SMO Reflection Post #7 Rewards and Performance Management

Like almost all interactions between a manager, or a leader, and their employees performance appraisals should help an organization get the most out of an employee. The focus of this weeks material is how to get the most out of a performance appraisal, and the answer to this question is actually simple. In order to have an effective performance appraisal there needs to be a performance management system in place that is continous and ongoing. The flaws in most performance appraisal systems is that they are periodic and they are not systems that managers and employees understand and agree upon.

I didn't make this.

You know class this week was particularly interesting for a few reasons. First of all when the group who was presenting started doing their thing it was quite clear to most people (except the presenters it seems) that they were discussing the wrong article. They were supposed to reflect and report on the article on the motivational benefits of goal setting, but instead they were reflecting on the required reading on the feedback gap. The irony of this situation is that as a class we were all practising feedback avoidance behaviour (FAB). Several times during the presentation I was thinking that I should ask them a question about goal-setting or ask them why they were presenting this article, but I thought it wouldn't have been my place, or that it would have been mean to do to these three guys. I can only assume that Dr. Inness was also consideting letting them know as soon as they started presenting on the wrong article, but she must have made a management (leadership) decision that it is not a good idea. Operating under my thesis for this week, that feedback/appraisal should always get more out of employees, what would have been the best course of action for the group that was presenting? In this context getting more would mean increasing the quality of the entire classes understanding and future presentations. Arguments can be made for both courses of action, and I will not presume to make conclusions about that here, but it sure was an interesting experience of feedback avoidance. I can conclude, however, that sometimes feedback avoidance can have a positive impact on an organizations culture and performance, something not really explored in the article. I had another beef with the Feedback Gap article as well.

It is not as though the article made any kind of argument about gender and it's impact on management, but for some reason they included this gem, "Some evidence suggest that female managers are more likely to delay giving feedback and to positively distort feedback than male managers." A statement like that really needs to be defended and explored, and it has no place in this article. I wanted to find out what they were citing by "some evidence" and the referenced article was by Benedict and Levine, titled Delay and Distortion: Tacit Influences on Performance Appraisal Effectiveness (1988). The date of this article should instantly cause some concern because if they are using previous studies there is going to be the problem that I can only really call anachronistic discrimination or bias, so the first thing I was looking for in this article was original research.

It turns out that Benedict and Levine did conduct some original research. At the time of writing Benedict and Levine lamented that the influence of gender on PA ratings had not been systematically explored. Nonetheless they still revealed the prejudicial and anachronistic findings of the late '70s when they state that, "available research in this area suggests that women generally evaluate others more positively than do men." It is actually kind of amusing to read these academics writing in the late 1980's as they cite and reference garbage studies from the 1970s as their academic foundation. So, Benedict and Levine go on to conduct some original research to explore whether the findings of their predecessors are true or not, and this is waht they do. They take an equal number of male and female college students that all have a minimum of six months experience as supervisors in their field. This selection reveals the first flaw. I understand that they are working in a post-secondary institution, therefore they will select post-secondary students, but still this cannot be considered an adequate sample of supervisors. They have a sample of supervisors that, for whatever reason, are going back to school. They took this biased sample and then had the subjects of the experiment sit in a room with a confederate of the experiment. The subjects were tasked to review ten sessions worth of data supposedly about the confederates performance but actually manipulated by the experiments designers. The experiment measured how long (delay) the subjects took to schedule a negative performance review with the confederate and how accurate (distortion) the subjects negative performance appraisal of the confederate was. The confederate, by the way, was always the same 26 year old male.

What???

Yes, in a study around gender and interactions Benedict and Levine wanted to "avoid" the "interaction between rater and subordinate gender." Let me spell out this absurdity because this issue along really turns the study into garbage that should not be being cited by Moss and Sanchez in 2004. Benedict and Levine are trying to reach conclusions about the difference between how men and women treat employees in a PA. Then they choose a male as the only employee? This study on gender is purposefully ignoring the potential impact of gender! Why did they not choose a female employee to be the sole confederate? I will tell you why: BECAUSE IT WOULD CHANGE THE BLOODY RESULTS. There are other problems in this study and the conclusions that they reach suffice it to say, and I wish Moss and Sanchez would have considered this before they needlessly put in distracting indefensible statements about the impact of gender, any arguments about gender and management need to be supported by evidence, and some "evidence" needs to recognized as anachronistic garbage and rejected out of hand.

