Culture, Strategy and Growth in Organizations SMO 500 Post #2

Still operating under the assumption that I can use the terms organization, business, and company interchangeably I will endeavour to review this weeks readings and ideas around the topic of Strategy, People, and Culture.

I like this google image search result after the query: organization,
business, company. It's a Companies Strong DNA. 

I have a couple of goals for this post: 1) to be more concise (write better and shorter) and 2) avoid the obvious ie. strive for ideas not explanations.

I opened by revealing my ignorance about the difference between a company, a business, and an organization. One of the reasons I did this, besides my comfort with self-deprecation, was because I walked out of class this week feeling very ignorant about something that is probably quite obvious to most of my peers. Specifically, what is Strategy?

I understand the word in other contexts, I could probably do a google search and understand it a little better, but I also want to think about this unknown and try to apply it to my own organization. What is the strategy for Edmonton Public Schools? What is the strategy for Westlawn School?

Now, I get it? Not really. At least this image is cc licensed, so I'm not really stealing. 

The key lessons from this weeks reading involve an understanding of culture. I get that, and I will highlight this understanding shortly. I also understand that in order to achieve a strategy a company must actively control, guide, and shape the culture where it is operating. I am just not sure of the difference between an organizations goals or objective and it's strategy.

Before I move on, so much for goal #1, I want to apply this confusion to my school. Our school goal, or mission, is a high level of learning for all students. If I were asked to pin down our strategy I would say that the strategy to reach this goal is to create a professional learning community that is focused on implementing best practices to achieve the goal. Am I understanding strategy as it is used in the management and business context? I sure don't think so. For now I will enjoy this cognitive deficit and move on to what I do know about this week's lessons.

There are many important ideas that come out of the material from this week, but I want to focus on three ideas that resonate.

1) Treat Adults as Adults. This is coming up again and again, and it ought to be a guide for creating culture in an organization. Treat the people in your company as if they are capable adults that are able to achieve great things and they will create a culture where childishness is not tolerated, people hold each other accountable, and there is genuine striving towards reaching each employees full potential. The practices that insult an adult's capabilities are detrimental to culture, and they cause people to perform below their potenital.

2) Get rid of the rule book. Excessive rules that attempt to govern a person's behavior is not treating someone like an adult. Adult's are able to operate with good will and common cause ie. strategy (whatever that is). A rule book binds a person's ability to think creatively, limits someone's capacity to make honest mistakes (mistakes actually help organizations learn and adapt to unforeseen situations), and stifles the bravery that is often needed when making difficult decisions or taking risks that can help achieve strategic goals.

3) Bureaucratization kills Culture. Just sticking to the lessons from the readings I would conclude that a growing bureaucracy and the resultant harm to positive culture is the inevitable outcome of a growing organization. Further, the damage wrought by a bureaucratic control mechanism (extra layers of management and oversight that is primarily responsible for standardizing procedure, enforcing rules, and developing a cultural status quo) must be purposefully addressed and counter-forces must be inserted into an organization to combat bureaucratic tendencies. Going beyond the readings and drawing conclusions based on my own beliefs, it is clear that the capitalist mantra of growth above all else is once again exposed as a self-destructive and ultimately doomed social construction. One can now add cultural destruction and bureaucratic nihilism to the list of capitalist extremes alongside such other realities like ecocide, unsustainable resource extraction, global income inequality, and conspicuous consumption. This may not be the time or the place, but the foundation needs to be discussed and questioned. Always.

Did I just wax Adbusters for a reflection in my MBA class?

A final idea that stands out as the actual learning goal from this week is the notion of HR subfunction alignment. Aligned with what? That's right - Strategy. Selection, training, rewards. They all need to consciously point in the same direction: towards cultural strength and psychological ownership. Jennifer Chatman offers convincing arguments that people need to be hired base on cultural fit, not specific skills. She argues that training should emphasize a companies core values and provide opportunities to become new members of a strong team. Rewards and motivation, according to Chatman, can't be arbitrary or inconsistent. They must be "clear, consistent, and comprehensive." I would add that they must also match a companies core values. If the goal is an enhanced customer experience than why should the quantity of sales be the only monetary reward that an employee can garner?

Case studies are once again used by Chatman to justify her arguments and highlight best practices. The final examples that Chatman highlights is of the ice cream company Dreyer's. This example illustrates key lesson number one from above. Dreyer's told their employees how things were. They were open, they shared the facts, they were honest. They were adult's treating their employees as adults, in other words.

