School improvement can help you find ways to more effectively carry out your school’s mission:

1. Start with your mission. Consistently link everything back to how it helps you carry out your mission. Keep everyone talking about your mission—including students! In other words, focus on your mission.
2. Next, implement your school improvement process. Make your process is centered on your mission (student learning) and is ongoing (meaning, the process gets used every year, not just in reaccreditation years). Make your process collaborative (have people work in groups and use Google Docs/online data). And make sure everyone understands the process—using a visual aid helped us.
3. Finally, work on your report. For focus group reports, make a list of questions each group can respond to. Use a set of criteria to develop your school improvement plan. Publish your report in a wiki.

Like you, I want to lead groups more effectively. Something that has helped me improve my effectiveness is reflecting with others on questions about leading groups.

Try this—ask yourself the following 5 questions:

1. What helps a group function effectively?
2. What’s your role in a given group? (Are you a facilitator/coach, consultant, or presenter?)
3. How can you promote thoughtful group conversation?
4. What's the purpose of the conversation? (Do you want the group to explore a topic? Do you need the group to make a decision?)
5. How can you get everyone involved? (How can you help reticent people contribute? How can you help talkative people make room in the conversation for others?)

Action step: What 2-3 things can you do to more effectively lead groups?

Related resources you might want to explore:

1. How can you empower others more effectively?
2. Lead by asking questions
3. What make a good meeting good?

You’re grateful for what God has done for you. So, you want to serve God, in part by pursuing excellence for Him. As a ministry leader, you know that one type of excellence you want to pursue is organizational excellence. Good.
 
What can you do to pursue organizational excellence? Here are 4 things you can do:
 
(1) Make sure staff are cared for. To care for staff on a personal level, demonstrate interest in them, have fun together, and provide life coaching to help staff balance work/home. To care for staff on a professional level, demonstrate interest in their ministry, encourage them to reflect, and provide support, encouragement and accountability.
           
(2) Make sure staff participate in professional development. What kind of professional development? In professional development that addresses current job responsibilities and that helps individual staff members achieve their annual growth goals. In professional development that involves staff in reflection and follow-up. In professional development that helps your staff do ministry more effectively.
 
(3) Make sure staff meetings target mission achievement. Make sure each meeting’s purpose is documented, targets mission achievement, and is used as the filter for what gets on the agenda. Have those attending the meeting collaboratively develop meeting guidelines that define desired meeting dynamics. And schedule separate meetings to address tactics, strategy, and vision.
 
(4) Make sure staff understand, are involved in, and are focused on organizational improvement. How can you do this? By explaining organizational improvement, encouraging ownership, involving staff in developing improvement plans, and providing the support and accountability staff need to carry out improvement plans. Here's the acid test: If ministry leadership dropped of the planet, would the plans still get implemented? If so, then you have an effective organizational improvement plan.
 
Bottom line: Pursue excellence.

How can you help others pursue excellence? By asking questions like:

• What’s excellence?
• What’s satisfying/unsatisfying about pursuing organizational excellence?
• For your ministry, what does organizational excellence look like?
• What can you do to pursue organizational excellence?
• What will you do?

It’s July 2000. I’m in London, taking a leadership course from the Principals’ Training Center. And the instructor gets us into small groups, tells us to set up the game, and explains that the goal of the game is to get our game piece across the board by achieving organizational improvement.

Then she tells us to start. The atmosphere is electrically competitive. My group implements policies and moves our piece! We implement procedures and systems and move our piece! We are moving across the board and feeling good! Until we see how far across the neighboring teams are. Many are already 50-75% across the board, while we are a measly 30% at best.

So we focus even more on implementing policies, procedures, and systems, believing that this will propel us across the board toward successful organizational improvement. We move our piece 2 more spaces, and a team announces, “Done!”

I’m stunned: “Done? How could they be done? We did what you need to do to achieve organizational improvement—we implemented policies, procedures, and systems. Why didn’t it work? What did they do?”

During the debriefing, I learn what the winning group did. They didn’t start by implementing policies. They didn’t start by implementing procedures or systems. They started by talking—and they continued talking in order to move their piece across the board toward organizational improvement. I just don’t get it. In my heart, I suspect that the makers of the game, and perhaps the instructor, are mistaken….