The final item that I really wanted to explore this week will certainly appear in the section on my personal leadership approach portion of the assignment. If there is going to be a performance appraisal system in the performance management system (there ought to be), then the performance metrics need to be very clear and very effective.

Currently, in education, there really aren't any performance metrics, so what would they look like in my field? When I am a leader in a school I will evaluate and communicate with teachers based on the following metrics:

1. Student performance evaluation. Students can tell school leadership if they perceive their teachers as Nice/Kind/Caring, as Prepared/Passionate/Inspiring and as Fair/Just.
2. Teachers can be expected to submit a minimum number of common formative assessments with an anlysis of their assessment results based off of these CFAs (I won't get into the jargon, but CFAs have a very high effect size relative to another teaching tools in most of the best practice literature and meta-analysis). 
3. Students growth, measured against previous performance, in literacy. Short standardized tests can report this information easily.
4. Students growth, measured against previous performance, in numeracy. Short standardized tests can report this information easily.
5. Student evidence of artifacts of learning. Are there artifacts of learning that reveal student creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and love of learning?

I have never thought seriously about what specific metrics could be used to measure teacher effectiveness, and this week's lecture provided me with that opportunity. I now imagine a school where these metrics are communicated and agreed upon early in the school year and how that would shape the learning and teaching culture in a school.

Measured against agreed upon standards (metrics)

Some Things are Difficult to do Properly SMO 500 Reflection #6

Some things are difficult to do properly, and merit pay is certainly one of those things. In this post I will write from my own personal context as an educator and point to examples from the course literature for support in my arguments and reasoning while exploring the merits of performance pay.

It's Difficult to find images of Merit Pay that
 aren't entirely opposed to the idea. 

Pay for Performance, one version of which is called Merit Pay, is hotly debated in the field of education. Many non-educators argue that Merit Pay could help fix perceived shortfalls in public education. The President of the Alberta Teachers' Association argues fervently against any form of pay for performance being incorporated into a collective bargaining discussion. Indeed, Alberta teachers can rest assured knowing that the dialogue will be D.O.A. if the government wants to even broach the topic. Certain districts and states in the United States do not have the security of a powerful and well entrenched professional association like the ATA, so they do have to at least consider implementing merit pay when negotiating salaries with their governments. This is a valuable opportunity to explore the nature of the resistance to merit pay, and to also explore the best methods of Rewards and Performance Management specifically from the lens of Public education. 

The ATA will never allow Merit Pay, but I can still get a little
hypothetical in order to discuss my understanding of the issue. 

If merit pay were to be implemented in my school tomorrow there would be some teachers that would take immediate action in ensuring they could receive full performance pay. Those teachers would explore exactly what is necessary to receive the maximum pay for their work. They would research the criteria that they needed to fulfil, talk to their administrators about how exactly they would be measured against said criteria, work fervently towards achieving those goals (longer hours, more creative solutions to reaching their goals, more energy and passion in the classroom), constantly reflect on their progress towards meeting their goals, and they would also seek continual feedback from their peers and administrators about how well they are doing in reaching their goals. They would, in most situations involving this type of teacher, become so focused on reaching the goals outlined in the performance pay criteria that they would certainly not waste time building meaningful relationships with their students, or waste any time trying to motivate and work with students that are "lost causes." These teachers would be so focused on earning a pay check that they would not take time to help colleagues that wanted a little support or work with any students on non-academic issues. These teachers would almost certainly find a way to receive their full merit pay, or as much as possible given the criteria, but would the educational organization have benefited in the long-run?  

The scenario above points to the first major flaw in performance pay systems. This flaw is also discussed in the literature around employee performance.

1. Pay is far too important to people. In the scenario above the teacher will not hesitate to ignore high-needs students, will not seek collegial understanding and collaboration (unless it furthers the teachers goal of meeting the performance pay criteria), would not waste time or energy on anything that does not bring the employee closer to the pay check, and they would most likely do all that they can to impress whoever it is that will be conducting the employee review. The teacher would also be far too tempted to behave unethically in order to achieve their goals. Further the teacher would come to resent students that take them further away from their goal. Not only would the teacher ignore positive relationship building opportunities, they would also create negative relationships with students that they perceive as not capable of helping the teacher reach goals. 

