I think if I read one more op-ed piece saying the path to improving US education is paved with better teachers I’ll scream.
I’m not saying that good teachers aren’t important, but I don’t believe that teachers are the root of the problems.
Before I start with examples, let me ask you this: how well would you perform if you were
terminated for insisting that projects not only be done, but done on time;
poorly compensated in comparison to most people with similar education and experience, but in other industries;
subject to pressure, tirades, insults and having people constantly go over your head to change your decisions; and
shown little respect by your direct reports, indirect reports and management.
Does that sound like an environment that would encourage you to do your utmost? I actually find it surprising that there are as many good, dedicated teachers as there are.
Staying with the current analogy, direct reports = students, indirect reports = parents and management = administrators.
Teaching is like any other form of work—it thrives in a good culture, sags, wilts and gives up in a bad one.
The Dallas Independent School System is a good example of what is happening. DISD is where the teacher was fired at the instigation of parents for being too tough and giving homework—the fact that the kids scored well on tests didn’t count.
It’s DISD that hired new teachers in 2007 with no way to pay them leading to a $64,000,000 budget shortfall that grew to about $84,000,000 in 2008. Their solution was to layoff the teachers—no damage to the administration idiots—maybe they all took math from teachers who passed them rather than lose their jobs.
Her rise in DISD in a span of three years has been frowned upon by some observers. She was making $87,000 as a division manager in 2006 and ended her career grossing around $140,000.
Some DISD trustees had questioned an organizational chart change that left her husband overseeing the department that she worked in. Her boss was reporting to her husband.
Ya think?
And then there is the saga of Taylor Pugh, AKA Tater Tot, who was growing his hair so he could donate it to a charity that makes wigs for cancer patients—but his suburban Dallas school saw it as reason for in-school suspension for violating the district dress code.
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Back to our analogy. How engaged, productive and innovative would you be working for a company where management performed similarly?
Dallas isn’t alone; it has plenty of company across the country.
So before ranting and blaming the dismal state of US education on teachers, check out your district and state administrations—and then look in the mirror.
Life is about choices; we make choices every day that affect not only the immediate subject, but also those around us and our future.
Sometimes we don’t even notice the choices we make, but that doesn’t change the size of their effect.
The following is a teaching fable that has been around in various forms for years.
An old man told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “The battle is between the two animals that live inside us all.
One is Evil—it is made of anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good—it is joy, peace, love, authenticity, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, and compassion.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Which wins the battle?”
The old man replied, “The one you feed.”
It is with your choices, not just the conscious ones, but all of them, that you feed the beasts.
You can never rid yourself of all the traits that comprise either the evil or the good beast, but you can control their size, frequency and intensity.
It’s your choice.
Leadership Turn is ending; its last day is December 29. I’ve enjoyed writing it and our interaction since August 16, 2007 and I hope we can continue at my other blog.
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The Hart Research Associates poll showed that top executives are even more disliked than politicians. … The vast majority of potential jurors see corporate CEOs as greedy and willing to break the law.” –LA Times, 11/10/09
It’s a sad day when business leaders are lower on the trust pole than politicians. Actually, I didn’t think any group could be rated lower than politicians.
The saddest part is that the great majority of men and women running small, medium and even large companies don’t lie, cheat or steal; they aren’t particularly greedy and they don’t break the law.
The problem is that many of those who do fit the profile, and there are plenty, run high profile companies in the same or related industry—think financial services and autos to name two glaring examples.
I think part of what’s going on is the spread of the lemming mentality.
You see it a lot in the venture world. During the internet boom no matter how good your business plan if it wasn’t .com you could pretty much forget getting funded. These days the magic markets are green/clean tech, healthcare and mobile anything. In other words, if one jumps off a cliff all the rest will follow.
I have a friend who says that the more expensive the suit the lower his initial trust level; I might agree except that I’m sure that the folks wearing them are aware of the prejudice. Therefore, I have to believe that they are either arrogant enough to believe we are all dumb/disinterested/ignorant not to notice or they just don’t give a damn.
The real question in all this is what are we going to do about it?
Are we going to wring our collective hands, tar all business with the same brush, lament the mentality that drives our distrust and then let it all sink back into the muck when the economy turns around—out of sight, out of mind?
Or are we going to get active, demand better accountability, force business leaders to toe an ethical line and avoid our normal memory loss?
Raising kids is about teaching values, among other things, but kids learn by watching more than by listening. “Do as I say, not as I do” just doesn’t fly these days.
Cheating is not only a good example, it’s a global one.
Everyone knows that cheating is wrong, yet in US surveys 64% of high school students say they have cheated, while 84% of undergraduate business students and a whopping 56%of MBA students also admit to cheating. Not only is cheating prevalent, parental action often condones it.
Since many of these same parents are leaders in the workplace, the results of a McKinsey survey asking “which capabilities of organizations as a whole are most important for managing companies through the crisis” should come as no surprise.
Ability to shape employee interactions and foster a shared understanding of values.
Only 8% thought that important, which placed ‘shared values’ dead last on the list of nine.
What was first on the list? The item considered the most important?
Ability to ensure that leaders shape and inspire the actions of others to drive better performance.
Number two isn’t much of an improvement.
Capacity to articulate where the company is heading and how to get there, and to align people appropriately.
All the research I’ve seen claims that the best way to avoid ethical lapses is to have sustainable ethics embedded deep in the company’s culture.
And the comments of Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University, really resonate.
Perhaps the oddest aspect of the McKinsey findings is the suggestion that providing leadership is somehow separate from promoting values. In fact, the two are bound together—the double helix of any corporation’s DNA.
