys…the focus groups…the new technologies…surely, all of that is proof we are dissatisfied, right? But is it? In expressing our dissatisfaction (and creating our visions and plans), we too often focus on the work of others. Or, perhaps, if we do focus on the real problem, we never do the ugly part of identifying how we individually are complicit. The “problem” then is this thing that just exists, but somehow isn’t created by us through our own choices and actions. We all join the chorus saying “something’s gotta change” with an implicit “but it’s not me”. So, if a critical mass is not truly dissatisfied with our own work (and not just the work of others) then the real dissatisfaction required to generate change doesn’t exist. There is only frustration, blame, and subsequent defensiveness (and a lot of failed visions and plans). If all of us who claim dissatisfaction, whatever the issue and wherever we work, actually changed our own practices, I wonder if it might add up to something?  Years ago, while commiserating about limited access to higher education for low-wealth students, a colleague offered a thought: “Every system is perfectly designed to deliver the outcomes it delivers.”
If you think on that for just a moment…(go ahead, do it!)…it’s both painfully obvious and painfully…well…painful. But, for anyone working to change the outcomes that are important to them in education, politics, justice, or otherwise, this simple statement tells us where our efforts must be directed: the systems that we have, advertently or inadvertently, designed to underperform (or to perform exceptionally toward outcomes we never intended). Under this premise, the school system that is struggling with dropouts is perfectly designed to generate those dropouts. The justice system that incarcerates men of color at dramatically higher rates than anyone else is perfectly designed to incarcerate men of color. The political system that generates corruption, gridlock, and weak candidates is perfectly designed to do just that. System performance is not the sum of its individual elements. It is the interrelated (systemic) performance of its elements. Systems get misaligned because we build and invest (or disinvest) in them element by element often over long periods of time, and amidst shifting values and visions. And, the more we address individual elements in isolation the more likely we are to create systemic dissonance (the type of boiling-frog dissonance we actually grow to accept). Within an organizational system, for example, perhaps we have rewritten our values statement, but our organizational structure is out-of-date or even arbitrary. We revisit our investments (budget, people, etc.), but align them with our organizational structure rather than our strategy (this is my new definition of bureaucracy, by the way). We clarify and document our desired outcomes, but we maintain old strategies that have lost relevance in a changing environment. We improve our product or service delivery, but never invest in our human capital pipeline to support and sustain it. When we see systemic failure, we cannot blame the system without owning our role in it. We cannot claim that our part of the system is working, and it’s everyone else’s that’s broken. We cannot do fragmented and narrow work and believe it will add up to a healthy system. It won’t. If we are going to create the system that is perfectly designed to deliver the outcomes we actually want, we need to design, invest, and lead systemically.  It seems educators, reformers, and advocates everywhere are committed to the idea of “data-driven decision-making.” Presumably, this term and its popularity are outgrowths of increased visibility and accountability in public education along with the rapid growth of the role of data in other parts of our lives.
And, let’s be honest: it sounds good. It makes us feel secure. It sounds really smart. And, if done well it probably could be transformative. In order for data-driven decision-making to have much meaning, however, we need to maintain a critical eye and keep asking questions (let’s at least try to keep it from being pure jargon anyway): DATA … what’s data and what’s not data? The brands that survey us and track our online and buying patterns never really ask if the data they see can be verified by a nationally recognized higher education institution. It doesn’t matter. It’s data, and they use it for what it is. In education, we need to get the idea of data out of the clouds (only data wonks understand it), out of institutional paradigms (data-driven and evidence-based are not synonymous), and demystify it a bit (every interaction with another human is full of data points). Data isn’t just delivered to us from the researchers or the “data people” at central office. We don’t need a published report or a study to have and use data. When we talk to a student and ask what she is interested in, what her concerns are, how she is feeling: that’s data. We just need to ask. If you ask 30 students at your school if they have been bullied in the last month and 15 say yes, you have data that suggests a bullying problem – University X doesn’t need to confirm it. DATA … WITH PEOPLE … Is the data merely accessible or is it actually consumable? In its current state, data in education feels too complex, distant, and obtuse. I am a reasonably educated guy, and when I look at some of the data and spreadsheets that actually get shared from time to time with students and parents and even with teachers more frequently, my eyes go crossed. And, when