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Role of The Head of School
Ask the Big Questions
If it is true that you can tell the quality of an
institution’s thinking by the questions it is asking
itself – that is, requiring its administrators to answer
– then we propose that the key question for heads of
schools is, "What are the most important questions
you are currently asking your school to answer?"
Asking "important questions" is inextricably
interwoven with strategic planning, its processes and
outcomes.
Ask
the Big Questions in
the Right Way
In his book The Professional Decision Thinker,
Ben Heirs cautions against simple questions advocating
"rich" questions that truly reflect the
complexity of a situation. Heirs maintains that
"simple questions cannot generate rich thinking"
in a decision-thinking process.
Here are three ways to test the richness of the
questions before the institution:
Do not frame the question too tightly.
Example: How can we move from K8 to K12?
Better: How can we move from K8 to K12 with full
enrollment within the next five years?
Even Better: How can we move from K8 to K12 with full
enrollment within the next five years without:
- Demoralizing our teachers? or
- Offending or losing current families? or
- Opening our market to new competitors? or
- Destroying our long-term competitiveness? or
- Weakening our reputation for quality? or
- Using fund raising practices that would alarm our
donors and
accountants?
or
Making ourselves open to attack from Board
members?
Remove complexity
from language when framing a question, but don’t
remove complexity from the question itself. Do not gloss
over important factors just because they are difficult to
express concisely.
Resist the temptation to reduce the whole issue to a
single financial point, i.e. "What’s the bottom
line?" When an issue of any complexity is involved
there will be many bottom lines. Consider the bottom lines
of relationships, image and satisfaction. Each must weigh
in when attempting to frame the right question.
16 Ways to Get and Keep
Strategic
Planning on the Right Track
Once a head of school begins thinking about strategic
planning, there are
- Test for Board readiness for strategic planning Click
for Assessment Tool (download
only, 72K)
Ascertain the state of the institution and the type of
planning required. (Crisis, holistic, first plan?
Determine the planning parameters (budget; timeline: 6
months, 9 months, a school year? Click
for Plan Schedules;
planning cycle Click
for Planning Cycle Matrix
Determine if outside facilitation is needed; if yes,
select provider; if no, identify Core Strategic Planning
Team
Guide the overall process
Understand and champion the principles of strategic
planning
Act as the vision-bearer
Include planning team among the top school councils
Endorse all research efforts
Meet regularly with the planning team
Avoid the trap question of "what is that you don’t
like?" in favor of "What and how can we
improve?"
Participate in evaluation
Be the school’s chief ambassador of the plan
Identify and act on strategies to get the plan off the
shelf and into action.
Identify and act on strategies to communicate the plan
to all constituencies
Watch for gridlock and plan atrophy; unblock logjams
and facilitate progress; be flexible.
Download this
document (MSFT Word, 46K)
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