March 26, 2014
OPENING DAY – GO ROCKIES!
Schools, Baseball, and Turnarounds - From
Worst to First
The baseball season begins. A Boston Red Sox fan (yes, we will be
insufferable this year!) proudly boasts that – one year after finishing in LAST PLACE in 2012, WE ARE NOW AND WILL
BE FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT SIX MONTHS BASEBALL’S WORLD CHAMPIONS. (Take that,
Yankee fans!)
Proof that a new manager and key new players can help a ball club go from
last to first.
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“The grind of a 162-game season played in
a 182-day window, followed by the wilds of postseason play, would test even
Lewis and Clark. But among baseball’s 109 world champions there has never
been a story of resilience quite like this one. No team—not the 1969 Mets,
not the ’91 Twins—has won the World Series in the year after being as bad as
the Red Sox were in 2012 (.426 winning percentage).” Tom Verducci - http://insidesportsillustrated.com/tag/boston-red-sox/
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A team can turn around.
Can a school?
Can the principal and several new
teachers help a school turn around? Rise
from low-performing to high- performing?
Any common ingredients? Similar challenges? Lessons to pass along—from one underdog to
another?
OK, neither the principal nor the
teachers are paid $3.4 million year, the average pay in major league baseball
these days.
But in both cases they look at the scoreboard and have to say: We’ve got to do better.
**
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Meeting the Turnaround Challenge
Why
aren’t traditional … approaches to turnaround effective?
Don’t
address the underlying conditions and systems… that undercut the impact of
even well-conceived reforms.
Authority Over People
Hiring and Placement – Teachers should be selected to fit the distinct culture of the school, by mutual
consent of principal and teachers; no forced placement.
Exit – Opportunities for voluntary transfer out … for
teachers who are not fully bought-in to the model and process. ..
Approaches to People
Having
complete autonomy at the school level is a challenge to acquire. But
experience shows it is often crucial to changing culture and moving forward with transformational reform.
from Mass Insight Education
& Research Institute, Spring 2009
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I have been reading the Unified Improvement Plan from several
low-performing schools. It is good to
find honest self-critiques, where a school community does more than articulate plans
to implement a more cohesive curriculum
that matches the standards, to commit more resources to professional
development, blah blah blah, and instead speaks of the school’s culture, its low expectations, and of deteriorating
values—such as a lack of trust. But in my experience, such a confession, such
honest self-examination, is rare. (AV#109—Jan. 2014 pointed out this failure in
the 2012-13 UIP from Aurora Central High School.)
Even when schools admit to what
the UIP calls “root causes” for their chronic low performance, I find their
Major Improvement Strategies and Action Steps often drift far from the heart of
the matter: the school’s purpose and mission; its culture and its values; its
leadership. In short, the essentials—which
so often need a dramatic transformation.
It stinks to find your school
placed on a Turnaround Plan three years in a row. The principal and faculty must feel under the
gun, stressed—as if the crowds are out
there booing every day. No wonder it
can lead to a downward spiral, a decline in morale, with a few jumping ship (Let me go play for a winner!).
And yet, in a few cases, quite
the opposite takes place. A new
willingness to face the facts. An
affirmation that the school can and must change. The emergence of a positive culture. Hope.
Phoenix, rising from the ashes
In 2012, 40
Colorado schools were given the bottom rating on the State Performance
Framework: Turnaround. The 2013 SPF shows
that, a year later, several of these 40 schools had closed, about half continued
in the Turnaround category, and a number improved one category—to Priority Improvement.
The good news, though (as miraculous and magical as the Red Sox rise
from the ashes last year!), is that five Colorado schools jumped all the way
from the bottom to the top rating—Performance—in
2013.
It can happen.
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Colorado’s
State Performance Framework
1.
Performance
2.
Improvement
3.
Priority Improvement
4.
Turnaround
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5 schools leap from state’s lowest rating to highest in one year; some double
in points earned
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School
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District
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2012
Rating
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2012
Points Earned
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2013
Rating
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2013
Points Earned
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Gilcrest Elementary
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Weld County RE 1
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Turnaround
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33.3
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Performance
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72.6
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Las Animas Jr. High
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Las Animas RE 1
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Turnaround
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29.8
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Performance
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64
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Lone Star Elementary
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Lone Star 101
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Turnaround
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36.1
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Performance
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61.2
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Maybell School
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Moffat County
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Turnaround
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25.2
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Performance
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N.A.
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Smith Renaissance
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Denver Public Schools
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Turnaround
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44.9
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Performance
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66.4
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Team
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Boston
Red Sox
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LAST PLACE
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69 wins –
93 losses
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WORLD CHAMPIONS
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97 wins –
65 losses
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Colorado Rockies—after two straight years
in the cellar
I don’t know if Colorado Rockies’
manager Walt Weiss can lead his team to post-season play in 2013—or even to
reach .500. I do know I like his
honesty. None of the denial or excuses
we sometimes hear. No appeals to the Colorado Department of Education for being labeled a
low-performing school or district. In talking with The Denver Post over the past year, Weiss doesn’t shy from the
truth.
“They finished
74-88 in 2013, in last place in the National League West for the second consecutive
year. Weiss doesn’t need to be reminded of those ugly numbers…. He hasn’t
experienced back-to-back losing records since the 1993 and 1994 season, when he
played with the Marlins and Rockies…. Weiss will be directly responsible for
turning the Rockies around.”
He didn’t sign up for 74 wins in
his first season, but “the bottom line is that we finished in last place.”