I think about indicators like school climate that might actually be helpful in real-time, there’s no good data being captured. Because it makes sense in a database – or to someone building a database – doesn’t mean data makes sense in the hands of those who are supposed to interpret and use it. Because we can report on it annually as a school system or community and say “yep, we track that” or dig it out occasionally for a grant means little to its usefulness in our daily work. In fact, data that is six clicks deep in a database or learning management system should probably not even be considered available to most users. It’s not consumable anyway. Data-driven decisions start with our ability to process data in terms we understand and in the context of decisions and actions we actually control. DATA…WITH PEOPLE…WITH DECISIONS TO MAKE Who are the deciders and what do they get to decide? As you might guess from my previous writing and work, I wonder, in particular, where our students are in this conversation. In my experience, students generally don’t have much say on important issues in their schools (I am being gentle here). So, obviously, school data isn’t something we discuss with them. Instead, we treat students merely as data providers not data users. Meanwhile, they collect and analyze data everyday and in every interaction and use it to make important personal and relational decisions. But, there is a challenge here for teachers and other staff too. Most teachers I talk with view data as more of a tool of external accountability than professional process and continuous improvement. And, often the data they are accountable for reflect variables they have little-to-no control over, particularly in the short term. So basically, 1.) they have access to data that doesn’t relate to their actual realm of decision-making; and/or, 2.) they are trying to make decisions (and someone wants the data that supports it) and they don’t have it. But, if data-driven decision-making is critical to the improvement of schools and development of communities, shouldn’t it be critical (available, consumable, and relevant to decision-making) across all stakeholders? If the range of consumable data, data usage, and the related (or unrelated) decision-making processes are narrow, unclear, or inconsistent, then we can be pretty sure our data-driven outcomes will be as well. Like anything else, the data on data-driven decision-making will likely reflect the quality of implementation not the idea itself.  Collaboration is all the rage in enterprise technologies. Whether it’s the latest “enterprise social network” or the newest feature of an established intranet provider or learning management system, technologies are promising to solve your organization’s collaboration ills by claiming to make collaboration easier, more efficient, and more fun.
Here’s the only problem: if your organization doesn’t cultivate and support collaboration without technology, then technology isn’t going to cultivate it for you. Collaboration software typically works great for the people who were already collaborative (and liked technology) without it, but isn’t likely to make collaborators out of the previously un-collaborative. Collaboration succeeds where it is understood, promoted, and developed as a value and an expectation. It’s not an activity. It’s not a new technology. Collaboration is a lot less something you do, and a lot more how you are with others and how that shapes the way you work with them (or not) toward common goals. Organizationally, culture frames process; process necessitates tools; tools support process and reinforce culture (but cannot create either of them alone). For it to be sustainable and meaningful in a work setting, collaboration needs to be: STRATEGIC (Culture and Process) – It should be clear at all levels of your organization (at least where collaboration is key to performance) that collaboration is a critical strategy to achieve outcomes. It can’t be “nice-when-we-have-time.” If it’s strategic, it’s fundamental. LEVERAGED (Process and Tools) – Assuming it is, in fact, strategic, collaboration must be part of the design of your organizational processes. It must be operationalized effectively such that it is part of everyday workflow, job expectations, and even evaluation measures. MODELED (Culture) – Like anything, if the people “at the top” don’t “practice what they preach” then it’s hard to get strong buy-in from everyone else. Leadership must be intentional and overt in exposing when and how it leads through collaboration. CELEBRATED (Culture and Process) – We celebrate each other in our work in both subtle and overt ways: the passing comment, the simple nod of a head, or a formal award. Each represents a celebration that promotes and reinforces organizational values. Collaboration needs to be celebrated in many ways and at all levels. INVESTED IN (Process and Tools) – What we invest in shows what we value. What we implement well shows our commitment to our values. We can’t decide collaboration is important and never put the tools behind it. But, we also can’t just throw technology at it and proclaim “now we collaborate!” I have worked on committees, in communities and in schools, with truly brilliant, intensely motivated, and incredibly creative individuals. And, I’ve watched and felt as all of us over time ended up as less than the sum of our parts, looking around at each other like we are sedated, wondering why we still come to these meetings, like we don’t have something else to do with our time.