Most people assume that a system of performance pay in education would revolve around academic goals that are measured by some form of standardized testing regime. Assuming that this testing regime could operate perfectly and actually assess academic growth, and not simply academic ability, there would still be considerable flaws in this system. 

Every class would become test prep. 

I have worked with exams that do get an accurate measurement of foundational skills in numeracy and literacy. I quite like these exams because they are accurate snapshots of how students can read, understand and perform basic math skills. If I were to be measured on performance of these exams then I would spend all of my time practising and preparing for these exams. I would not waste time trying to nurture a love of reading or create wonder at the nature of mathematics. There would be no room for creative or critical thinking. It is impossible for me to picture a performance pay system in education that would not suck out all of the beautiful things I love about teaching. This idea also appears in the research around merit pay system and points to the second major flaw in pay for performance systems:

2. Merit Pay will Create Single-Minded Employees. Campbell, Campbell and Chia illustrate this problem quite effectively. They state that, "employees may only engage in those activities directly related to reward attainment." Employees operating with this kind of tunnel vision do not think about organizational goals or creating a positive and productive workforce, two critical traits of high-functioning employees. 

Let's move this along towards conclusion. 

As the title of this post suggests, it is very difficult to implement a fair and balanced system of performance pay properly which leads me to the final scenario and final major flaw in pay for performance systems. 

At some point a manager must evaluate an employee. In the teaching scenario this would most likely be the school principal. Relationships among the educational leader and the educational agents would erode so quickly that the nature of the school would be fundamentally altered. Schools in Alberta have created a systems where the principal leads by example, expertise, assistance, motivation and character. All of those effective and critical dimensions of leadership would disappear and the principal would end up managing employees through evaluation. Teachers would not ask for assistance, they would not reveal any short-comings, they would hide from the principal or only give them positive reviews of their work. Principals would come to distrust employees, especially if their pay was also linked to performance of the school. Even if the Performance evaluation was completely based on academic performance criteria, and not subject to a management review the system would inevitably create an environment where certain teachers are perceived as favourites because they get the best kids or the best classes. 

3. Merit Pay will Erode Genuine Leadership. In any complex organization it is extremely difficult to create a system that employees find fair. It is also extremely difficult, as pointed out in both articles from this week, to eliminate managerial abuses and managerial ineptitude. 

There are many possible manifestations of Pay for Performance systems, but if the goal is to get the most out of every employee than none of these manifestations is superior to the best alternative to merit pay. I am forced once again to return to Daniel Pink's conclusion on what actually motivates people.

1. Take money off the table. Pay people what they deserve and they will perform.
2. Provide Autonomy
3. Provide the opportunity to create Mastery
4. Provide a Higher Purpose.

Perhaps the issue will continue to be debated in other organizations and in other fields, but I am happy that in my chosen line of work, and in my striving towards functional and effective leadership I do not have to worry about the corrosive idea of merit pay.

Merit Pay does not treat people as intelligent responsible Adults. 

SMO 500 Reflection Post #5 The Psychological Contract, Microsoft and Mutual Investment

Companies get the most of their employees and employees thrive when their is a mutual investment by both parties. There must be an equal trade-off between what the company is asking from the employee and what the employer is willing to give in exchange for the best the employee has to offer.

The surprising conclusion that one can draw from the cases is that an employer does not need to demand the employee give everything that they can. All the employer must do is ensure that an employee feels challenged by a lofty enough goal and that they are paid well enough (not exorbitantly well) and the employees internal drive and motivation will be whatever it is the employer needs it to be.

Allow Employees to Change the World

At Microsoft this meant that employees were given the freedom to create what they needed in order to help the company achieve it's lofty vision, and the employees quickly realized that to achieve this they would have to work long hours, expect a great deal from themselves, and that this would mean working at a fast pace with a heavy workload. It wasn't until employees began to see themselves as not essential to achieving the Microsoft vision, or once they stopped believing in the Microsoft vision that they began to look elsewhere for work or suffer from burnout. The Microsoft case teaches us that if one hires the right people, people that are up for the challenge, intelligent and creative, and gives them an immense goal that matches their immense ambition, then one can expect them to give greatness.

