NAIS 2015 GLP Williston Faculty Voice

STRATEGY, FACULTY VOICE & THE
HARD WORK OF IMPLEMENTATION:
A Discussion for School Leaders
Presented by:
WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
Bob Hill, Head of School
Kim Evelti, Associate Academic Dean
GREENWICH LEADERSHIP PARTNERS
Stephanie Rogen, Principal
Liz Kornheiser, Partner

©greenwichleadershippartners 2015
Introduce yourselves and share!
FAIL EARLY, FAIL OFTEN!

GLP: WORKING AT THE
INTERSECTIONS

WILLISTON:
PURPOSE, PASSION, INTEGRITY
Discovering and Defining:
Academic Excellence, Individuality, Responsibility
Community, Collaboration

WHY DOES FACULTY VOICE
MATTER?
Great strategy and
execution depend
on culture, talent
and engagement.

AGENDA
IMPLEMENTATION & EXECUTION
Keep it Going!
ARCHITECTS IN DESIGN
Engage Faculty
SHIFTING MINDSET
Make the Case for Change
FOCUS FIRST ON PEOPLE
Preamble to Planning

FOCUS FIRST ON PEOPLE
PREAMBLE TO PLANNING

THE DREAM TEAM
LEADER/FACILITATOR
• Must have credibility
• Head-appointed and
sponsored
• Able to follow through
TEAM
• Must be flexible
• Aligned in values
• Able to collaborate AND
disagree openly and
professionally
PEOPLE TRUMP PROCESS

CREATE THE CONDITIONS

BUILD THE DREAM TEAM

MAKING THE CASE FOR CHANGE
SHIFTING MINDSET

How has the world changed? School?
EXPLORE A CHANGING WORLD

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our
inability to understand the exponential function.”
- Albert Allen Bartlett

By 2020, 40% to 50% of all income-producing
work will be short-term contracts, freelance work
and so-called SuperTemps
The length of a career is already averaging 48
years; by 2020 it will be 50+ years
The average time in service at any one company
for Millennials is currently 2.6 years
Pew Research Center: “AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs” August 6 2014
THE FUTURE OF WORK

RISING COSTS

ENGAGEMENT CONTEXT
>500,000 students polled
Source: The Gallup Blog, The School Cliff: Student Engagement Drops With Each School Year

Research demonstrates that character traits are generally
more predictive of post-educational success in work/life
than academic achievement (grades and standardized
testing). In combination they are the mark of a superior
education.
HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?

“G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores
are worthless…We found that they don’t predict anything…

WHAT MATTERS NOW?
…For every job, though, the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability,
and it’s not I.Q. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the
ability to pull together disparate bits of information. We assess that using
structured behavioral interviews that we validate to make sure they’re predictive.”
Laszlo Bock
SVP People Operations
for Google

ARCHITECTS IN DESIGN
ENGAGE FACULTY

EXAMPLE: STOP, CONTINUE, START
What at your
school would
you STOP
doing?
What at your
school would
you CONTINUE
doing?
What at your
school would
you START?

 If your goal is to determine what you could do at
your school to identify and develop leadership in
order to empower faculty:
What would you STOP doing, CONTINUE
doing, or START doing?
 Work individually and take notes on your
thoughts. In a few minutes, we will come back
together as a group to discuss our results!
LET’S TRY IT!

REFLECT: HOW WAS IT?
How would you
use this at
school?

ENGAGING FACULTY:
WILLISTON’S EXPERIENCE
• Opportunity for all to engage
• Opportunity for public expression
• Persistent documentation
• Visible process
Voice!
• Engage adults like you engage
students
• Model best teaching practices in work
with faculty
• Defining goals, activity, motion,
interaction, synthesis
Procedure

EXAMPLE: BUBBLE EXERCISE
How can you facilitate this conversation with
100 faculty in a way that is:
Inclusive
Persistent
Useful!
STOP CONTINUE START

EXAMPLE: BUBBLE EXERCISE

BUBBLE EXERCISE LOGISTICS
Assignment:
• As a group, agree on one thing Williston should stop,
one thing Williston should start, one thing Williston
should continue to reach our mission.
• Submit your 5-word answers via the web form.
1) Begin in Groups of 3 (Pre-selected to give departmental
distribution)
2) Groups of 3 merged into groups of 6. The two groups
debated their answers and came to consensus on one new
answer. Submitted.
3) Groups of 6 merged into 12 & repeated.

