In an environment of accelerated progress and challenge, foreshadowing is a key to good communication about organizational change. Leadership should think of foreshadowing as a necessary tool because communicating change too late can make strategic steps look like reactive ones. By giving community members glimpses of what may lie ahead, organizations can: Gauge the potential response […]
Stretching the Rubber Band in a Progress Culture
When my daughter was seven, they were on the knobs to the medicine cabinet, poised to make the nose dive into the toilet if my hand knocked them on the way to the aspirin…on the coffee table peeking out from under the magazines and books…on the floor under the couch…in the corner of the kitchen […]
What Should Never Change In a Progress Culture
There is so much dialogue–so much necessary dialogue–about what should change in education that we can lose sight of the other half of the equation: what should never change. My purpose in this post is not to create the specific list of the things that should not change–that task is in the purview of each […]
Strategic Plans and Luxury Cars: They Look so Good on the Lot!
“Check out the new 2020 Strategic Plan—well-equipped, versatile, nodding to the past, styled for the future.” For a moment think of a strategic plan as a luxury car, comprised of elegantly styled components. It is flashy; the engine sounds great; the styling is sleek. It represents the best of the elements of other luxury cars, […]
Joining AAL: The Academy for Advancing Leadership
I have joined The Academy for Advancing Leadership (AAL) as a Senior Consultant. I believe I have much to offer schools, colleges, universities, non-profits, and businesses engaging in change processes.
Comforting Traditions and Stifling Bad Habits
Several years ago, I wrote a piece–“Differentiating Traditions and Bad Habits”–in which I argued that bad habits often masquerade as traditions (I have cut and pasted it below). I refer to this idea often in order to illustrate the need to spend time discriminating between these two forces that drive and govern so much that we […]