And, I simply don’t understand why/how otherwise strong leaders accept becoming members of committees that end up:
Now, I have also sat on some great committees, and it is these positive experiences that really highlighted for me how to make a committee work, so that bringing leaders together can be powerful rather than neutralizing. So to start, here are a few red flags (sadly from lived experience) that might inspire some critical reflection on your committee work: Red Flag: When I ask you what you do as an organization, collaborative, or initiative, and you lead with how many committees you have… Red Flag: When I ask you what your committee does and you tell me when and where it meets… Red Flag: When I ask you how long you have been on a committee and you can’t really remember… Red Flag: When I ask you who else is on the committee and you include the people who used to, or only occasionally still, show up to the meetings… Red Flag: When I ask you what a typical meeting is like and the long, meandering answer you kindly attempt to offer can be summed up by “we talk about stuff”… Whether you enjoy working through committees, volunteering to serve on them, or you reluctantly have them imposed on you, it’s important to be mindful that they are merely means; they are not ends. A committee is not an outcome. It’s not a product. A committee is an operational tactic, not a strategy. So, here are a few thoughts on how to start and end a committee so that it serves its function and doesn’t linger:
The two most successful committees I have been a part of followed these four key recommendations. The ones that have not (and they are many) have ended up lost, without focus, evolved into “standing” committees and, perhaps most humorously, rebranded themselves as “working groups” without making any real process adjustments. With all there is to accomplish in our schools and communities, we simply cannot afford to let our leadership die in committee.  As we prepare to celebrate and reflect on the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, I have been reading articles and seeing special reports on TV about the “I Have a Dream” speech. And, while I have heard most of it before in some form or another, things have struck me a bit differently this year.
So the story goes: as Dr. King started to wrap up his remarks, he had delivered a solid speech (for him), which would undoubtedly make it the finest any of the rest of us might ever hope to deliver. But, there was a sense with him, and perhaps with others around him, that as he concluded his planned 4-minute speech, he hadn’t yet “nailed” it. And then Mahalia Jackson chimed in from his side: “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” Apparently, not once but twice, Mahalia urged: “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” Dreams are funny things. They can take us to distant places and liberate our minds and hearts. And yet, the dream untenable can trap us and leave us more hopeless and feeling more stuck in our current reality than ever. As Langston Hughes ruminated on a dream deferred: “Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?” Dreams in reality can be as demoralizing as they are liberating. So, I have been reflecting on Dr. King’s dream to better understand the nature of dreams that become liberating:
It wasn’t that Dr. King had a dream; it’s that we did and he spoke it into being. He tapped into our collective experiences and timely sense of possibility and a pathway to change. He pulled the dream out of our hearts and minds and put it into our hands. Maybe for the sake of our families, schools, workplaces, and communities, we should all be better about sharing our dreams. Perhaps even more importantly, maybe we should all be like Mahalia Jackson urging others along: “Tell them about the dream.”  I had the pleasure of sitting and talking a few weeks ago with Bill Milliken. And, among the countless gems that began to flow when he started getting into the rhythm of the conversation, he dropped this:
“If I am on an operating table, I don’t want collaborators. I want an integrated system!” With his sharp wit and wily twinkle in his eyes, Milliken is relentless in pushing us to “get it right” in our collective work for and with young people. This is what he has done and advocated for decades (it’s what makes him Bill Milliken!). His charm aside, I thought this quote was worth exploring a little further. So, I started thinking about the difference between collaboration and an integrated system. And, while there are certainly many specific differences to consider, I believe that, at its core, the difference is that of shared strategy (not to be confused merely with a shared strategic plan, strategic vision, strategic alignment, or any other narrow bastardizations of the concept of strategy). As collaborators, we typically bring 1 and 1 together and celebrate how we “strategically” made 2. To use another analogy, in collaboration, I have my puzzle piece and you have yours and we navigate around the edges a bit to see if we can “strategically” fit them together. But, collaboration is too often just that – around the edges – and generally happens downstream of our truly strategic organizational and institutional decisions. In other words, the critical decisions (who we serve, how, when, where, etc.) are already made by the time the collaboration tries to fit them together. Collaboration becomes a reactionary tactic attempting to overcome the lack of an actual integrated system! In an integrated system, we co-create in an ongoing manner our collective strategy, which guides and determines organizational and institutional decisions, key roles, responsibilities, and tactics. I work in this