Diagnosis of System Failure

I’m often called in to provide solutions for campuses and districts that, for lack of a better term, find themselves in a ditch. In these situations, I have observed some common mistakes by leadership. And do know, that when systems fail, it is because leadership fails (hold on to that thought, we’re going to discuss it again tomorrow).

Here is the first leadership mistake: If you aren’t looking for it, you will never find it.

Do you want to ensure that you will eventually drive over the cliff, or miss the turn for the critical short-cut? Then track and monitor nothing. Or track and monitor in extremely long time windows. Or even worse, track and monitor the things that do not matter. Know your process and critical variables, then monitor and track those variables and adjust at regular intervals.

Here is the second leadership mistake: Leniency + Ignorance = Disaster

Want to make sure that you and lots of your people do not survive difficult times? Let your people do whatever they want, whenever they want, within huge behavioral boundaries. Also, make sure that you do not keep abreast with changes in the field. In case a new idea does surface, keep one of the two excuses handy:

“If it’s not broke, why fix it.”

And

“That might work somewhere else, but it won’t work here with these (insert: students, teachers, administrators, parents or community members).”

Luckily, there are ways to address this, and do so quickly (that’s where LYS systems and coaching come into play). Unfortunately, the catalyst is leadership, which means the time favored management strategy of “Do as I say, not as I do,” has to be excised from the organization. As those of you who have heard me speak about change and improvement, there’s a reason why a lot of my presentations start with this statement, “Without a change in leadership practice first, meaningful change within the organization will never occur.”

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

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