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Response to Pierre’s Challenge of “Stella’s Strategic Competencies || Blog 8.1: D’Oh!

Hi Pierre,

I appreciate your response to my post, as found here.

I believe there are two main factors to the growth in my school: the housing boom and the new curriculum. The year before these two things happened, we were working on a bare bones budget and wondering how long we could hold out. When the demand in Vancouver for affordable single detached dwellings went through the roof a few years back, many people moved further out to the eastern Greater Vancouver Regional District. My school had just sold land from our property to be developed, and so there was a windfall to pay off debts. The new housing starts also increased at that time, so the population pool who might be interested in Christian education increased. At the same time, many parents became increasingly worried about the changes in the new curriculum and sought a more predictable and “safe haven” in private education. It also happened at the same time we had hired a development coordinator to improve our brand and create a stronger connection to our  surrounding community.

It was a perfect storm for increased enrolment!

I feel humbled and honoured to have been called to lead in my community for a time such as this. Jesus’ perfect timing in my life brought me to the TWU MAL program, and every course has brought learning at the exact time I needed it for my school. Even taking LDRS 501, I was worried I would be too busy and overwhelmed with my new position to handle the course load. Yet, the amazing part is I have been enlightened at each new step by the learnings from the course! So yes, I’m too busy with it all (report cards this week on top of it all!) but I’m NOT overwhelmed because I have been encouraged to be strategic and to question everything. Thank you for your vote of confidence that I will be able to handle the challenges of rapid growth!

Thank you also for challenging me to look again at Galbraith (2014). You wrote “What are the different teams within your organization? Does each teacher work on his or her own? Do teachers of different subjects work together to determine the learning plans? What does the administration do concerning the teachers?” (Florendo, 2018). In my school, we have two teams: elementary team (K-7), lead by the Assistant Principal, and the high school team (8-12), led by the Vice Principal. The elementary team has one teacher per grade, along with a shared PE and music teacher. In the high school, we have smaller teams, such as the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) team and the HUM (humanities) team. The HUM team might collaborate on how to integrate competencies within each grade level so a student will have developed a required set before graduating. There is also a special education team, composed of several education assistants (EAs), teacher assistants (TAs), and the special education coordinator. The EAs may be assigned to one child or work within a whole classroom, depending on the level of need. There is also an International Student Program, led by a coordinator, which has an ELL teacher and a Homestay Coordinator.

As I look at Figure 1.1 in Galbraith (2014) again, it would seem the “Pooled” structure would be the way an outsider might look at our school. “Other than sharing resources, these field units … perform their work completely separate” (Galbraith, 2014, p. 9). On one hand, as teachers, we are responsible for the domain of our classroom. Much of the day is composed of separate classes, beside one another, yet a completely different set of students, parents, teacher (s), etc. Yet there are pooled resources of synchronized recesses, administration support, special education support, etc.

However, what confuses me is that we do not truly “perform work completely separately” (Galbraith, 2014, p. 9). Maybe this is where your idea of a team (complex) would come in. In the reference you provided, they state “When care is not well coordinated, errors, omissions, and harms occur” (Cholette, Beasley, Abdiwahab, & Taplin, 2017). They also purport “Team researchers call this work interdependent and recognize that there is some variation in the degree to which the interaction and coordination of team members is required to complete the task.” I suppose, according to this definition of interdependence, that the senior administration team is the one doing the coordinating, thus we would be better represented in the team (complex) model.

You said “They use the example of creating a care plan for a patient with multiple chronic conditions; all the team members need to collaborate to make a comprehensive plan. Would this type of interdependence apply to a student with special circumstances?” (Florendo, 2018). Yes, this describes the process in place for the special education coordinator, who creates an Individualized Education Plan with a school-based team as well as a team of external supports for the student. The senior administrative team would also execute a procedure such as this for a student who is exhibiting worrisome behaviors by activating a Violent Threat Risk Assessment protocol and gathering a team.

From my explanation, maybe you could respond by explaining if my thinking falls into the description you gave from Figure 1.1 and Cholette et al. (2017)?

