Sponsored by IBM and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
Brought to you by the Reinventing Education Change Toolkit ( www.reinventingeducation.org) project.
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By Stan Litow, Vice President IBM Corporate Community Relations and President IBM International Foundation
 Educational improvement is hard work and a real challenge, and no large-scale challenge can be met without effective leadership. IBM has been partnering with schools and school districts for 10 years through our global Reinventing Education program, and these partnerships have borne out the importance of leadership effectiveness in bringing about positive school change. This is why we created the Reinventing Education Change Toolkit, which is based on the work of Rosabeth Moss Kanter and our experience with school leaders in states and school systems around the U.S., and why we are spreading the word about successful leadership and the Change Toolkit project through this monthly leadership e-newsletter.
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By G. Thomas Houlihan, Executive Director, Council of Chief State School Officers
We as educators have seen more change since 2001 than we possibly could have imagined. The expectations of real time results, data-based decisions, and the ability to lead through change are immediate and relevant to our everyday experiences. Four years ago, CCSSO began its formal relationship with IBM around the Reinventing Education Change Toolkit project. Our common goal was and is equipping leaders for managing change. As we begin 2005, the need to meet change head-on is all the more pressing. In the 2005 education world, we can count on change happening-often, and unpredictably.
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By Rosabeth Moss Kanter
© Copyright 2004 by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, rkanter@hbs.edu.
Regardless of the preferred brand of curriculum or school improvement model, school leaders everywhere increasingly depend on partners outside the walls of the building and beyond the ranks of professional educators for resources vital to the performance of their schools.
I know that many leaders in financially-strapped schools salivate at the idea of business partners, because they envision a windfall of money, supplies, or warm bodies. But a donation is not a partnership, nor does a check by itself produce change that can raise students' achievement. So it's important to think about partnerships in creative ways and use them as catalysts to improve outcomes.
Consider two of my favorite partnership opportunities.
Parents occupy spot #1 on any list of partners.
It's common wisdom that parent involvement makes a major difference in their…
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Click here to submit a question for next month's issue
Q: A number of schools in our district have help from neighborhood businesses. But small businesses are limited in what they can offer, and we'd like to have the support of some of the larger companies in the city. We don't know how to approach them.
A: Use partners to find more partners. Every relationship can lead you to another relationship.
Instead of thinking of each partner one at a time, treat them as a network that might be interested in not only working with you but getting to know each other - a coalition of backers and supporters that becomes stronger together, as a resource to you and to each other.
Instead of talking with them individually, bring them together for regular discussions, and make them feel special and connected to the school and the network of supporters. Ask the small businesses about whether they have big business ties. Also ask them for feedback about their experience working with your school and their suggestions for improvement.
Out of those discussions could emerge creative ideas about better ways to take advantage of existing partners as well as to reach out to new ones. And the people you involve in these discussions will have deepened their commitment to help you succeed.
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By Mike Ward, Former President, CCSSO, and former North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction
"I believe in local control, but how do you keep schools focused on central aims under such a leadership approach?"
This question is often heard among school leaders in one form or another. It captures the conflict inherent in simultaneously seeking focused effort in a large, complex organization while delegating responsibility to those closest to the organization's core activity. In North Carolina's public schools, the answer to this question was found, in part, in the power of a strong vision and a strategic plan to move toward this vision.
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By Deb Page, Executive Director, Georgia's Leadership Institute for School Improvement
When I was first introduced to the Change Toolkit in 2002 during a Harvard Business School seminar lead by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, my immediate reaction was, "At last, a tool that guides leaders to use proven, research-based strategies for change in the actual educational working context!" As the Executive Director of Georgia's Leadership Institute for School Improvement (GLISI), a public/private partnership which supports, equips and inspires educational leaders in our state to drive change for student success, I have worked with thousands of educational teacher-leaders over the last three years. One of the things I've seen most clearly is the critical need for effective tools that support for re-culturing schools and school systems to focus on teaching all children to achieve at high levels.
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By Sasha Dichter, Change Toolkit Project Manager and Sr. Program Manager IBM Corporate Community Relations
About this column
The Change Toolkit is built around the wealth of knowledge and experience of Rosabeth Moss Kanter in the areas of leadership and change management. IBM developed a series of interactive features to make it easier to find this content, to collaborate with team members, and to get dynamic feedback from the Change Toolkit Website. The site contains more than 150 tools on topics ranging from creating a project vision, leadership effectiveness, getting buy-in for a project, and "mastering the difficult middles."
As part of this Education Leadership Newsletter, this "Tool of the Month" column will highlight one or two pieces of content from the Change Toolkit Website that provide more background and detail about some of the issues raised in Rosabeth's monthly newsletter column.
Working With External Partners and Alliances (Change Fundamentals)
Would you like to learn more about partnerships - how to pick partners, what are the common pitfalls in setting the groundwork for a partnership, and how to keep a good partnership going? A great place to start would be the "Is Our Partnership Set Up for Success? (Kanter's 8 I's That Make a We)" diagnostic tool in the "Working With External Partners and Alliances" in the Change Fundamentals section of the Change Toolkit Website. By filling out this diagnostic tool, you can learn more about how you are doing on your current partnership strategy, get tips feedback from the Change Toolkit Website about how to be more effective, and you can even get input from your team members and colleagues about how you are doing and can graph these inputs online.
Once you've diagnosed your situation, you can go a step further and learn about the fundamentals of alliances, characteristics of the best partnership agreements, creating "collaboration ambassadors," and positioning yourself to potential business partners. All of this is in the Overview, Background, and Action Tools of "Working With External Partners and Alliances" on the Change Toolkit. And if things get ugly, there's even an Action tool on "marriage counseling for alliances!"
How do I find this tool?
1. Log in to the Change Toolkit website .
2. Move your mouse to 'Get Tools' and click on 'Change fundamentals.'
3. Click on 'Working With External Partners and Alliances."
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A monthly poll of the readership of the Education Leadership Newsletter
What are the most pressing leadership issues facing you today?
Leading large-scale change / transformation
Forging strong external partnerships
Motivating and recruiting the best staff and teachers
Effective management with limited finances
Advocating for change within our school or district
Strengthening the Instructional Program for all Children
Monitoring the Effectiveness of Instructional Programs
Other ______________________________
View poll results in March 2005 newsletter.
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