RtI Leadership that Works: Relentlessly Doing Whatever it Takes to Improve Achievement

1. RtI Leadership that Works: Relentlessly Doing Whatever it Takes to Improve Achievement Steve Kukic, Ph.D. VP, Cambium Learning stevek@voyagerlearning.com

2. Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams: Pausch’s Goals • Being in zero gravity • Playing for the NFL • Authoring an article in the World Book encyclopedia • Being Captain Kirk • Winning stuffed animals • Being a Disney Imagineer Pausch, 2008

3. It’s about how you live your life. Pausch, 2008

4. The 4 Roles of Leadership

5. Covey’s Four Imperatives of Great Leaders

6. Leadership: Getting results in a way that inspires trust. Covey, 2006

7. Making the Leap from Good to Great:8 Characteristics • Level 5 Leadership: Personal Humility and Professional Will • The RIGHT people are the most important asset. • Confront the brutal facts and never lose faith. • Simplicity about what: Passionate Focus, Best in the World, Driving the Economic Engine • The Culture of Discipline: People to Thought to Action • Technology-Not primary AND Pioneers in the Application • Pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction • “Good to Great” leads to “Built to Last” Collins, 2001

8. Cultural Shifts for Developing the Culture of a Professional Learning Community • From a focus on teaching to a focus on learning • From working in isolation to working collaboratively • From focusing on activities to focusing on results • From fixed time to flexible time • From average learning to individual learning • From punitive to positive • From “teacher tell/student listen” to “teacher coaching/student practice” • From recognizing the elite to creating opportunity for many winners DuFour, et al., 2004

9. Three Critical Questions that Drive the Work of Those Within a Professional Learning Community • What do we want each student to learn? • How will we know when each student has learned it? • How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning? The answer to the third question separates learning communities from traditional schools. DuFour, 2004

10. The relentless pursuit of excellence:Thriving on CHAOS! C – H – A – O – S – Collaboration with one purpose, to improve achievement Hierarchy of tiered, effective, academic and behavioral interventions All, Some, AND Few as the consistent focus One child at a time, instructional decisions based on progress monitoring data Systems change with coherence to Close The Achievement Gap

11. The Bottomline We do whatever it takes. DuFour, et al., 2004

12. Lesson 1: You can’t mandate what matters. The more complex the change, the less you can force it. Lesson 2: Change is a Journey, not a Blueprint. Change is non-linear, loaded with uncertainty and excitement; and sometimes perverse. Lesson 3: Problems are our friend. Problems are inevitable and you can’t learn without them. Lesson 4: Vision and strategic planning come later; Premature visions and planning blind. Lesson 5: Individualism and collectivism must have equal power. There are no one-sided solutions to isolation and groupthink. Lesson 6: Neither centralization nor decentralization works. Both top-down and bottom-up strategies are necessary. Lesson 7: Connection with the wider environment is critical for success. The best organizations learn externally as well as internally. Lesson 8: Every Person is in a change agent. Change is too important to leave to the experts. Personal mind set and mastery are the ultimate protection. New Paradigm of Change Fullan, 1993

13. Complex Change Lessons • Moral purpose is complex and problematic. • Theories of change and theories of education need each other. • Conflict and diversity are friends • Understand the meaning of operating on the edge of chaos. • Emotional intelligence is anxiety provoking and anxiety containing. • Collaborative cultures are anxiety provoking and anxiety containing. • Attack incoherence: Connectedness and knowledge creation are critical. • There is no single solution: Craft your own theories and actions by being a critical consumer. Fullan, 1999

14. 8 New Lessons for Complex Change Lesson 1: Give up the idea that the pace of change will slow down. Lesson 2: Coherence making is a never-ending proposition and is everyone’s responsibility. Lesson 3: Changing context is the focus. Lesson 4: Premature clarity is a dangerous thing. Lesson 5: The public’s thirst for transparency is irreversible. Lesson 6: You can’t get large-scale reform through bottom-up strategies—beware of the trap. Lesson 7: Mobilize the social attractors—moral purpose, quality relationships, quality knowledge. Lesson 8: Charismatic leadership is negatively associated with sustainability. Fullan, 2003