You also asked “If you could start from scratch, to design an education system based on your ideas, would you find this book more useful? Do you think this thought experiment would help you come up with possible innovation for your current system?” (Florendo, 2018). I appreciate your gentle provocation to go further than my frustration with the Galbraith (2014) text. Upon second perusal (don’t laugh at this next part), I now notice the title is “Designing Organizations,” so then the lens is to explore the possible ways an organization can be put together. Not an “aha!” moment on my end, but more of a “D’Oh!” I must admit to thinking some gleaming nugget of truth was going to jump out at me in this book, so because there was no epiphany, I must not be clicking in. Now I see it more like “Here are twenty pieces of lego… we can put them together like this, or like this, or like this. If you do this, then here are the implications. However, if you do that, you might end up with this.”  With this new framework, there might just be a new innovative way to look at my current system.  It’s worth a second look. THANK YOU!

Stella

References:

Chollette, V., Beasley, D. D., Abdiwahab, E., & Taplin, S. (2017). Health information systems approach to managing task interdependence in cancer care teams. Journal of Oncology Practice, 13(3), 154–156. https://doi.org/10.1200/jop.2016.020156

Florendo, P. (2018). Response to Stella’s strategic competencies || Blog 8.1: Interdependence.  Retrieved November 23, 2018, from https://create.twu.ca/pierreflorendo/2018/11/23/response-to-stellas-strategic-competencies-blog-8-1-interdependence/

Galbraith, J. R. (2014). Designing organizations: Strategy, structure, and process at the business unit and enterprise levels.

 

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Stella’s Strategic Competencies || Blog 8.1

To Implement or not to Implement, that is the Question….

This week’s readings focus on competencies a strategic leader can implement to improve their practice. The following blog articulates some ways to inspire strategic leadership praxis in my organization.

Integrate leader and manager roles!
Lepsinger (2010) purports “It appears that organizations that are better at execution have leaders who can look to the future and prepare the business to adapt to changes in the environment as well as skillfully attend to the granular issues of implementation” (p. 205). How will I implement this into my vice principal role? One thing I have started to do, as I read through the course literature, is note guiding questions about strategic thinking for the high school. I then add them to our team agendas (collaboration times as well as staff meetings), one question per meeting, to help us to hear the hopes and dreams of our colleagues for our school as well as focus on specific criteria we need to address to move forward. We have grown by 50% in two years, having almost reached our capacity in terms of the number of classrooms. We must be strategic in how we use our resources, space, and how to refine our programs. It’s an exciting time but we are also tired because the growth has us all working harder than ever. Staff members are in new positions this year as we expand programs. Our small hallway is bursting with teenagers. These factors equate to more interpersonal issues, parent communication, and teacher needs. As the leader, I must both attend to the increased needs but also cast vision forward to refine our program to sustain growth as well as our sanities!

Act Systemically!
Hughes, Colarelli-Beatty, and Dinwoodie (2014) encourage leaders to ask “To what extent do I understand the political nature of the organization and work appropriately within it?” This is a competency I need to develop as I learn to lead in my school. As a new administrator, there are dynamics I am not aware of. There is a history behind decisions that pre-date my employment at the school. I ‘step on people’s toes’ because I do not understand the political nature, and while I have been given grace because I am new, I must delve deeper when collaborative and strategic discussions are being had. To do this, I need to ask questions and enter conversations humbly. James 1:19 encourages us to be quick to listen and slow to speak.

Business Perspective
Hughes et al., (2014) encourage leaders to “understand the perspective of different areas in the business and have a firm grip of external conditions affecting the organization” (p. 268). This is not a competency which I feel is at the top of my list to implement at the moment. As the vice-principal, I am not intimately aware of financial decisions in the organization. My role is internally facing with running programs, and external facing with dealing with parents. The budgetary areas are not in my portfolio of responsibilities. I am aware there are budgets and financial considerations but my role is to present a rationale for spending, not to determine how much or approve spending.

Read and do (or throw out)!

The three most important principles come from the first chapter of the first book I read in this course. It is aptly named “What is Strategic Leadership?” (Hughes et al., 2014, p. vii). This chapter set the tone for the entire course for me, and possibly because I was just starting a new administrative position in my organization, I was already pondering the question “What should I be doing around here?” as I read the text. During most of the interactions with the strategic leadership team (SLT) in my school year thus far, I have come back to these three principles:

Strategy is a learning process
“Conceiving of strategy as a learning process requires a specific mind-set … that views successful strategy as operating in an ongoing state of formulation, implementation, reassessment, and revision ( Hughes et al., 2014, p. 23). The SLT in my organization, as noted in Blog 3.1, has new members and is thus learning to work together. With a new Lead Principal establishing direction and finding his own style of leadership, there is a hunger on the SLT to assess the current organizational practices. Questions we are asking are:  What works? What isn’t working? What are the patterns? What past decisions created the situation to occur? What do we want to see by this time next year? Five years from now? What do we need to do now to get where we want to be in the future?