But in the ensuing years, I found out how mistaken I was and how right they were. In my organization I saw improvement initiatives founded on policies and systems flounder; I saw improvement initiatives founded on talking flourish.

It’s now July 2011. I’ve (finally) learned my lesson: more talking = more improvement. When all staff members—not just the leadership—talk together about organizational improvement, the organization improves. When all staff don’t talk about organizational improvement, the organization doesn’t improve as much.

(I’m not saying that there is no place for policies, procedures, and systems when working to achieve organizational improvement. What I’m saying is that these should not be the primary strategy—talking should be. Without talking—without dynamic conversation—policies, procedures, and systems lead to temporary improvement, not the lasting improvement your organization needs to carry out its God-given mission. And remember, God uses talking—He talked creation into being and talked with His disciples, who then talked with others about the Gospel.)

You might be thinking, “How do I get people talking? Talking sounds good, but I’m not sure how it would work in my organization. Getting people talking about organizational improvement sounds difficult, and I’ve already got enough going. Just how do I get people talking?”

Good question. I know a way to get people talking. It’s easy. It’s effective and time-tested. And those you’re trying to get talking will like it. What it is? It’s asking questions.

If you want to get people talking, ask questions. Ask open-ended questions like:

1. Regarding this improvement initiative, what progress are you seeing?
2. What excites you about this improvement initiative? What concerns you?
3. What helps us improve? What hinders us?
4. What can we do to move this improvement initiative forward?

If you want to get people talking, get them to ask each other open-ended questions. At a meeting, pass out the following set of questions for staff to ask each other. Give them 15-30 minutes:

1. What improvement initiative do you want to talk about?
2. What progress have you experienced? What’s been satisfying?
3. What roadblocks have you experienced? What’s been frustrating?
4. To leverage your progress and minimize your roadblocks, what do you need to keep doing? start doing? stop doing?
5. What do you think you’ll do?

Bottom line: If you want increased organizational improvement, ask questions to get people talking about organizational improvement.

Here are related resources:

• Lead by asking questions
• Sample sets of questions
• To empower others, provoke reflection
• Change is uncomfortable and doable
• Move organizational improvement forward
• To learn more about enhancing organizational improvement, explore these 6 questions

Teams address tactical tasks, strategy-related tasks, and big-picture tasks. Optimally, each type of task should be handled in a separate meeting:Tactical tasks should be addressed in daily, weekly, or bi-weekly tactical meetings.

1. Tactical tasks include sharing information, giving progress reports on assigned tasks, and gathering input on pressing issues.
2. Strategy-related tasks should be addressed during monthly or bi-monthly strategy meetings. Strategy-related tasks include considering key issues, finding better ways to achieve the mission, and making strategy-related decisions.
3. Big-picture tasks should be addressed in quarterly or semi-annual big-picture meetings. Big-picture tasks include reviewing the mission, the definition of mission achievement, and current trends.

If it is not possible to schedule separate meetings, group similar tasks together for a given meeting, for example:

1. Group all the big-picture tasks together. Big-picture tasks are vital and are best addressed when people are fresh. Do these at the beginning of the meeting. Begin with a big-picture task that will start the meeting off on a positive note.
2. Group the strategy-related tasks together. Do these after the big-picture tasks. Get these done before addressing tactical tasks.
3. Group the tactical tasks together. Do these last.
4. Conclude the meeting with a task that will end the meeting on a positive note.

Help your team target mission achievement. Match the task with the type of meeting. Today.

Effective facilitation focuses team members on 3 goals:

1. Achieving the targeted results.
2. Abiding by meeting guidelines.
3. Achieving team purpose.

Want to enhance team meeting facilitation? If so, do the following 3 things: 

1. Select 1 or more goals from the list below that you want to make progress on.
2. Identify options for taking action.
3. Determine which actions you will take.

