#MustRead Shares (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Running two operating systems in concert. #PLC #ATPLC #Leadership #Strategy

From John Kotter’s article “Accelerate!” in Harvard Business Review, November 2012 –

The existing structures and processes that together form an organization’s operating system need an additional element to address the challenges produced by mounting complexity and rapid change. The solution is a second operating system, devoted to the design and implementation of strategy, that uses an agile, networklike structure and a very different set of processes. The new operating system continually assesses the business, the industry, and the organization, and reacts with greater agility, speed, and creativity than the existing one. It complements rather than overburdens the traditional hierarchy, thus freeing the latter to do what it’s optimized to do. It actually makes enterprises easier to run and accelerates strategic change. This is not an “either or” idea. It’s “both and.” I’m proposing two systems that operate in concert.
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During my fourth year as a middle school principal, in 2006-07, we began to restructure as a professional learning community, implementing the incredible work of Rick and Becky DuFour and Bob Eaker. As we progressed in this restructuring around a different work ethos, we tapped volunteers to co-lead the various departmental learning teams. Together these co-faciliators created the PLC-Facilitators PLC – a kind of meta-team to serve as a guiding coalition for the entire PLC transformation.

We ran two operating systems – an admin team known as the Guidance Committee (hierarchical), as well as the PLC-Facilitators PLC (networked). The Guidance Committee was tremendous at running the logistical operations of the school, just as Kotter describes the strengths of a hierarchical administration. The PLC-Facilitators PLC, and the “solar system” of PLCs throughout the middle school, was tremendous at adeptly navigating – even map making – for the strategic transformations necessary in a learning community being influenced by technology enhancements, brain research, assessment literacies, pedagogical improvements, etc.

Two operating systems may seem counter-intuituve. Yet, it was this practice of running two systems in concert that permitted us to embrace complexity versus trying to manage it.

[HT to Tod Martin for the Kotter article!]

“It’s a system… and so too should be our strategies for change.” Jon Kolko @TheAlpineReview #PedagogicalMasterPlanning

From Jon Kolko in The Alpine Review, No.1

It’s perhaps obvious to point out that the world we live in is interconnected, yet the simple statement is at the crux of our downward digression: our political system is intertwined with economics, intellectual property is connected to technology, design is at the heart of consumption and marketing feeds the beast. It’s a system, and so our critique of it should be systemic, and so too should be our strategies for change.

What if we blueprinted the architecture of the inner workings of a school – of the interconnected elements of the ecosystem – and designed the construction plans for the transformations it is undertaking? Then, we could act on what matters.

#PedagogicalMasterPlanning

#MustRead Shares (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

I used to think, but now I know. Three inspiring thinkers and doers in #EdInnovation

“I used to think, but now I know …”

This prompt and stem is a tremendous tool for reflecting and expanding thinking. Occasionally, I have used such a prompt when facilitating workshops, meetings, or early explorations. It serves as something of a mental-emotional bridge.

Over the past few weeks, I have gathered three examples of this prompt in action – employed by three inspiring thinkers and doers in educational innovation. I encourage you to click on a link below and read. If you read one, I imagine that you’ll want to read all three. (I’ve tried to make my intro short – it would be better for you to spend your time reading the links below.)