Mission, vision, and values are drivers of strategy
“Organizational mission, vision, and values are important aspirational components that create meaning and purpose… they create a lens through which internal and external conditions are understood and evaluated” (Hughes et al., 2014, p. 25). This principle has guided many conversations in the past three months since I started the new administrator role. What is our organizational identity? What do we stand for? What is our reputation in the community? How do the adults in the organization create the learning environment that is transformational in the way we express our MVV? How does practice “A” match our MVV, and is there a better way? Does our MVV really negate practice “B”?

Identifying and prioritizing drivers
This competency was probably the most confusing to me but has also had the biggest impact. Hughes et al. (2014) describe drivers as:

  • the things that determine sustainable, competitive advantage; they allow differentiation from competition
  • the potential areas of investment that will have a significant impact on an organization
  • levels to pull; areas they will excel
  • the things an organization must choose, which can be challenging and cause conflict
  • the things that clarify what will and will not be done by an organization
  • the things that help to prevent overload of employees and personal agendas
  • the things leaders must be continuously in the discovery of them
  • unifying concepts that foster clear direction and alignment

I have learned in this course that I am a naturally strategic thinker. In my new role, I have spent the past few months watching, listening, and asking questions. I am looking for patterns, motivations, and hindrances. I also observe myself: what distracts me? What frustrates me? What do I wish I could change? What gives me joy in this position?

Just last week, I approached my principal with the question, “Now that we have increased our enrollment in the high school by 50%, what’s next? How do we sustain this? How do we deal with the constraints of too little space, stressed out teachers, and limited technology resources? What is our strategic plan… because the status quo in the high school will not work?”

Thus, the conversation of drivers is coming. As we are challenged to define our organizational drivers, it will impact the decisions we make for the future. I’m excited because it will help to relieve the “irritant” I feel right now, knowing things that cannot stay the same. I also wonder if I might lose some of my current staff because we may not make choices everyone wants to see as the high school goes forward. I am thankful to have a voice in this leadership opportunity, though!

The three least important principles from the course resources were from Galbraith (2014).  While the book was full of models, figures, and tables, I did not ever feel like it applied to my organizational context. For example, Figure 1.1 (p. 9) illustrates “Types of Interdependence.” While I understand the concept of organizational units affecting one another, the figure is completely greek to me. How would this apply to an educational context?  The author promotes the “Star Model” (p. 15) and describes it as a “holistic way of thinking about an organization as consisting of a structure, information decision processes, reward systems, and people” and that “different strategies lead to the different structures for implementing them” (p. 17). This principle that factors are controlled by leadership and you start with one part which will affect another is too obvious for me that I wonder if I’m missing something. Sorry, but not inspirational in the least.  Lastly, the principle of “Integrating Roles” (p. 99), where “disagreement and the inability to resolve it effectively can slow the company responses and turn the focus inward rather than on customer” is banal and tacit to me. As you will read in the next section, I feel like I’m missing something in this textbook.

As you have probably guessed, the least effective course text material, in my opinion, is Galbraith (2014).  However, you might be surprised Urgerer et al., (2014) to be a close second!

I found Galbraith (2014) boring because it was too technically focused on business aspects as opposed to being able to glean ideas for education settings. Most schools are structured similarly, so there are not a lot of opportunities to change the organizational structure as explored by Galbraith. There are many models and processes, but it all went over my head because it was not applicable to my work or my personal life. I wonder if the business stream cohort found this text helpful?

Ungerer et al., (2014) was a good source of information, when I could actually read it! I found the online aspect of it hampering because I do not scroll well (I get vertigo), and I like to be able to write all over my books. Yes, I could print some of it, but then I became confused about what I didn’t print, and how many pages I had left to print. Cutting and pasting was slow. In general, I struggled with this online text and often put it off to the last to read. If it were in print, I would have been very pleased with it. Due to the dis-functionality of it, it was one of the least effective text materials in this course for me 🙁

Healthcare & Education cohort, I want to thank you for the commitment to excellence you all have shown as we grappled with the concepts of this class. I learned a lot from you all! Blessings as you pursue your course work.