Here's the list of goals and options for taking action:
Goal 1: The facilitation focuses our team on achieving the targeted results:

1. Use an agenda that identifies the targeted SMART results.
2. Send out the agenda and other meeting materials ahead of time.
3. At the meeting, review the targeted results. Invite meeting participants to focus on achieving the targeted results.
4. Invite someone to serve as the timekeeper. The timekeeper lets the group know how much time is left for a given task.
5. Invite someone to serve as a recorder. The recorder writes out discussion notes on a whiteboard or big piece of paper.
6. Keep people engaged. Ask questions. Use small group discussion and frequent breaks.
7. When discussing meeting materials, encourage participants to ask questions after reading the materials.
8. Use a whiteboard, LCD projector, or overhead projector to show changes being made to a proposal.
9. Intervene when there are sidebar conversations and personal attacks, when the discussion is getting off topic, and when participants are not keeping to the schedule.
10. Have participants assess meeting effectiveness in terms of achieving the targeted results.
11. Other: _____

 
Goal 2: The facilitation focuses our team on abiding by the meeting guidelines:

1. As a group, review the team’s meeting guidelines. Invite meeting participants to abide by the guidelines.
2. Establish a humorous way to signal that a meeting guideline is not being adhered to.
3. Have participants assess meeting effectiveness in terms of abiding by meeting guidelines.
4. Other: _____

 
Goal 3: The facilitation focuses our team on achieving the team purpose:

1. Include agenda items that are aligned with the team purpose statement.
2. As a group, review the team purpose statement. Invite meeting participants to use the meeting to achieve the team’s purpose.
3. Ask those responsible for a given agenda item to explain how it helps the team achieve its purpose.
4. Have participants assess meeting effectiveness in terms of achieving the team purpose.
5. Other: ___

 
Help your team target mission achievement. Enhance the facilitation of your team meetings. Today.

Guidelines define how a team will work together. Developing meeting guidelines can help your team work even more effectively. As a team:

1. Review sample guideline categories—like time and materials. Also review sample meeting guidelines—like “We start and end on time” and “The agenda is sent out ___ days ahead of time.
2. Brainstorm additional guideline categories and meeting guidelines.
3. Choose 4-6 meeting guidelines.
4. Use the guidelines.

Help your team target mission achievement. Use meeting guidelines. Today.
 

*Here are sample meeting guideline categories and guidelines:

• Time: We start and end on time. We start when everyone is present.
• Meeting materials: The agenda is sent out ___ days ahead of time. Meeting minutes are distributed ___ days after the meeting.
• Focus: We complete assigned tasks on time. We stick with the agenda. We don’t get off topic.
• Collaboration: Everyone participates. We invite discussion. One person talks at a time. We seek consensus.

How can you design meetings to target results? By requiring that each agenda item have the following information:

1. The item title
2. Who is responsible
3. When the item will be addressed (start and end time during the meeting)
4. The targeted SMART result(s)
5. How the targeted result(s) will be achieved (Decide • Discuss • Inform • Train • Work)

Here’s an example:

1. Title: January 22 training objectives
2. Who: Michael
3. When: 11:15-11:45
4. Result: Generate a draft of the January 22 training objectives and 1 or more activities that support each of those objectives
5. How: Discuss

Help your team target mission achievement. Design meetings that target results. Today.

You've just finished a team meeting. The meeting went sort of OK, and you're wondering, "How can we improve team meetings?" Good question.
 
I've found that using assessment has improved team meetings I participate in. At the end of each meeting, I recommend you assess meeting effectiveness in terms of things like:

• Completion of assigned tasks
• Achievement of targeted results
• The degree to which team members abided by meeting guidelines
• The degree of focus on the team’s purpose
• Team member involvement in meeting assessment

Need a place to start? At your next meeting, schedule time for team reflection. Use the time to:

1. Share your desire to improve team meetings.
2. Have team members brainstorm characteristics of an effective meeting (you might want to include items from the list above).
3. Ask team members to assess on their brainstormed list: What helps us __ (characteristic of a good meeting)? What hinders us from ___ (characteristic of a good meeting)?

Help your team target mission achievement. Assess team meetings. Today.

Good meetings are on TARGET in terms of...

• Team purpose
• Assessment
• Results
• Guidelines
• Effective facilitation
• Types of meetings

To help team members work even more effectively, clarify your team’s purpose. To do this, you can do 3 things:
 
(1) Assess your team's purpose statement. How? By rating the items below. Use the following scale: Yes • Maybe • No
 
Our team purpose statement...
___ Was developed by the team.
___ Is documented.
___ Identifies the team name.
___ Targets mission achievement.
___ Identifies how the team contributes to mission achievement.
 
