Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS President bassett@nais

1. Leading during Times of High Anxiety Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS Presidentbassett@nais.org

3. The Climate at Last Fall’s Admin Meeting • The admissions director fretting about… • The financial aid director anxious about… • The development director depressed that… • The business manager catatonic regarding… • The dean of faculty disturbed by… • And the head feeling like…

4. The Outlook this Year: Early Indicators Play http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNEwcc4MSMY

5. What’s the Climate Now for Schools? Early Indicators-Sunshine with a Good Chance of …….Rain: NAIS, SSATB & NBOA “Pulse Surveys” …….show… • Enrollment: Most schools in the “normal” range of +/- 3-5% of budgeted enrollment. (But most budgeted for 5 – 10% fewer students: a majority have smaller enrollments). • Inquiries and Applications down, a five-year trend. • Last year’s Annual Giving down, 10-20%, including alumni participation, the latter a five-year trend. • This year’s Financial Aid applications & awards up 20%+ • Income from Endowment down significantly. • Staff Size: Almost half “right-sized” and reduced staff.

6. What’s the Climate Now in General? General Indicators of Well-Being: Sunshine with … a …..Good Chance of Rain: • Economic AdversityIndex: Economy recovering in some sectors and locales, but not in others. • Tuitions and Top 5% Incomes: Moving in opposite directions. (See NAIS book, Affordability & Demand & track high income families on NAIS’s DemographicCenter.) Note assumptions & myths about our schools. • Luxury Spending Down & Savings Up: Our schools = double jeopardy/single benefit? (Bureau of Labor Statistics: Average family spending on education, classified, like alcohol, as a luxury- is $945/year.) • Trends in Happiness: Men tracking up; women tracking down, in both absolute and relative terms.

7. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-sad-shocking-truth-ab_b_290021.htmlhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-sad-shocking-truth-ab_b_290021.html

8. Source: Huffington Blog, 9/17/09Huffington notes… • Women less happy now regardless of *marital status, *income, *children, *ethnicity, and *nationality • On a downward trend since the early 1970s (Source: the General Social Survey) • Women securing greater opportunity, greater achievement, greater influence, and more money: the decline in the collective state of mind seems to defy logic.

9. Generative Questions from PFB Any implications for independent schools? • Why is it happening? • What implications for independent schools? • Most of our staff members are female. • Most of the decision-makers about whether or not a child will attend private school are female.

10. Generative Questions from PFB Any implications for independent schools? • What workplace environment would be more “women-friendly”? • What school services and routines would make moms less stressed? • What “sticky messages” do we need? (Features vs. Outcomes)

11. How Can We Lead Now? • Explore the Right Strategic Questions: • Not: “Why are admissions soft this year in the sixth grade?” (Anomalies are management’s business.) • Rather: What’s the trend line for school-age demographics from the last five years and the projections for the next five years, by family income groups? • Not: How much will the market bear in tuition increases? • Rather: Have we hit our price/breakpoint? What’s a better rule of thumb than ISM’s CPI+2 regarding tuition increases? CPI+1 (cf. David Beim, Columbia Business School and former Exeter board member)

12. How Can We Lead Now? • Explore the Right Strategic Questions: • Not: What’s the proper trade-off between class size, faculty salaries, and tuition increases? (The zero sum approach.) (“The faster tuition grows, the smaller the full payment market.” Jeff Wack, consultant) • Rather: How do we achieve the goals behind the tangibles to create financially sustainable schools, with stellar faculty, a “small school intimacy,” and improved access and affordability? • Not: Why’s our marketing failing (Too amorphous a question) • Rather: What’s our NAIS parent satisfaction survey telling us? How do we take advantage of the new social media to extend conversations? (cf. The Clue Train Manifesto). What do we do that’s “anti-marketing”?

13. How Can We Lead Now? • Explore the Right Strategic Questions: • Not: “Staff morale is bad.” (By what metric are you measuring that?) • Rather: “What behaviors from staff do we want to encourage?” And “How do we help school leaders motivate staff?” (See Dan Pink’s talk on TED on the topic of “The Surprising Science of Motivation”). (section 10:31 – 13:07 on “autonomy, mastery, and purpose”)

14. How Can We Lead Now? Communicate Frequently, Transparently, & Effectively: • Note General Steadman’s inspirational words on the eve before the first Battle of Bull Run: “Gentlemen, I want you to fight vigorously, and then run away. As I am a bit lame, I am going to begin running now.” • Develop a communications plan • Use a rubric for messaging in times of change.