One would think that means the company’s leaders understand the value of values and would proactively work to foster and embed them.
But no, these leaders, likely the same one whose kids admit to cheating, believe that visions trump values.
What do you do and where do you go when you leave a high-stress career that nearly kills you?
If your name is Tom Dunn and you spent 20 years, first as a defense counsel in the Army Trial Defense Service, then stints in Florida, New York State and most recently as head of the nonprofit Georgia Resource Center, you find a less stressful environment in which to indulge your passion.
You teach in a tough middle school in Atlanta, Georgia where “ninety-three percent of students are black and 5 percent Hispanic; some 97 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch.”
Dunn’s prior experience made him a passionate believer in what Frederick Douglass said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
According to principal, Danielle S. Battle, middle school turns off many teachers because it’s where “students’ bodies and minds are changing, and disparities in learning abilities are playing out.”
Dunn found that amusing, “You can’t be a starry-eyed idealist and do defense work in capital cases for 20 years.”
Dunn is the type of teacher that every parent should want for their child, but, as proved in Dallas, teachers are fired for being good—good meaning tough enough to stick to their guns and require kids to learn.
We need more teachers like Dunn; teachers who care and environment that supports their efforts to educate.
What are line managers, AKA principals and teachers, supposed to do when the executive team, AKA, school district board, first gives tacit approval to shipping shoddy products and then formalizes the practice through its work rules and quality processes?
How stupid is it to tie funding to students staying in school and passing and then allow the bar to be lowered in order to achieve the goal?
Does the ability to pass tests accurately reflect an ability to think?
Kids are smart; they know when the system is gamed and how to leverage their power.
MAP that kept telling them that they were so brilliant that they knew best; the majority of people bought into that vision—until the house of cards crashed and burned.
But as a wise man said, you can learn from everyone.
When I was growing up I had an aunt with whom I didn’t see eye to eye, to say the least. Yet, it was because of this aunt that I learned something that became a cornerstone of my MAP.
My aunt had a glass topped dressing table and, like many women of that era, she would place inspirational clippings and notes under the glass. That’s where I first saw
Profit from the mistakes of others—you don’t have time to make them all yourself.
As much sense as it makes, even back then, it’s been one of the hardest for me to follow. I seem to profit well from small and medium mistakes, but have an unhappy tendency to make the really large ones myself.
The same can be said for many of our business, financial and political ‘leaders’—not to mention ourselves.
This isn’t the first economic crisis brought about in the name of profit and maximizing shareholder investment, just the worst in a long time.
As I read the news a line from the sixties hit “Where have all the flowers gone…” keeps repeating in my mind—“when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?”
Yesterday was Bosses Day and in honor of that I’m going to share some information on bosses—BIG bosses.
These days’ people are incensed with executive pay packages on and off Wall Street.
For years there has been much talk about pay for performance, but I haven’t seen any strong connection—have you?
And certainly not this year.
But the recession doesn’t seem to have slowed down CEO compensation at all and I’m not even referring to Wall Street.
You’ve probably never even heard of the 5 most highly compensated CEOs, unless you are unfortunate enough to own the stock or work or been laid off from the companies. The 5 are Eugene Isenberg, chief of Nabors Industries, Michael Jeffries of Abercrombie & Fitch, Brian Roberts of Comcast, John Faraci of International Paper and James Stewart of BJ Services. Ugh.
By now you all know that those poor mistreated boys and girls at what used to be Merrill Lynch are getting their bonuses, perhaps if they get over their embarrassment they will start spending and give the economy a real boost.
And then there’s Ken Lewis, the beloved CEO of B of A—the bank we love to hate.
You probably read that Kenny is “stepping down” and has agreed (under duress) to forego his 2009 salary and bonus and repay a whole million dollars. In case you were actually impressed with this, please note that he will walk away with a $53 million pension plan.
That’s on top of everything he’s made (I refuse to say earned) previously.
The NY Times had an interesting article that explains that Lewis isn’t incompetent, he just can’t lead. But from where I sit by the time anyone makes it to the corner office of a corporation the size of Bank of America should be able to do it all.
Some of the articles I’m sharing today refer to CEOs, but the advice in them can be tweaked to apply to any level in both professional and personal arenas.
First, Steve Tobek, who writes The Corner Office for BNet offers some great thoughts entitlement, which he says has been around for decades. The cure is empowerment backed by accountability. Bull’s-eye, Steve!
Next is a great offering from McKinsey on re-energizing your team. It talks about how to overcome fear, denial and the need to learn and change—emotions that teams at all levels are facing.
Finally, an article in Success caught my eye when it made a case for using volunteering to connect with stakeholders. “Several experts actually claim that incorporating volunteering into the corporate culture is the management tool of the 21st century.”
Life is about choices; we make choices every day that affect not only the immediate subject, but also those around us and our future.
The Hart Research Associates poll showed that top executives are even more disliked than politicians. … The vast majority of potential jurors see corporate CEOs as greedy and willing to break the law.” –
Raising kids is about teaching values, among other things, but kids learn by watching more than by listening. “Do as I say, not as I do” just doesn’t fly these days.
What do you do and where do you go when you leave a high-stress career that nearly kills you?
Seems that every day thre’s another news item about a boss who has gone astray in some way.
Yesterday was Bosses Day and in honor of that I’m going to share some information on bosses—BIG bosses.
Some of the articles I’m sharing today refer to CEOs, but the advice in them can be tweaked to apply to any level in both professional and personal arenas.
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