Their Culture Helped the Company Survive and Persevere in an Adverse Situation

The final idea I will hint at before I conclude is the idea of leadership and the role of a leader in all of this. I am already looking forward to exploring the paradox of the strong leader with my group-mates and then the class at large when we present the article Leadership that Promotes Organizational Learning: Both Sides of the Coin, but for now I will highlight the idea that is pertinent to a discussion on leadership that was brought to the fore this week. The leader must model behaviour. Whether it is strategy, culture, or just being an adult person within the organization. If the leader isn't doing it, the company won't be doing it either.

I definitely missed the mark on my first goal, and I hope that I got a little closer to meeting my second goal, so I think I will add a third, completely achievable, goal to the end of this reflection. 3) End each post with a section dedicated to my personal management style.

My Personal Management Style 
The rule book needs to go. This is key to treating adults as adults, and I will hope to embody this in my management practice. The details of what this would actually mean within my projected role as a school and district leader will need to be developed at the end of the course, but it will certainly have it's own little section in my final report.

The Bureaucracy need be soothed. I am not sure what this means, but it is the balance that I find in my mind right now.

The leader must lead through action and treatment of the persons in his employ (I will stay with the male pronoun in this section because it is personal, and I am male). It is never enough to talk about what the leader wants or needs in an organization, in fact, talk can be detrimental. Leadership is perceived through deeds and conduct towards people. Less talk more rock from leaders.

The Final Answer

In my last post I stated that "Almost all restrictions around content, programming for students with special needs, out-dated time-tabling requirements and the like need to be eliminated."

What was I thinking? Let me tell you. If you ask teachers what they need the answer is always the same. They need more time! More time to plan proper differentiated instruction, more time to create common formative assessments with their peers, more time to communicate properly with parents, more time to pursue effective PD within their schools and occasionally outside of the their schools. 

There are, however, two significant barriers to this solution that would yield results in the school, classroom, and the individual student. 

1) Public Opinion thinks that teachers already get far too much time off as it is. Guess what? The public is correct. Teachers get a ridiculous amount of time off, and any teacher that does not humbly and meekly acknowledge this fact when asked or confronted by it is doing the entire profession a disservice. We do not necessarily need to apologize for the fact that we get too much time off, but we do not to acknowledge and graciously admit that we are quite spoiled in this regard. 

We are Paid by the Public and Their Opinion of us Matters

We need to acknowledge it because how is the public supposed to understand that teachers, who already get so much time off, need more time??? I think part of the solution is self-evident. The long holidays should be moderately trimmed in order to find some of the professional working, non-instructional time. How's that for an unpopular, but ultimately correct solution?

Teachers know what is needed, and we need to be willing to give a little in order to get what we need. There are many ways this could be implemented: Re-structuring the school year so that it runs a little bit further into Summer, so that there is more non-instructional time in the school year is one way that I can think of. 

because there is a bigger more ominous barrier to getting teachers the time that they need

2) The cost of education is immense, and there is probably going to be less money coming into schools, not more, so how are we supposed to function when faced with the economic reality of education?

Let's just assume we won't be getting more money for education.

There are answers. Those answers are capture in the first sentence of this post. Imposed restrictions from above need to be lessened. The province should set bench-marks of minimum requirements, the ministry of education can share assessments that will identify when students are not meeting learning objectives, and schools can be given the freedom to program and plan for those students in a way that they deem appropriate. If students do not need six periods of "Language Arts" instruction, why should this be a criteria set by a provincial authority? If students do need seven or ten periods of math instruction per week, why are schools not given the freedom to program for these students and their needs? Give schools and school boards the freedom to plan, program and schedule in the way that they deem appropriate for their students. 

If the province and the ministry get serious about loosening their controls over how a school operates then there needs to be another avenue of accountability. Accountability based on academic benchmarks set by the Province that schools are responsible for enabling every student to achieve. 

I may or may not continue this rant in future posts. Until then, you're welcome for having the answers!!

More Answers

My last post was hastily written and submitted, and this one probably will be as well. When using this tool as a method of reflection does it really matter if my ideas are exact and my arguments well supported? Not really, I'm pretty sure most of my page views are a result of the pictures I so recklessly borrow from google images.

Borrowed pictures like this one

So please do not judge my hastily written posts, or the language with which I write them because I am quite aware that I do not have all the answers.

but I do have some answers!

Education Minister Jeff Johnson, as reported to me by David Staples at the Edmonton journal, is working on supporting and exploring "teacher excellence. The minister created the taskforce on teacher excellence, and he states that, “The task force will make recommendations on how we can better support Alberta’s teachers to ensure that every student has the best chance at success." 