___ Is understandable to those on the team and those not on the team.
 
___ Uses active verbs.
___ Uses precise wording.
___ Is user-friendly.
___ Is 25 words or less.
 
(2) Use your assessment data to enhance your team's purpose statement. Here’s a pattern you can use: The [Team Name] contributes to achievement of [Organization Name]'s mission by...
 
(3) Use your purpose statement to identify 5 things your team addresses and 5 things your team doesn’t address.
 
Help your team target mission achievement. Clarify your team's purpose statement. Today.

You’re grateful for what God has done for you. So, you want to serve God, in part by pursuing excellence for Him. As a ministry leader, you know that one type of excellence you want to pursue is organizational excellence. Good.
 
What can you do to pursue organizational excellence? Here are 4 things you can do:
 
(1) Make sure staff are cared for. To care for staff on a personal level, demonstrate interest in them, have fun together, and provide life coaching to help staff balance work/home. To care for staff on a professional level, demonstrate interest in their ministry, encourage them to reflect, and provide support, encouragement and accountability.
           
(2) Make sure staff participate in professional development. What kind of professional development? In professional development that addresses current job responsibilities and that helps individual staff members achieve their annual growth goals. In professional development that involves staff in reflection and follow-up. In professional development that helps your staff do ministry more effectively.
 
(3) Make sure staff meetings target mission achievement. Make sure each meeting’s purpose is documented, targets mission achievement, and is used as the filter for what gets on the agenda. Have those attending the meeting collaboratively develop meeting guidelines that define desired meeting dynamics. And schedule separate meetings to address tactics, strategy, and vision.
 
(4) Make sure staff understand, are involved in, and are focused on organizational improvement. How can you do this? By explaining organizational improvement, encouraging ownership, involving staff in developing improvement plans, and providing the support and accountability staff need to carry out improvement plans. Here's the acid test: If ministry leadership dropped of the planet, would the plans still get implemented? If so, then you have an effective organizational improvement plan.
 
Bottom line: Pursue excellence.

*How can you help others pursue excellence? By asking questions like:

1. What’s excellence?
2. What’s satisfying/unsatisfying about pursuing organizational excellence?
3. For your ministry, what does organizational excellence look like?
4. What can you do to pursue organizational excellence?
5. What will you do?

When I am held accountable to get something done, I get it done. When I’m not held accountable to get something done, I might not get it done.
 
Tip: If you want to get your improvement plans done, make sure your staff are held accountable.
 
Question: To what extent are staff held accountable for improvement plans?
 
To get an idea of the extent to which your staff are held accountable for improvement plans, take the following assessment. Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sometimes • 1: Rarely

___ Leaders hold staff accountable to implement the improvement plans.
___ Staff hold each other accountable to implement the improvement plans.
___ Staff hold themselves accountable to implement the improvement plans.

___ Staff are held accountable to implement the improvement plans.

3 questions:

1. To what extent do you want your staff to be held accountable for improvement plans?
2. How can you increase staff accountability?
3. What are you going to do?

Bottom line: Pursue excellence. Hold staff accountable to implement improvement plans. Today.

The goal isn't to have improvement plans. The goal is to improve your organization by completing improvement plans. And to be completed, the improvement plans must guide the work—they must be central, not peripheral.
 
Question: To what extent do improvement plans guide staff work? (Here’s a perceptive response I received from a friend who serves as a school administrator and who rightly notes that the more staff have ownership of improvement plans, the more likely it is that staff will use improvement plans to guide their work: "Go for it, but I think the first essential question is ‘To what extent has your staff been involved in developing the improvement plans themselves?’ followed by ‘To what extent does the staff own the improvement plans they are expected to implement?,’ implicit in that being ‘If the administration dropped off the planet, would the plans still get implemented?’ Then you have a plan!")
 
To get an idea of the extent to which improvement plans guide your organization’s work, take the following assessment. Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sometimes • 1: Rarely

___ Staff understand the improvement plans.
___ Staff know which improvement plans they are to implement.
___ Staff can explain their role in a given improvement plan.
___ Staff implement the improvement plans.

