Post 17: Geoff Colvin "Talent is Overrated" Part 2

     In the last post, I wrote about Colvin’s “Talent is Overrated” and how deliberate practice is the secret to success.   But, Colvin points out, all of this is moot if you do not create a culture of innovation in your school first.  Teachers must feel free to try new things, experiment, and take risks.  In a risk-averse culture, teachers will just continue with the status quo instead of practicing what is important and coaching each other to improvement.

     In a sentence, Colvin says that the very first step in creating a culture of innovation is to tell people exactly what is needed and then give them the freedom to do it.  This is reminiscent of two other books that I’ve read, “How Did that Happen” and “Drive.”  The authors of “How Did That Happen?” point out that when people don’t meet the leader’s expectations, it is often because the leader did not explain their expectations well enough.  In “Drive,” Daniel Pink says that the three keys to motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  So, it makes sense that if a leader explains the expectations well and then gives teachers the autonomy to accomplish those expectations, then magic can happen.
     Many times, I see principals approach change this way, “Our graduation rate is low, I’d like to raise it to 90%, and here’s how we’re going to do it.  Now is everyone on board?”  Of course they’re not on board because the leader decided the focus, determined the goal, and set out the plan for how to reach the goal.  That’s the opposite of Colvin’s idea of how to motivate innovation.  I read somewhere and cannot remember where that this is an example of shared leadership under the definition, “I make the decision and then share it with all of you.”
     Instead, a plan that looks more like one that Colvin, Connors & Smith, and Pink would recommend would be:

1) Distribute graduation data and have groups of teachers point out data that concerns them most
2) Have teachers discuss why a focus on that data point would benefit students
3) Have teachers determine what a reasonable stretch goal would be for that area
4) Brainstorm ideas for how that goal might be reached
5) Have teachers who are passionate about one or more of the ideas recruit their own teams to create a plan and implement them
6) Provide feedback, coaching, and support as the teachers implement their plans
7) Study the data to see how the movement is working
     This plan allows teachers to determine what to focus on within a range (graduation), what a reasonable goal will be, and how to focus on it.  They are then given autonomy to go out and use their best ideas to try to address the goal.  Teachers would work 100 times harder on this project than the one that the leader developed and set in their laps.

How do you set clear expectations and give autonomy to meet them?  Add your stories in the comments section below.