15. How Can We Lead Now? Develop a Common Experience & Reference Points: • Expanding the context of professional development: • Send trustees on field trips to other schools • Adopt a new structure for board meetings: PFB “Tweet” on looking to boards for 3 levels of work a la Dick Chait’s Governance as Leadership: oversight (fiduciary role); foresight (strategic role); insight (generative role) • Read, together, as a board and admin team • Rob Evans’ Seven Secrets of The Savvy School Leader: A Guide to Surviving and Thriving • Dan Heischman’s Good Influence: Teaching the Lessons of Adulthood • Gary Hamel’s Feb 2009 HRB article, “25 Stretch Goals for Management”

16. Hope is not enough…. 10,000 hours of work required. The triumph of hope over experience? • Reinforcing the value proposition (value = perception of outcomes/perception of cost) & the “mission promise” • Re-engineering the school financials toward a more efficient and sustainable model that pays more attention to access and affordability. • Designing “both/and” approaches to motivation: i.e., blend extrinsic financial incentives and systems that encourage the intrinsic rewards of autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

17. Hope is not enough…. 10,000 hours of work required. The triumph of hope over experience? • Find the “sticky message” for your school, knowing that powerful marketing plays on fear more than hope, the possibility of redemption being less powerful than the fear of perdition. What is the “lose weight like Jared by eating Subways every day” message for independent schools? • School of the Future agenda: How not what we teach the key: Context, not content the focus. Demonstrations not tests the mode of assessment. • Identify and celebrate the “soul” of the school: Remember that “values are the value-added” of an independent school education.

18. Breakout Session:“What’s Keeping You Awake at Night—or Should Be?”- An open conversation with the NAIS president, Pat Bassett

19. The End! (Related Slides in the Appendix)

20. See 11:00 – 13:07 http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

21. Triumph of Hope over Experience… …Carter as a “chick magnet.’

22. Source: Christina Drouin drouin@planonline.org

23. Moonshots for Management(Gary Hamel, HBR, Feb 2009) • Ensure that management's work serves a higher purpose. • Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems. • Reconstruct management's philosophical foundations. • Eliminate the pathologies of formal hierarchy. • Reduce fear and increase trust. • Reinvent the means of control. • Redefine the work of leadership. • Expand and exploit diversity.

24. Moonshots for Management(Gary Hamel, HBR, Feb 2009) • Reinvent strategy-making as an emergent process. • De-structure and disaggregate the organization. • Dramatically reduce the pull of the past. • Share the work of setting direction. • Develop holistic performance measures. • Stretch executive time frames and perspectives. • Create a democracy of information. • Empower the renegades and disarm the reactionaries.

25. Moonshots for Management(Gary Hamel, HBR, Feb 2009) • Expand the scope of employee autonomy. • Create internal markets for ideas, talent, and resources. • Depoliticize decision-making. • Better optimize trade-offs. • Further unleash human imagination. • Enable communities of passion. • Retool management for an open world. • Humanize the language and practice of business. • Retrain managerial minds.

26. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/2997639 4 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29976394

34. Return

35. College Strategies for 2009 AdmissionsManaging the Admissions Challenge Inside Higher Ed, September 25, 2009 Colleges in 2009 or Planned for 2010 • Summer Melt: 28 % more, 28% less; 43% no change. • Enrollment: 52% of private college enrollments went up; 24% enrollment went down.

36. http://transact.nais.org/Purchase/ProductDetail.aspx?Product_code=DWNLD-FL01http://transact.nais.org/Purchase/ProductDetail.aspx?Product_code=DWNLD-FL01

37. Independent School Myths Myth #1: Independent schools are only for the rich. Myth #2: Independent schools are “not the real world.” Myth #3: Independent school are unaffordable. Myth #4: Independent schools lack diversity. Myth #5: Independent schools (especially boarding schools) are for kids with social problems. Myth # 6: Independent schools are only for really smart kids. Myth #7: Independent schools are not part of the community. Myth #8: Independent schools are traditionalists.

38. Cost Saving Strategies Implemented for 08/09 Will implement/continue) for 09/10 2009 NBOA Business Officers Survey