___ Improvement plans guide staff work.

3 questions:

1. To what extent do you want improvement plans to guide staff work?
2. How can you help staff use improvement plans to guide staff work?
3. What are you going to do?

Bottom line: Pursue excellence. Use your improvement plans to guide staff work. Today.

So, what drives your organization’s improvement? A discussion? A book a leader just finished reading? Workshops that staff attend? The unwritten agendas of different leaders? Not sure?
 
Question: What do you want to drive your organization’s improvement?
 
My answer: Documented improvement plans. That’s right—documented improvement plans. I want my organization’s improvement to be driven by documented plans. That way, I and everyone else can review and share them.
 
And I want these documented plans to target mission achievement. What do I mean by that? At my school, our mission is to equip students to impact the world for Christ. One of our improvement plans is to further develop our curriculum so that we can better equip students to impact the world for Christ—not so that we can simply improve our curriculum.
 
To get an idea of the extent that documented improvement plans (that target mission achievement) drive your organization’s improvement, take the following assessment. Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sometimes • 1: Rarely

___ Our improvement plans are documented.
___ Our improvement plans target mission achievement.
___ Our improvement plans drive organizational improvement.

___ Our organization’s improvement is driven by documented plans that target mission achievement.


3 questions:

1. To what extent do you want organizational improvement to be driven by documented improvement plans that target mission achievement?
2. How can you ensure that organizational improvement is driven by documented plans that target mission achievement?
3. What are you going to do?

Bottom line: Pursue excellence. Use documented improvement plans. Today.

Organizational improvement can help you, those you work with, and your organization. Take steps to move organizational improvement forward.

What gets focused on gets done. So, if you want to improve your organization, make sure your staff is focused on organizational improvement.
 
Question: How focused is your staff on organizational improvement?
 
To get an idea of how focused your staff is on organizational improvement, take the following assessment. Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sometimes • 1: Rarely

___ Staff talk about organizational improvement.
___ Staff make proposals regarding organizational improvement.
___ Staff work on organizational improvement.
___ Staff hold each other accountable for organizational improvement.
___ Staff are disappointed when improvement goals are not reached.

___ Staff focus on organizational improvement.


3 questions:

1. How focused do you want your staff to be on organizational improvement?
2. How can you increase staff focus on organizational improvement?
3. What are you going to do?

Bottom line: Pursue excellence. Focus staff on organizational improvement. Today.

You want your organization to improve. You know that to improve, your organization must carry out its improvement plans. And you know that for your organization to carry out its improvement plans, your stakeholders must be involved.
 
Question: How involved are your stakeholders in organizational improvement?
 
To get an idea of how involved your stakeholders are in organizational improvement, take the following assessment (which targets school stakeholders). Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sometimes • 1: Rarely

___ Students support the improvement plans.
___ Parents support the improvement plans.
___ Staff support the improvement plans.
___ Leaders support the improvement plans.

___ Students are involved in implementing the improvement plans.
___ Parents are involved in implementing the improvement plans.
___ Staff are involved in implementing the improvement plans.
___ Leaders are involved in implementing the improvement plans.

___ Stakeholders support and are involved in implementing the improvement plans.


3 questions:

1. How involved do you want your stakeholders to be in organizational improvement?
2. How can you increase stakeholder involvement in organizational improvement?
3. What are you going to do?

Bottom line: Pursue excellence. Get stakeholders involved. Today.

You want your organization to achieve its mission. Your staff are your key resource, and you invest in them by providing professional development. And you want to ensure that professional development makes a positive impact on the achievement of your mission.

Question: How can you increase the impact of professional development?

Answer: Follow up. If you want to help your staff apply their learning in order to achieve the mission, follow up. Spend 50% of your resources on follow-up, in helping your staff apply what they learned.

Follow up by having professional development participants do 3 things:

1. Share what they learned with colleagues. They can report in a meeting, write an article for a publication, or lead a workshop.
2. Develop action steps to apply what they learned. Supervisors should monitor these action steps.
3. Work with a coach.
4. Pursue excellence. Follow-up with professional development participants. Today.