area or on this issue because it complements (not simply adds to) what you do and how you do it toward our common objective (also an element of strategy). An integrated system, therefore, requires constant communication, reflection, and learning so that together our 1 + 1 achieves the proverbial 3. Cynically, then, an integrated system comes at a cost: our work must actually be about our work, not just our organization or institution. Our work must be about the young person, for example, not whether or not I work in a school setting or an after-school setting. Let’s be honest, in most of our communities, the “systems of support” (or lack thereof) we have created for young people have been created because they work well for us as adults and the organizations we lead. Even in some of the best cases, our efforts represent an attempt to add things up for young people, but never really ask us to change what we are doing to make the system more complete. We generate plans of systems but claim expertise or blame funding for why someone else needs to change or do more, and not us. We rarely, if ever, achieve an integrated system at the level of shared strategy. We rarely, if ever, achieve the sort of integrated system that would actually work for our young people. Unfortunately, no amount of collaboration can overcome this reality. And, even more unfortunately, collaboration can obscure the weaknesses within the system by averaging them out. This, in turn, makes future efforts at a more integrated and strategic approach that much more complicated because we appear to be better than we actually are. It also makes it more difficult to identify and address where we are falling short. If I am on the operating table, I do hope my surgeon is part of an integrated system with the nurses and the doctor who diagnosed me. And, once there, I certainly hope the stellar work of my surgeon doesn’t obscure or average out the marginal work of my anesthesiologist! So, Bill, thanks for the analogy, the push to work smarter, and for ensuring the next time I have surgery that I will be completely scared-to-death! In a variety of workshops, whether around school climate, youth/student engagement, or even broader community work, I reference the following change model out of Harvard, which I actually discovered through the Forum for Youth Investment:
Change = Dissatisfaction x Vision x Plan Why is this simple model so powerful? At the simplest level, what happens when you have a zero for any of these elements? No change. It’s basic multiplication, but profound in that so many of our traditional change efforts are built on addition strategies. If we do this and then we get that then it will add up to change. If we add this resource…If we add this position…If we add this new frame for our work… Addition alone doesn’t generate real change. Change is multiplicative. The elements necessary for change are interdependent and exponential magnifiers of each other. So, why can’t we pull this simple multiplication together on a critical, and fairly universally concerning, issue like education reform? It shouldn’t be that hard, and, candidly, a lot of folks have been working really hard on it! We have built countless strategic and organizational plans focused on education from district-level reforms down to teacher evaluation and curriculum. We have crafted mission and vision statements for our community organizations and community collaborations to align around our schools’ vision and plans. We’ve brought in trainers, consultants, data wonks, and various other experts from out of town. We have invested billions of dollars in re-visioning high schools. We have paid millions to develop, implement, and evaluate new data-driven models. The list goes on and on. So, why do we rarely generate real change? Using the Harvard Change Model, we are left to reflect on our dissatisfaction. Now, it may seem ludicrous with the current outcries and the previously mentioned investments in education and education reform to wonder if we are really dissatisfied. With every media outlet in the country full of ideas, opinions, and impassioned rants about education, our dissatisfaction is obvious. Given the increased role of state and federal governments (not to mention the business sector) and the position of education reform in our local and national agendas, surely our collective dissatisfaction with the status quo is clear. At the individual level, I suspect all of us would describe ourselves as frustrated, sad, angry, and myriad other descriptors of dissatisfaction with the state of education in our communities and in this country. Surely, dissatisfaction isn’t the problem. But is it? In expressing our dissatisfaction, we too often focus on the work of others: teachers, principals, counselors, students, unions, community organizations, business, and policymakers (we all are focusing our dissatisfaction on each other). We point outward from our position and proclaim our righteous indignation at someone else’s inability to change, at their role in maintaining the status quo. We all join the chorus saying “something’s gotta change” with an implicit “but it’s not me”. I believe we are all part of the education system (as community system) in some form or fashion. So, if a critical mass is not truly dissatisfied with our own work (and not just the work of others) then there is not the real dissatisfaction required to generate change. There is only blame and subsequent defensiveness (and a lot of failed visions and plans). If all of us who claim dissatisfaction, inside the education system and out, actually changed our own practices, I wonder if it might add up to something? |
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