There are much more intricate details at play in the Microsoft case, especially as one considers the HR sub-functions of selection, training, socializing and retention, but the real take-away from this case is that if an employer wants greatness from it's people then it must always behave as if greatness is immense and achievable.

This conclusion is echoed, although it is a little more toned down, in the Tsui and Wu article which critiques any employment relationship that doesn't operate as a mutual investment between employee and employer. Mutual loyalty, as cited in the article, produces the best and most productive employees. By connecting the conclusions of the Tsui and Wu article with the cases previously studied in this course it is easy to conclude that when an employee believes they are working towards something important within a company that is allowing them to contribute meaningfully to the success of the company then, and only then, is the psychological contract complete.

They need a goal that speaks to them that they
can be essential to helping achieve. 

Not all industries and all sectors will be able to tap into the ambition and drive that fuel every individual to strive towards greatness, but every company should try. Westjet was able to spark a believe that they were changing air travel, Microsoft was able to push employees to want to change the world and bring a PC to every home, and as a school leader I am going to work every day to show my colleagues the virtue of their ambition and the loftiness of their goals shaping the future of individual students.

Leaders are Created by Organizations: SMO 500 Reflection #4

Although this week's material did not contain very many new ideas when compared to the first three weeks of classes it did continue to reinforce some important themes of this course. Psychological ownership in a company was identified in week one, and that idea comes across strongly this week.

Taken from: Brains, Heart and Courage: Keys to Empowerment
and Self-directed Leadership by Pamela R. Johnson

At Blinds to Go the Senior Executives Stephen Schiller and Nkere Udofia, were managing their leaders in such a way that destroyed the potential for psychological ownership in the company. Robert Delgadillo, a director at Blinds to Go, is able to describe how this was accomplished, "Udofia and Stephen still get involved in any important decision.... you've got to place your trust in them and leave your egos at the door." Time and time again in this case there were examples of capable intelligent adults not be trusted to make decisions. Blinds to Go would hire leaders, and then they would not trust them to make leadership decisions and act as leaders. When people, especially people in leadership positions, but also in positions all the way down to front-line service or labour, are not given the opportunity to act in the best interest of the company, or experience success based on their ideas, then they do not take pride in their companies accomplishments. They will show up and work, clock-out, and out their "job" out of their minds. This is fine in some situations, indeed there are probably hundreds of organizations that are successful because they hire people to do their job and get paid and that's it, but if the goal is to get the most out of every individual, then this is a foolish strategy. 

If leaders are simply showing up and doing their jobs then
the organization is missing out on their full potential.

Udofia and Schiller were driven by a strategy, they were focused on long-term sustainability, and they were attempting to build a culture that would enable them to execute their strategy, so where did they go wrong? They went wrong by not aligning all of their HR practices with their strategy. Specifically their ability to select the right leaders for their particular culture was all wrong, and their process of motivating and socializing those selected for leadership compounded this problem.  Udofia and Schiller should have realized that they were part of the problem and delegated the selection and socialization of managers to someone else. Udofia and Schiller should not have hired for experience and then socialized their new leaders to "check their ego at the door." Udofia and Schiller should have hired new MBA grads that would be excited to roll up their sleeves, understand this unique business and then lead through the decisions and directives of Udofia and Schiler. 

Blinds to Go is a perfect example of how unaligned HR subfunctions can completely subvert the execution of strategy.

Witness, the laziest transition in writing.

In the Joseph Bower article Solve the Succession Crisis by Growing Inside-Outside Leaders there are two big ideas that have already impacted, and will continue to impact, my personal management approach. One of these big ideas, asked in the section "Now that you're on the job," is "Do you help others? Are you developing their talent? What do you do for your peers? Are you just their in-house competitor?" I was struck by these questions because I often think that I am helping others in my organization, but I know that I am competing far too often. Since reading this article I have started to talk to people about their leadership potential, and ask them specifically, if they need help moving up in the organization. I have become increasingly aware of the schoolboards plans and initiatives for creating and fostering leaders and the culture of schools to often discourage the ambitions of potential leaders. This awareness has already changed how I talk to people about advancement, the openness that I use in looking at my own practices, and it will continue to shape my role in helping develop my own leadership potential, by helping others. 