*This blog entry is part of a 6-part series:

1. What do you want to focus your organization’s professional development on?
2. What are the components of a professional development plan?
3. What do you believe about professional development?
4. How can you enhance your organization's professional development program?
5. How can you increase the impact of professional development?
6. What are your organization's professional development needs?

One component of an effective professional development plan is a set of beliefs about professional development. This set of beliefs guides your professional development program and can be used to enhance your professional development program.

Question: What do you believe about professional development?

Answer: I believe that effective professional development:

1. Focuses on achieving the mission. In other words, the purpose of professional development is to increase the likelihood of achieving the mission.
2. Supports the implementation of the strategic plan.
3. Addresses current/future job responsibilities.
4. Helps individual staff members achieve their annual growth goals.
5. Is powerful and ongoing. Staff are the chief resource. Professional development is a professional investment in staff. 
6. Is research-based. 
7. Is differentiated. Not everyone needs the same professional development.
8. Is based on an assessment of the current reality.
9. Is designed using a process involving planning, implementation, and evaluation.
10. Takes place in a variety of ways, in addition to workshops.
11. Involves using new knowledge and skills during the training.
12. Involves reflection.
13. Involves teams. 
14. Involves follow-up. 
15. Results in staff applying knowledge and skills (not in having knowledge and skills).

So, what you do believe about professional development? Talk with other staff members. Develop shared understanding about what constitutes effective professional development. Then document your organization’s beliefs about professional development.

Pursue excellence. Today.


*This blog entry is part of a 6-part series:

1. What do you want to focus your organization’s professional development on?
2. What are the components of a professional development plan?
3. What do you believe about professional development?
4. How can you enhance your organization's professional development program?
5. How can you increase the impact of professional development?
6. What are your organization's professional development needs?

You want to develop an effective professional development plan. You want to make sure your plan includes key components.

Question: What are the components of a professional development plan?

Answer: Well, I think a professional development plan should answer questions like:

1. What does your organization believe about professional development?
2. What does your organization want to focus its professional development on?
3. What’s happening this year for professional development? What’s happening in the next few years?
4. What opportunities will you provide your staff for professional development?
5. How can your staff get funding?
6. How can your staff apply for professional development?

So, I think key components of a professional development plan include:

1. A set of beliefs.
2. A stated focus.
3. A calendar that identifies what the professional development emphases will be each year for the next 3 years.
4. A list of professional development opportunities provided by your organization (for example, internal/external training, publications, memberships, and coaching).
5. Funding guidelines that explain how much funding is available, what the funding may be used for, and how decisions about funding are made.
6. An application procedure.

Pursue excellence. Develop a professional development plan that includes key components.


*This blog entry is part of a 6-part series:

1. What do you want to focus your organization’s professional development on?
2. What are the components of a professional development plan?
3. What do you believe about professional development?
4. How can you enhance your organization's professional development program?
5. How can you increase the impact of professional development?
6. What are your organization's professional development needs?

You want to focus of your organization’s professional development. You’re thinking about focusing it on 1 of 3 things: job-related skills, improvement plans, or the results you need to achieve your mission.

Question: What do you want to focus your professional development on?

Answer: Personally speaking, I want to focus professional development on the results my organization needs to achieve its mission. And I recommend that you focus your organization’s professional development on the results you need to achieve your mission, not on improvement plans or job-related skills. Why?

1. Because the bottom line is getting the results needed to achieve the mission, not achieving improvement plans or having a staff that is proficient in job-related skills.
2. Because you want your staff primarily focused on achieving the mission, not on completing improvement plans or improving in job-related skills.
3. Because your staff is more passionate about the mission than they are about improvement plans or job-related skills.
4. Because improvement plans and job-embedded skills are means to an end—achieving the mission. Focus on end, not means.
5. Because it’s easier to use results you need to achieve your mission than job-related skills. The list of results you want usually takes less than 1/2 a page, while the list of job-related skills take more than 1/2 a page (and possibly pages and pages and pages). Trust me—shorter is better.
6. Because focusing on job-related skills increases the likelihood that you’ll focus on a given skill at the wrong time.
7. Finally, because the bottom line is getting the results needed to achieve the mission, not achieving improvement plans or having a staff that is proficient in job-related skills. (Yes, I know. I repeated this line. It bears repeating.)