15. The Six Secrets of Change • SECRET ONE: Love your Employees • SECRET TWO: Connect Peers with Purpose • SECRET THREE: Capacity Building Prevails • SECRET FOUR: Learning is the Work • SECRET FIVE: Transparency Rules • SECRET SIX: Systems Learn Fullan, 2008

16. Have Theory, Will Travel Give me a good theory over a strategic plan any day or the week. A plan is a tool--a piece of technology only good as the mind-set using it. The mind-set is theory, flawed or otherwise. Theory is not abstract conjecture, and it is not about being cerebral. Fullan, 2008

17. Good theories are critical because they give you a handle on the underlying reason (really the underlying thinking) behind actions and their consequences. Fullan, 2008

18. “Forget the arduous, intellectualized number crunching and data grinding that gurus say you have to go through to get strategy right…In real life, strategy is actually straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.” Jack Welch, 2005 in Fullan, 2008

19. Mintzberg furnishes his own conclusion: “Learning is not doing; it is reflecting on doing.” He also states that “there may be something instinctive about managing but it has to be learned too, not just by doing it but by being able to gain conceptual insight while doing it.” The six secrets are precisely suited to reflection-in-action. Now we are getting closer to a theory that will travel. Fullan, 2008

20. The two greatest failures of leaders are indecisiveness in times of urgent need for action and dead certainty that they are right in times of complexity. In either case, leaders are vulnerable to silver bullets--in the one case grasping them, and in the other, relishing them. Fullan, 2008

21. The foremost delusion is the halo effect, which is the “tendency to make inferences about specific traits based on a general [and retrospective] impression. Rosenweig, 2007 in Fullan, 2008

22. Good leaders are thoughtful managers who use their theory of action (such as the six secrets) to govern what they do while being open to surprises or new data that direct further action. Fullan, 2008

23. Theories That Travel Another example of good theory that travels comes from my good friend Michael Barber (2007), former head of tony Blair’s Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (PMDU). Barber’s theory of action includes ambitious goals, sharp focus, clarity and transparency of data, and a relentless sense of urgency. Fullan, 2008

24. What is yourRtI theory that travelsfor large scale reform?

25. The Six Secrets of Change • SECRET ONE: Love your Employees • SECRET TWO: Connect Peers with Purpose • SECRET THREE: Capacity Building Prevails • SECRET FOUR: Learning is the Work • SECRET FIVE: Transparency Rules • SECRET SIX: Systems Learn Fullan, 2008

26. The Six Secrets: Five Assumptions • The theory is meant to apply to large-scale reform. • The set has to be understood as synergistic. • They are heavily nuanced. • They are motivationally embedded. • Each of the six represents a tension or dilemma. Fullan, 2008

27. The Six Secrets Explained • Love Your Employees: If you build your organization by focusing on your customers without making the same careful commitment to your employees, you won’t succeed. • Connect Peers with Purpose: the job of leaders is to provide good direction while pursuing its implementation through purposeful peer interaction and learning in relation to results. • Capacity Building Prevails: Capacity building entails leaders investing in the development of individual and collaborative efficacy of a whole group or system to accomplish significant improvements. In particular, capacity consists of new competencies, new resources (time, ideas, expertise), and new motivation. Fullan, 2008

28. The Six Secrets Explained (cont.) • Learning is the Work: learning external to the job can represent a useful input, but if it is not in balance and in concert with learning in the setting in which you work, the learning will end up being superficial. • Transparency Rules: By transparency I mean clear and continuous display of results, and clear and continuous access to practice (what is being done to get results). • Systems Learn: Systems can learn on a continuous basis. The synergistic result of the previous five secrets in action is tantamount to a system that learns from itself. Two dominant change forces are unleashed and constantly cultivated-knowledge and commitment. Fullan, 2008

29. The Six Secrets of Change • SECRET ONE: Love your Employees • SECRET TWO: Connect Peers with Purpose • SECRET THREE: Capacity Building Prevails • SECRET FOUR: Learning is the Work • SECRET FIVE: Transparency Rules • SECRET SIX: Systems Learn Fullan, 2008

30. Secret One tells me that the children-first stances are misleading and incomplete. The quality of the education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. Barber & Mourshed, 2007 in Fullan, 2008