This course is allowing me to look past the cliche of "helping others"
and seeing it as a best practice utilized by effective leaders. Also, "I'm Batman."

One of the ideas, expressed by Bower, that is critical for my own career goals and my personal management style is the difference between being an inside-outside leader and an inside-inside leader. In our organization their is a powerful and important central office. Many people want to work at this central office in order to become leaders, but then they will become indoctrinated by the long-standing cultural practices of central-office. I was turned on by the idea of, maintaining enough detachment from local traditions, but still knowing the traditions and the people of the company well enough to know what needs to change. The framework of local leaders, principals and assistant principals, that periodically change schools is a perfect example of this idea at work. They know the people, the organization, and the culture, but they are detached enough from that particular school, that they are able to see where change needs to occur. 

On SCA SMO 500 Reflection Post #3

I would like to open this week by stating the goal of these reflections:
I am to record the lessons I have gleaned on "how managers and organizational leaders can best create (or avoid failing to create) value." I tend to stray from the goal, so here it is front and centre.

One of the better google image search results for search terms: leaders managers create value

The big value creating or negating lessons that can be drawn from this weeks material can be summed up in three statements. First of all, short term gains are no substitute for sustainable competitive advantage. Secondly, H.R. sub-functions, when properly aligned with a companies strategy, are powerful tools for creating and maintaining the desired culture within a firm. Finally, leadership shapes culture, and this can be for good or ill. Not only would I like to focus on and apply that last idea to my own profession and my personal management style, I will also be attempting to express my understanding of some more nuanced details of the broad lessons stated above. How does a "just culture" for instance fit into the HR sub-functions? Likewise, how do the short-term gains and even shorter collapse of Enron help to prove the sustainable competitive advantage framework outlined by Charles O'Reilly III in week one.

Let's start there shall we. The most interesting discussion, and the most thought provoking arguments come out of the interplay between proponents of a win for winning's sake attitude and the less and more tempered view that a company ought to somehow be improving the world. The difference is between short term profit and sustainability. So what leads to sustainable competitive advantage?

Metpahor

One theme that is coming out of this course and several sources is that in order to get the most out of the people that are working in an organization is to hire intelligent adults, treat them as intelligent adults, and they will act as intelligent adults (O'Reilley). One approach that compliments this idea is to do away with a detailed and overt "rule book" for employees to follow. A rule book damages in two ways, it stifles the creativity that is needed for dealing with exceptions that are unpredictable, and the rule book treats intelligent adults as children that need to have their behaviour and actions managed.

How Necessary is the Rule Book?

I bring up this notion of the rule book because it leads to the conclusion I arrived at after a very interesting discussion in class. When talking about competition many of the students pointed to the argument that in highly competitive financial industries the employees are often driven by bonuses. This notion can be equated to a model for Enron in the post-Kinder Era: a highly competitive culture that is financially motivated and driven by large individual bonuses. One of the conclusions that classmates seemed to point to again and again, and one that has probably come out of other studies of the Enron corruption and collapse case, is that industries that meet and assume the Enron model, even to a small degree, need more rules to regulate behaviour.

Here, then is the interesting paradox. If an individualistic, financially motivated, and highly competitive culture needs a rule book to govern behaviour, but a rule book stifles an organizations ability to create a sustainable competitive advantage, then what, if any, conclusions can be made? I shouldn't have called this a paradox because the answer is actually quite clear. When intelligent adults are asked to compete with one another for money they become unintelligent children that need to be governed. The implications for this argument are vast. Either the system must change or intense regulation is necessary. The rule book of regulation, however, is not conducive to creating sustainable competitive advantage.

"They are no longer adults"... and other conclusions I may regret later in my career. 