Need more convincing? OK. Which of the 3 sets of questions do you want your staff to primarily focus on?

1. Achieving the mission: What’s the mission? What results do we need to achieve the mission? What level of results do we have right now? What professional development do staff need to achieve the mission?
2. Improvement plans: What’s the improvement plan? What’s it take to complete the improvement plan? What progress have we made on the improvement plan? What professional development do staff need to complete the improvement plan?
3. Job-related skills: What kind of employees do we want? What skills does a model employee have? What level of these skills do staff have right now? What professional development do staff need to become model employees?

Answer: I want staff to primarily focus on the first set, the set that focuses on achieving the mission.

Final question: What will you focus your organization’s professional development on?

Pursue excellence. Focus your professional development on the results your organization needs to achieve its mission.


*This blog entry is part of a 6-part series:

1. What do you want to focus your organization’s professional development on?
2. What are the components of a professional development plan?
3. What do you believe about professional development?
4. How can you enhance your organization's professional development program?
5. How can you increase the impact of professional development?
6. What are your organization's professional development needs?

You want to your organization to achieve its God-given mission. You know that enhancing your organization’s professional development can help. So, you want to learn more.

Question: How can you learn more about enhancing your organization’s professional development?

Answer: By exploring the following list of 6 questions:

1. What do you want to focus your organization’s professional development on?
2. What are the components of a professional development plan?
3. What do you believe about professional development?
4. How can you enhance your organization's professional development program?
5. How can you increase the impact of professional development?
6. What are your organization's professional development needs?

Pursue excellence. Enhance your organization’s professional development. Today.

You want to close the gap. You know that enhancing your organization’s improvement system can help. So, you want to learn more.

Question: How can you learn more enhancing organizational improvement?

Answer: By exploring the following list of 6 questions.

1. How well does your staff understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?
2. How involved are your stakeholders in organizational improvement?
3. How focused is your staff on organizational improvement?
4. What drives your organization’s improvement?
5. To what extent do improvement plans guide staff work?
6. To what extent are staff held accountable for improvement plans?

*To learn more, take this self-assessment.

You want improve your organization’s improvement system. You want to target things like stakeholder involvement, staff focus, and staff accountability. And you want to start by analyzing what’s currently going on.

Question: What can you do?

Answer: You can take the following self-assessment (customized for a school). Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Strongly agree • 3: Agree • 2: Disagree • 1: Strongly disagree

Stakeholder involvement
___ Students support the improvement plans.
___ Parents support the improvement plans.
___ Staff support the improvement plans.
___ Leaders support the improvement plans.

___ Students are involved in implementing the improvement plans.
___ Parents are involved in implementing the improvement plans.
___ Staff are involved in implementing the improvement plans.
___ Leaders are involved in implementing the improvement plans.
___ Stakeholders support and are involved in implementing the improvement plans.


Staff focus
___ Staff talk about organizational improvement.
___ Staff make proposals regarding organizational improvement.
___ Staff work on organizational improvement.
___ Staff hold each other accountable for organizational improvement.
___ Staff are disappointed when improvement goals are not reached.
___ Staff focus on organizational improvement.


Mission-driven improvement
___ Our improvement plans are documented.
___ Our improvement plans target mission achievement.
___ Our improvement plans drive organizational improvement.
___ Our organization’s improvement is driven by documented plans that target mission achievement.


Improvement plans guide work
___ Staff understand the improvement plans.
___ Staff know which improvement plans they are to implement.
___ Staff can explain their role in a given improvement plan.
___ Staff implement the improvement plans.
___ Improvement plans guide staff work.


Staff accountability
___ Leaders hold staff accountable to implement the improvement plans.
___ Staff hold each other accountable to implement the improvement plans.
___ Staff hold themselves accountable to implement the improvement plans.
___ Staff are held accountable to implement the improvement plans.


Now, ask yourself 5 questions about the data:

1. How many 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s do I have?
2. What satisfies/concerns me about the data?
3. In terms of enhancing organizational improvement, how would I prioritize the 5 areas?
4. What might happen if I addressed the top priority area?
5. What will I do?

Pursue excellence. Enhance your organization’s improvement system. Today.