Before I became superintendent of Fayetteville Public Schools, I taught educational leadership at the University of Arkansas. In my leadership seminar, my students read several books on leadership, discussed commonalities then developed their own paradigm of what they believed leadership to be. One factor that came through universally was "focus." Large organizations can easily fall into a trap in which they lose focus about what it is they are trying to do. Jim Collins calls this a "hedgehog" in which you choose one thing and attempt to be the best in the world.
The Fayetteville School District is a fantastic school district. I wish my children could have gone to school here. Our graduates have the skills to be very successful, and many are leaders not only in our local community but throughout the world. Many of our graduates attend the most prestigious universities in the world and are well prepared for the academic rigor they face. But, we can be an even greater school district if we really focus.
Many large organizations without a very clear plan will end up "evolving." Groups of individuals come up with great ideas, and, in an absence of focus, they will exert initiative, and a new program is born. There is nothing wrong with creativity and initiative, but often it results in little isolated bastions of interest often referred to as "silos." Standing all alone, silos aren't inherently bad, but they aren't part of a total focus. Often the founders protect their silos, which then can easily become an impediment to the organization moving forward. Silos will defuse focus and eventually stifle or suppress new ideas.
I try to avoid sports metaphors, but imagine a football team with the best coaches in the world who assemble the very best five-star recruits. This team should dominate, but the coaches don't work together. The linebacker coaches just do their own thing without working with the line coaches or the defensive backs coaches. On offense, the quarterbacks coach doesn't talk to the receivers coaches. This team is not working together, and despite all the talent they possess, they will lose every game. They have no plan. These coaches and players are doing their own things, and nobody has an overall vision of how to achieve greatness.
Fayetteville Public Schools has initiated a comprehensive planning process we call "Framing the Future." We have 400 community members, parents and school staff working diligently to develop our plan for the future. Please let that sink in for a second -- there are 400 people involved in the development of our plan. By the end of this school year, we will have a comprehensive and cohesive plan in place to guide the school district for the next five years. The plan will be our exclusive focus.
We have great teachers, staff and principals ("coaches"). We have great students and parents ("players"). We have all the elements of a championship team, and now we are adding our plan -- a focused plan that will move Fayetteville Public Schools up to the next level of educational excellence.
As in all endeavors, there are skeptics who sit on the sideline and state: "We did this once, and it didn't work." The difference between any previous planning process and what we are doing now is the powerful involvement of 400 people who want a great school system. The difference is a well-crafted plan that will have specific action steps that will become our laser-like focus on the future.
To our parents and community, this is an exciting time. Our new mission statement states very clearly that we are a school system where "excellence is the expectation." We now have 400 parents, community members and staff who are working hard to focus with the result being a cohesive, clearly defined plan.
Our goal? Focus and make excellence our expectation.
NAN Our Town on 02/04/2016