BUBBLE EXERCISE LOGISTICS
As results were submitted, they were
added to a graphic organizer.
• Captured all voices
• Created a persistent document
• Showed consensus without losing early
ideas
Graphic organizer used with
Board and steering committee
to communicate faculty voice
succinctly and fully.

LET’S TRY IT!
Assignment:
• Find a group of three!
• Consider your earlier S-S-C exercise, debate and
agree on ONE best practice for developing leadership
potential among faculty.
• Keep your answer to 5 words.
• Submit your group’s answer here (case sensitive):
http://1drv.ms/1uAd55y

MERGE, DEBATE, SUBMIT
Assignment:
• Merge your group of three with another
• Present your best practice to the other group of three.
Debate and agree on ONE best practice. Keep your
answer to 5 words.

MERGE, DEBATE, SUBMIT
Assignment:
• Merge your group of six with another
• Present your best practice to the other group of six.
Debate and agree on ONE best practice. Keep your
answer to 5 words.

RESULTS
Our results:
https://bubbl.us/?h=2
73e9d/4f2de1/25Ja0
LUUCZGpY&r=2165
43345

TOOLS
Survey:
• OneDrive.com
• Survey Monkey
Graphic Organizers:
• bubbl.us
• Inspiration ($)

BUBBLE EXERCISE REFLECTIONS
• Combines small and large group
discussion
• Captures many voices
• Visualizes the steps of compromise and
consensus
Successes
• Facilitator needs to be comfortable with
tech setup
• Success depends on faculty’s
willingness to debate and compromise
Challenges

IMPLEMENTATION & EXECUTION
KEEP IT GOING!
ADAPT & SUSTAIN
• The work has just
begun! NOW COMES
THE FUN.
• Faculty engagement
becomes more
necessary, focused,
HANDS ON and
fruitful.

ADAPT AND SUSTAIN:
WILLISTON
Creativity, broad
volunteer-based
engagement,
discussion,
debate,
persistent
feedback.
WILLISTON SCHOLARS

WILLISTON SCHOLARS
THE PROGRAM:
• Students work closely with a faculty member, in
classes limited to a small number of students, to
dive deeply into the subject matter, including an
independent study project.
CLASSES OFFERED IN 2014-15:
• Advanced Integrated Science (Science)
• Contemporary Art and Culture (Fine & Performing Arts)
• Contemporary Linguistics (Language)
• Literature & History of the Elizabethan Era (English/History &
Global Studies)
• Sport and Society (History & Global Studies)
Writers' Workshop (English)

THE THINK TANK
Make it
Leak Proof!
INCLUSIVE
FOOD
FUN
GENERATIVE

THINK TANK PROCESS
Faculty signed up for three topics, one for each time slot.

THINK TANK PROCESS
At tables, faculty found prompts &
instructions in a shared notebook.
Responses were added to the shared
notebook.
For rounds 2 & 3, new groups were
required to read the responses of the
preceding groups and incorporate
reactions in feedback.
Groups moved
after the round
ended.

LET’S TRY IT!
Rotate to your second group when time is called.
Begin by following prompt and recording your response on the shared
paper. Leave your paper there for the next group.
Sign up for two groups.
Do we have all of our questions?