Stella

References:                                                                                                       

Galbraith, J. (2014). Designing organizations.  San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hughes R., Colarelli-Beatty K. & Dinwoodie, D. (2014). Becoming a strategic leader. San  Francisco: Jossey-Bass Second Edition.

Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

The Holy Bible: New International Version. (2009). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Ungerer, M., Ungerer, G, & Herholdt, J. (2016). Navigating strategic possibilities: Strategy formulation and execution practices to flourish. Randburg: KR Publishing.

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Response to Layla’s 7.1 Blog Post

Original post found here

Hello Layla! I enjoyed reading your post, especially since I just returned from an education conference in Jiangsu province a week ago. It was my first time in China and I enjoyed visiting very much. As an International Student Program Coordinator, I have many students from East Asia, so having a personal connection to my Chinese students’ homeland is important.

While we were treated very well as delegates, being put up in luxury hotels and served amazing food, I could not help but wonder what was behind the public face. We were shown a gorgeous school but it didn’t have students in it.

At another middle school, there were fifty-one students in one class but no classroom management issues.

 

There were many stories from the western delegates about the poverty that we weren’t shown. I noticed only a few women in leadership, and the ones we spoke to did not dream to become headmasters/ principals. I discovered a few vice-principals were actually connected to the leadership through marriage, and it caused me to wonder if this gave the ladies special status or preference. Would they have been promoted to such a position without the family connection? Your comment “female workers have no chance to get promoted… some of us have accepted this invisible “policy” after hopelessly waiting for many years” (Layla, 2018) makes me even more curious about the female vice-principals I met. Or perhaps it is different in the education realm in China. What do you think?

I also wonder if you will stay in Canada for the rest of your career or will you return to China? If you return, I wonder how you will manage re-entering the corporate world there after learning and experiencing reforms to the culture here, which has incorporated much more voice and choice? You wrote about waiting hopelessly for the gender bias to be dealt with, so I feel anxious for you as you grow in this MAEL program. Can you bring reform with you as you return to your home country? Reeves (2009) states “Deep and sustainable change … requires change in behavior among those who do not welcome the change” (p. 44). From your writing, “The common styles of conflict (Lepsinger, 2010) in my organization are avoiding concerning conflicts among staff from different departments, accommodating regarding the conflicts within one department, and compromising referring to the conflicts between managers of different departments” (Layla, 2018), it would seem the organizational system of your company would not yet be open to such change. I feel strongly to keep you in my prayers, as the passion igniting in you during your studies must be guarded. Sergiovanni (2007) writes “Workers are subordinate to the system and are expected to follow directions and procedures as prescribed by that system… professional by contrast, are superordinate to their work systems. Instead of the system using them, they use the system” (p. 74). As you grow in your professionalism, according to Sergiovanni (2007), you will be informed by guidelines and principles, not governed by them. Please take care as you walk carefully in your journey!

Blessings,

Stella

References:

Layla. (2018). Cooperation in a national company of China: Seems effective but conflicts lie underneath. Unpublished document. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/ldrs501/2018/11/12/cooperation-in-a-national-company-of-china-seems-effective-yet-conflicts-lie-underneath/

Lepsinger, R. (2010). Closing the execution gap. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Levi, D. (2014). Group dynamics for teams. (4th edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Reeves, D. (2009). Leading change in your school: How to conquer myths, build commitment, and get results. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Sergiovanni, T. (2007). Rethinking leadership: a collection of articles. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

 

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Introductory Post

Hello, fellow LDRS 501 peers! My name is Stella, and I am excited to work with you all. This is the first time using WordPress, so everything feels overwhelming at the moment, but it is nice to blog again. It’s been a long time!

I have just started a high school vice principal position in a local independent school. Within these first three weeks, I have organized a grade 8-12 camp, led several staff meetings, and met with several students. While I struggle to understand how all of the demands of my new position, I have a joy unspeakable which motivates me. The readings in our course are very relevant to my work life right now so I am excited to see how the Lord speaks through the course competencies into the very life of my school!

I love capturing God’s creation through photographs and teaching biology.  Our Creator’s love is exposed as we explore the structure and function of the work of His hand.

Blessings,

Stella