What happens when you bring five school teams, each comprised of board members, administrators and teachers, together for two days to design strategy for their schools? That’s the question we asked ourselves when we envisioned our Strategic Planning Institute. We had two big hypotheses to test. The first was that schools could design better strategy if they were in an environment that allowed them to support, inspire, question and challenge one another. The second was that if schools experienced this type of collaboration, and were offered helpful tools and structures for the process, they would be equipped to return to school and lead a strategic design process that was entirely their own.
The Leadership Lab for New HOS: A Transition to a Different Philosophy
Start this way. Consider that a new school leader is perceived as a bundle of experience, talent, and values who needs the right content added to prepare for the work ahead. The traditional approach would be to bring new heads together, expose them to a curriculum that is full of headship content (that is, full of what the ramp-up designers feel that new school heads should know) and get as much of that infused into the new school leaders as they start their new position. External realities, internal management, board relations, admissions, advancement, and so on creates the “exposure package” new heads are likely to need and knowledge they can use as their week together ends. This model has been the primary new head of school training model for years, and it is not without success. But is it enough?