THINK TANK PROMPT:
LEADERSHIP
Objective: Develop a defined collection of leadership opportunities, large and small, to create
pathways for growth in alignment with faculty talents and ambitions.
Prompt: How can we provide opportunities for expanding leadership roles within our
organization to develop organizational capacity and retain our strongest potential leaders?
1) Consider your own path to leadership. Sketch out your own leadership timeline that shows
how you got from where you began to where you are today, including even small or
informal opportunities, like writing part of an accreditation document, presenting to faculty,
serving on a task force or team, or attending a PD workshop.
2) Categorize each of these steps in the path under the groups below, and record them for
the next groups.
Leadership of Student Groups
Leadership of Faculty
Leadership in Curriculum and Learning Design
Leadership in Advancement & Board Relations
Leadership in Academic Administration
Leadership in Student Behavior
Leadership in External Relations
Leadership in Professional Development

THINK TANK PROMPT:
FACULTY ENGAGEMENT
Objective: Reflect on and redesign a structure for faculty engagement in a major
change process or design project for your school.
Prompt: Individually, consider the last major change or design project at your
school.
1. Loosely outline the faculty engagement timeline, beginning with the
brainstorming of the process/project through implementation. Include notes on
how faculty were engaged in the work (what role did they play, what was their
contribution to the process).
2. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being best), how well do you believe this process served
the needs of your faculty and the school?
3. Share your answers to questions 1 & 2 with your group. Choose the process
that scored lowest, and work together to re-draw the timeline for faculty
engagement. Show the differences between the “before” timeline and “after”
timeline for the next group.

THINK TANK PROMPT:
PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
Objective: Experiment with creative program development.
Prompt: Imagine a new set of interdisciplinary courses and how they might be
designed and delivered in school.
1. Pair or trio up in your group.
2. With your current courses (or college major if you don’t teach currently) in mind,
find some common ground between topics in your field that you're passionate
about and propose a new, interdisciplinary course that the two or three of you
would co-teach. Do this BEFORE you review and critique the ideas generated
by the other groups.
For example, if Kim was sitting with Bob (Computer Science with English),
they might consider a course on storytelling applications in video game
design.
3. Record your ideas and reactions in the page for your round.

THINK TANK PROMPT:
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
Objective: Design a strategy for using your faculty as facilitators of student voice in
the implementation of a strategic priority.
Prompt: During planning and implementation the faculty can play a key role in
engaging, incorporating and representing the voice of the student. Consider this
strategic objective:
Strengthen and develop traditions relative to our academic, athletic, and artistic
programs to celebrate the life and diversity of the student body.
Now, imagine that your school is nearing an important anniversary milestone. As a
group, develop a strategy in which faculty engage the student voice in creating new
traditions around this event.
1. In what venue will faculty have this discussion with students? Advisory? Class?
Voluntary meetings?
2. What prompts, activities, or exercises will faculty use to solicit student feedback?

THINK TANK PROMPT:
PEER COACHING
Objective: Cultivate professional development opportunities within school and foster
collaboration and support among colleagues by creating a peer-to-peer support
structure
Prompt: Often peer coaching only happens organically among faculty--and is a
function of individual initiative. Imagine a culture of peer-to-peer coaching that is
supported by process and structure.
1. What objectives or principles underlie successful peer coaching experiences?
2. What conditions allow for peer-to-peer coaching in your school? (You may wish
to consider time, schedule and collaboration opportunities.) Alternatively, what
conditions impede it?
3. How will you design a peer-to-peer structure or program for collaboration,
coaching and support that serves all faculty?

REFLECT

THINK TANK REFLECTIONS
Williston’s Final Result (OneNote Notebook)
Link to Notebook

THINK TANK REFLECTIONS
• Allows conversation based on
interest
• Captures many voices
• Generates ideas and responses
Successes
• Volunteer-based
• Can generate more
lengthy/nebulous responses
Challenges

Governance and
Leadership need to know
what faculty and students
know.
Value definitions and
words really matter!
The people who will lead
you forward design great
solutions—discover who
they are.
WHAT WE DISCOVERED

WHY IS EXECUTION SO TOUGH?

“DO NOW” LIST
Forget planning!
What can you do
NOW?
Take the first step!

WRAP UP
Engaging faculty supports the long-term work.
Watch out for embedded assumptions!

NAIS 2015 GLP Williston Faculty Voice

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