I will spare you the rant concerning our need to move away from profit motive as the most powerful driving force of our economic system and instead point to the possible ideals that have been expressed on at least two occasions in this course. Westjet was not trying to make short-term profit, they were trying to "change air travel forever." It also came up at another occasion (I can't find the source right now, hopefully before final submission) of a top CEO talking about having enormous ideals and goals like improving the world. If companies are meeting these goals then profits will come, but without movement towards sustainable competitive advantage through a strategy that aligns all HR sub-functions and tools of cultural creation and maintenance to unleash the talent of all people in an organization then a company will be doomed to mediocrity or simply short-term profit.

Other lessons from the Enron case around HR sub-functions like employee selection based on culture fit, purposeful assessment and reward systems to reinforce culture, socialization to promote and maintain a given culture, and the importance of leadership role-modelling and storytelling by leaders are more appropriately discussed in the successful case of West-Jet. Enron simply proves that the power of culture and synchronized HR sub-functions can be a value-neutral force. Strategy determines value, whereas culture and synchronized human resource approaches can be used to achieve any lofty or base strategy.

I am reluctant to continue with this review because I think my best ideas have already been explored, but there is at least one more idea that deserves to be reviewed.

While I found a great deal of the Allina case difficult to read due to the lens of cynicism that I was wearing while reading a case written by employees of a firm that they are "Exploring." I did take interest in the notion of a just culture that Allina adopted.

A Blameless culture acknowledges that to err is human. 

If a company wants employees to take risks, a necessary ingredient in maintaining and creating a sustainable competitive advantage, then it must accept that sometimes mistakes will be made. The Allina case was not advocating a medical services corporation adopt high-risk behaviour. Their justification for adopting a blameless culture is unique to their field. Both approaches, however, do operate under the assumption that intelligent adults are real human beings, and that once the psychology of human beings, their fears, their limits, and their capabilities are taken into account then a just culture is really the only sensible approach to handling mistakes when they occur.

My final thought, that I intend to include in my personal management approach, is that once again Enron and Allina both prove that leadership shapes culture. From a CEO publishing their weaknesses, to a COO acting like he's the Wolf on Wall Street by bragging in the boardroom and telling outlandish stories of wealth creation and crushing the enemy, the leader matters. Culture can often survive inconsequential or mediocre leadership, but strong leaders can circumvent systems, change and shape culture, or even help prop up or bring down companies.

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?

FNMI Local and Global Connections - Hawaii Skype Project

This post is a little different than previous posts. Here is one of the projects I am working on. Any comments? Suggestions? Possible Global Connections?

Overview: Using skype to connect with Native Hawaiian youth, students and community members at Westlawn will compare and contrast the local and global impact of colonization.

Objective 1: Students will understand their own story by crafting prepared responses to questions posed by Native Hawaiian students. The authentic and novel audience that skype provides will encourage students to create thoughtful responses to the questions.

The Exchange of Stories adds Value to all Parties

Objective 2: By inviting community members (parents, guardians, formal representatives of the FNMI community) to this event we will be bonding over a learning experience. It is our intent to bring the classroom activity of the day into the students home. We will conduct a survey of student involvement following the skype event to measure whether this goal was met.  

Objective 3: It is our goal to spread the idea of the First Nations, Metis and Inuit experience around the world, thus sharing our story far and wide. We will pay close attention to spreading the story of the Cree people around the world.

The Vehicle that gets Attention

Timeline:

• Students will be chosen during the week of September 30th - October 4th. The event will be open to all students, but I will be speaking with the native students in grade eight and nine individually in order to encourage their participation.
• During the weeks of October 21st - October 30th I will be providing time after school and at lunch for students to prepare their responses to the given questions which will be posed by the students in Hawaii.
• During the week of November 4th - November 7th Students will rehearse their responses in front of the camera in the library where the skype call will be taking place. We will also take this time to gather any props that may be required.
• November 7th Confirmed Date for Skype call - 12:30:2:00

Community Involvement: Students that are selected to participate will invite family members to the event. Parents and community members that express interest in attending will also be encouraged to participate and be given the opportunity to address the students in Hawaii.

Measures of Success: This project will be regarded as successful if the following criteria is met:

1. There are at least 6 parents or community members that are involved on the day of the event.
2. Students report that they did discuss this project with their parents/guardians in their survey
3. The skype call is received positively by our counterparts in Hawaii.
4. Participating students are able to verbalize a meaningful connection between the colonization story of the Native Hawaiians and their own peoples story.