31. Secret One It is helping all employees find meaning, increased skill development, and personal satisfaction in making contributions that simultaneously fulfill their own goals and the goals of the organization (the need of the customers expressed in achievement terms). Fullan, 2008

32. Firms of Endearment Firms of endearment (FoEs) endear themselves to stakeholders (customers, employees, investors, partners, and society). When these authors claim up front that no stakeholder is more important than any other, they are getting at the core of Secret One. Fullan, 2008

33. The Ups and Downs of a Company It is the culture of the entire organization that counts, shaped by the CEO but manifested by leaders at all levels of the organization. Fullan, 2008

34. The call and need of a new era is for greatness. It’s for fulfillment, passionate execution, and significant contribution. These are on a different plane or dimension. They are different in kind—just as significance is different in kind, not in degree, from success. Greatness Covey, 2004

35. The Soul’s Search For Meaning Deep within each one of us there is an inner longing to live a life of greatness and contribution—to really matter, to really make a difference. You have the potential within you. We all do. It is the birthright of the human family. Covey, 2004

36. Trustworthiness • Character • Integrity • Maturity • Abundance Mentality • Competence • Technical • Conceptual • Interdependency 1993 Covey Leadership Center, Inc. Be Do

37. Covey, 2004

38. Covey, 2004

39. Covey, 2004

40. Amazon BMW Carmax Carterpillar Commerce Bank Container Store Costco eBay Google Harley Davidson Honda IDEO IKEA Jet Blue Johnson & Johnson Jordan’s Furniture LL Bean New Balance Patagonia REI Southwest Airlines Starbucks Timberland Toyota Trader Joe’s UPS Wegmans Whole Foods Firms of Endearment Sisodia, et al., 2007 in Fullan, 2008

41. Whole Foods Whole Foods’ declaration of independence states that, among other things, “satisfying all of the stakeholders and achieving our standards is our goal. One of the most important responsibilities of Whole Foods’ leadership is to make sure the interests, desires and needs of our various stakeholders is kept in balance. We recognize that this is a dynamic process. It requires participation and communication by all stakeholders”. Sisodia, et al., 2007 in Fullan, 2008

42. Southwest Airlines Ten Synergistic Southwest practices for building high-performance relationships • Lead with credibility and caring • Invest in frontline leadership • Hire and retain for relational competence • Use conflicts to build relationships • Bridge the work-family divide • Create boundary spanners • Measure performance broadly • Keep jobs flexible at the boundaries • Make unions your partners • Build relationships with suppliers Fullan, 2008

43. Toyota Toyota’s message is consistent and explicit: “Do the right thing for the company, its employees, the customer and society as a whole. Toyota’s strong sense of mission and commitment to its customers, employees and society in the foundation for all the other principles and the missing ingredient in most companies trying to emulate Toyota.” Liker, 2004 in Fullan, 2008

44. The Six Secrets in Action: Improving Ontario’s Education System We respected our employees as well as our customers. In the years 2004 to 2007, we have had a steady growth in literacy and numeracy achievement in grades 3 and 6, improving some 10 percent or more in reading, writing, an mathematics across the whole system. Fullan, 2008

45. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste! Paul Romer

46. How does focusing on the needs of ALL stakeholders change your RtI theory that travels?

47. The Six Secrets of Change • SECRET ONE: Love your Employees • SECRET TWO: Connect Peers with Purpose • SECRET THREE: Capacity Building Prevails • SECRET FOUR: Learning is the Work • SECRET FIVE: Transparency Rules • SECRET SIX: Systems Learn Fullan, 2008

48. Show me a cohesive, creative organization, and I’ll show you peer interaction all the way down. Fullan, 2008

49. In complex, flat world times, purposeful groups do better than a handful of experts, but you have to work the group. There has to be: • A sense of purpose • Freedom from groupthink • Consideration of diverse ideas • Retention of practices that work Fullan, 2008

50. The We-We Solution • All stakeholders are rallying around a higher purpose that has meaning for individuals as well as the collectivity. • Knowledge flows as people pursue and continuously learn what works best. • Identifying with an entity larger than oneself expands the self, with powerful consequences. Enlarged identity and commitment are the social glue that enable large organizations to cohere. Fullan, 2008