The goals of this task force is to make recommendations and explore how best to support teachers in achieving the overarching goals of, 

• more focus on education rather than school,
• the learner rather than the system,
• building competencies rather than delivering content, and
• technology to support the creation and sharing of knowledge rather than to support teaching

Now if you will excuse the poorly written sentence above I would like to hit you with some answers, that is what I proclaim in the title of this post. These are the three steps that need to be followed. 

1. Let's group the top two bullets together. Both bullets can be read a little differently by replacing the word education with individual and replacing the word system "program of studies." What both bullets are driving towards is an approach to learning that looks at an individual student and addresses their specific needs for academic success. The minister, and on a smaller scale, Westlawn School, are both working towards actually achieving this goal right now by giving students periodic diagnostic standardized assessments of basic reading and numeracy skills. Not assessments based on esoteric, departmentalized exams that are written from the current program of studies. Have you seen the grade nine science PAT? Specific knowledge based questions whose only legitimate claim could be that it prepares students for similar tests in high school and certain post-secondary institutions. Standardized diagnostic exams that identify specific student needs and strengths. There is your answer!! 
2. Almost all restrictions around content, programming for students with special needs, out-dated time-tabling requirements and the like need to be eliminated. The only path to change is to find the time in the school day that allows teachers and administrators to design instruction for their individual students. My next post will go into more detail about what this needs to look like, and it will be full of answers. 
3. Technology utilization takes time, but it does not have to take additional training. Within every school-board there are a growing number of educators that possess a mastery of how to use technology to support learning, sharing, and real authentic contributions by students. These educators must be given time and space to use and share their skills with students and teachers alike. This time and the freedom within the schedule in order to properly implement it will be made available if the answer provided above in step two is followed. 

I don't mean to sound so arrogant, but the issue is less complex than many educators claim, and it is also more involved and professionally informed than all of the arm-chair educators like David Staples and almost every mis-informed and well meaning member of the public claim it to be. 

People have been teaching for a long-time. The answers are well known. 

Don't Worry I have All the Answers

There is an columnist at the Edmonton Journal that is weighing in heavily on the state of K-12 education in Alberta. I want to use his thoughts as the catalyst to re-start my blog this new year.

David Staples Columnist for the Edmonton Journal

I appreciate the passion with which David Staples is discussing educational issues, but not because I necessarily agree with him. I appreciate his opinion because it opens the discourse around a topic that is very important.

I would hate to misrepresent anything that he has said, so I encourage you to explore his ideas and his writing at the Edmonton Journal. His most recent articles:

1. Grade inflation and flex time harm education, high school teacher warns
2. Alberta schools are no longer the best
3. Students ‘cheated’ by way math is taught, say educators and parents

all take an aggressively negative position towards how learning is being delivered within Edmonton and Alberta, and his most recent blog post Johnson pushing for teacher excellence, lower stakes testing applauds the minister of educations future plans for reform. 

Please read his ideas, they will certainly get you thinking and maybe even a little angry. One of the important ideas to note while reading his critique is that he most likely represents the majority opinion of many Albertans. 

A discussion worth having

I didn't want to reply in the comment section of the journal, so I thought I would return to my blog to enlighten everyone with my response. It should you comfort you all to know that I have all the answers to the problems that David Staples has raised!!!

Diagnostic testing and monitoring of individual student growth is critical and fundamentally important. In this measure I agree with David and the minister. These tests need not be tedious and expensive, they need to be designed to capture the students that are falling behind and do not possess the basic academic skills that they need to be successful. 

There is an answer, and it need not be complex

Once these students have been identified then they need to be given targeted intervention. Their teachers need to be given the freedom to stop worrying about the prescribed curriculum, so that they can help the students get up to grade level. Once the diagnostic tests show that the students have been pulled up to grade level, then they can return to the curriculum as it is in it's current state. 

The key barrier is that there is rarely the room or the freedom at the school level to provide the interventions that are needed. 

Teachers need to be given the time to work with each other on addressing their classroom needs. This time together (from experience I think it needs to be at least two to three hours a week) will help ensure the interventions are effective, and it will also help teachers decrease their work load by working with one another creating assessments, holding each other accountable, helping each other with problems and sharing ideas and resources. It is called a Professional Learning Community, and it is the second most powerful idea that I have encountered in my career. 

PLCs are powerful

90% of academic problems in Alberta schools will be addressed by implementing the two ideas from above. I could counter almost of David Staples critiques within the two ideas that I have presented here. There are still significant educational issues that have not been addressed here, but don't worry I have the answers to those as well.

One issue that I do need some help with: ATTENDANCE!! How do we address the students that just don't come to school? We make school a positive place, but some students just do not come to school enough? David any answers?