“It’s my job to
put our guys in a position to win, to create a culture that perpetuates winning. That’s what I’m trying to do. That’s
what we’re trying to do as an organization.
It’d probably surprise a lot of people (if the Rockies reached the
playoffs), but not me. It’s tough. It can be done. We’re going to have to go from worst to first,
and it’s been done before.”
Hopeful, but honest about the
challenge ahead. Few outside the team
predict much change. There’s talk of “a
three-peat this season—that is, a third consecutive last-place finish in the
National League West.” A recent headline
read:
“Against
the odds – Predictions of another last-place finish put chip on Rockies’
shoulders”
Weiss hears it.
“I’ve talked about
the fact that we’ve finished last the last two years. That’s real. That’s
there. So we have to deal with that too. But I like the mentality of the club,
and if there’s chip on their shoulder, that’s great….
“The most positive
thing is that I feel like the mentality of the club is heading in the right
direction. There’s an expectation around
here now, I can sense. Guys are expected to compete at a certain way and at a
certain level.”
Team leaders have bought into
their manager’s message. National League batting champ Michael Cuddyer passed
out a t-shirt; on the front it read, “Get Ready. It’s a new day.” Veteran reliever LaTroy Hawkins pitched in:
“I want a team that plays the same on Day 1 as on Day 162. I feel some responsibility to make sure his
message doesn’t get lost. Everybody has the same goal this time of year. But
tough times don’t last; tough teams do. We have to be tough.”
Low-performing schools - culture, trust, loyalty
Twenty years ago I am visiting a
high school 40 miles north of Denver. Our foundation is supporting the school’s
restructuring around nine principles, one of which is:
The tone of the school should explicitly and self-consciously
stress the values of trust (until
abused) and of decency (the values
of fairness, generosity and tolerance).
I meet with the principal. He is worried. The effort is not going well. He says this year
the focus will be on that principle of trust. Naively I ask, “Issues with the
teacher and students?”
“No,” he answers, “it’s within the faculty.”
Dissension among teachers and staff? Ballplayers call it “cancer in the clubhouse”
In baseball when a negative
attitude spreads, initiated by a few key players, it is called “a cancer in the
clubhouse.” It was all-too-evident in
Boston during that miserable summer of 2012, as the team plunged into last
place. The Red Sox took action: Josh
Beckett and several other stars were “traded” (read: shipped) to Los Angeles. Soon after manager Bobby Valentine
was gone, replaced by John Farrell.
Well before the 2013 season opened,
it was clear that the new manager meant to address a more fundamental issue than
merely tinker with the lineup and improve the pitching.
Nov. 9, 2012 Boston
Red Sox: 5 Changes to Team Culture Coming in 2013
Feb 13, 2013 Red Sox begin
chemistry experiment -
Will
Boston's improved clubhouse culture translate to on-field success?
For the core
guys, this team's struggles since September 2011 have been strange and
unpleasant. These players are not used to losing this way. There's a genuine
feeling that losing will not be accepted anymore. No more placing blame on
anyone else other than themselves if things don't improve in 2013….
Team chemistry
is a point of emphasis for Farrell this season. He explained he believes in
creating a successful atmosphere within the clubhouse, and the mental part of
the game is important, too…. “Particularly in this sport when you've got seven
and a half straight months of being with one another every day. That doesn't
mean guys have to go out to dinner with one another every night, but there's an
atmosphere that's created inside that clubhouse that's one of tolerance, one of
encouragement, one of holding one another accountable and I think if you're
sincere and respect one another, and you're sincere about your work and how you
go about it, those are the attributes that lead to chemistry. I think it goes a
long way.”
A long way indeed—all the way to
a World Championship.
Over and over again one read of
the new camaraderie and team-first spirit. “The positive clubhouse culture was frequently cited as a major
reason for Boston's success last year.” (http://sports.yahoo.com/news/boston-red-sox-evaluating-team-strengths-weaknesses-entering-171500349--mlb.html.)
“Farrell’s greatest
accomplishment … eliminating the dysfunction that did as much to destroy last
year’s team as anything else. ‘He needs
the guys who allow him to create the cohesive unity we’re all looking for and
ultimately we’re all looking for,’ General Manager Ben Cherrington said.” http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130827/SPORTS/308270337/-1/SPORTS0702
Oct. 20, 2013 Red Sox emergence from worst-to-first
result of culture change in clubhouse
Nov. 4, 2013 Organizational Culture Lessons
From The Boston Red Sox
Farrell asked
his players to be relentless from day one, resulting in them showing up to work
hours ahead of schedule and helping build a strong culture. Leadership experts agree that the stronger the culture, the more impact it can have on
employee commitment and performance. A
weak culture tends to be seen as
arbitrary, and may evoke compliance but less commitment.
Farrell overcame the
stigma once associated with former pitching coaches-turned-managers to become
the first such skipper to reach the World Series stage. Additionally, he
exceeded ownership expectations and managed his team to a third championship
this century.
Nabeel Jaitapker
Yes, “my team”—by birth, is Boston.
But in the National League, I’m a Rockies fan—where I am glad to cheer
for the underdog. Just as I have been
trying, in my newsletters, to cheer for “the underdogs” in our education system:
students in our lowest performing schools.
I have not tackled here the complex question of whether it is wiser to
try to transform and redesign such schools, or to open “new” schools—even if in
the same old building. Whatever the
choice, I offer this reminder of what we all know. The fundamentals matter: a
school’s purpose; its culture and its values; and its leadership.
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