Strategic Thinking Strategic Planning Strategic Action

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Strategic ThinkingStrategic PlanningStrategic
Action
Dennis Doherty, Principal Consultant
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Contents

• Strategic Thinking
• Preferred futures
• Where are we now? engagement
• Strategic Intent/Plans
• Why?

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Strategic Thinking

• Whether we, as educators, like it or not, schools
  are commercial organisations that have to
• make their budgets balance,
• compete for clients on an open market,
• constantly reinvent themselves,
• understanding their purpose clearly,
• produce satisfied customers.

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Strategic Thinking

• Strategic Thinking not just Strategic Planning
• the central challenge facing school leaders
  today is to create and lead an adaptive
  enterprisean organisation with the built-in
  ability to sense and rapidly adjust to change on
  a continuous basis
• Petersen WReinventing Strategy

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Strategic Thinking

• Strategic Thinking (and planning) is about the
  future of the school
• We understand what the future might be when we
  understand
• why the school exists
• who we are and
• what we aim to achieve

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Five key questions go to the heart of what
constitutes the schools future

• What is important to us as an organisation?
• What sort of School? - What do we want to
  achieve?
• What is our point of difference/distinctiveness?
• What seems to be happening?
• What is working? What is working against us?
• What is the demand? What are the trends?
• What are our competitors doing?
• What are the possibilities?
• What are we going to do?

How will we know we have been successful?
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The Preferred Futures concept
Not the normal strategic planning exercise Not
just the Possible! Not just the Probable! The
Preferred Futures Beare H Creating the
Future School
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Where are we now?

• Cultural Audit
• The Engagement Index

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The Engagement Index
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The Engagement Index

• What is Engagement?
• Engagement is a voluntary state of connection
  with an organisation.

Teachers (staff), Students and Parents engage
with the school
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The Engagement Index

• Teacher Engagement
• Teachers embrace the vocation of teaching for
  many reasons.
• some because they like working with children,
• some because they enjoy the challenge of
  developing their students in all sorts of ways,
• others become teachers because they have a
  passion for their subject area and,
• there are those few who are teachers because the
  hours and the holidays suit their lifestyle.

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Engagement

• Whatever the reason for embracing the vocation of
  teaching, teachers are then employed in a school
  setting.
• They are employed to lead their students to
  learning, not just academic learning but that
  learning we all need to become balanced human
  beings.
• For any teacher, to be able to do that happily,
  the school (their employer) needs to provide an
  environment with which they can engage.

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Engagement

• Stage one
• The first stage is a purely knowledge and
  understanding level of engagement. In other
  words, I know and understand about this
  organisation so therefore I willingly become
  engaged with it.
• Stage two
• Because I made the initial effort to engage with
  the school on the basis of my knowledge of it, I
  become motivated to be more and more involved
  with the school and its activities. So the second
  stage of my engagement is involvement/motivation.

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Engagement

• Stage three
• As I become more and more involved with the
  school and its activities I develop a level of
  professional (and personal) satisfaction about my
  connection with the school. So the third stage of
  engagement is satisfaction. My level of
  satisfaction may be strong or weak.
• Stage four
• When my level of satisfaction is high I may move
  to the next stage of my engagement with the
  school and develop a commitment to and/or passion
  for the school as an organisation, for what it
  is, what it stands for, what is doing and how it
  does it.

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Engagement

• Stage five
• The most engaged I can be with the school is
  when, as a result of my commitment and passion, I
  advocate willingly for the school. So advocacy is
  the fifth and final stage of engagement.

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Engagement

• What is it about the school that I engage with?
• Mission or Purpose
• Working Environment and Conditions
• Leadership
• Best Practice
• Opportunities
• Challenge

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Engagement

• What connects the aspects to the teacher and the
  teacher to the aspects and therefore the school?

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Engagement

• The Mission/purpose and the Working Conditions
  have a valuing effect that encourages my
  connection with the school.
• The Working conditions and the Leadership have an
  inspiring effect on me
• The Leadership and the Best Practice encourage my
  emulating capacity
• The Best Practice and the Opportunity the school
  provides is empowering of me.
• Finally, although the actions are always in
  perpetual motion,
• The Opportunity and the Challenge have an
  energising influence
• The Challenge and the Mission are about embracing
  what the school is about and its, and my,
  capacity to make a difference.

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Engagement

• The Mission/purpose and the Working Conditions
  have a valuing effect that encourages my
  connection with the school.
• The Working conditions and the Leadership have an
  inspiring effect on me
• The Leadership and the Best Practice encourage my
  emulating capacity
• The Best Practice and the Opportunity the school
  provides is empowering of me.
• Finally, although the actions are always in
  perpetual motion,
• The Opportunity and the Challenge have an
  energising influence
• The Challenge and the Mission are about embracing
  what the school is about and its, and my,
  capacity to make a difference.

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Engagement

• Aspect 1 The Mission
• I understand the Schools Mission / purpose
• I impart an understanding of the history and
  traditions of the school to students
• Staff inspire others / students to embrace the
  schools Mission and direction
• The beliefs and values espoused by the school
  match my own beliefs and values
• Staff proactively talk about the Schools ethos /
  Mission / purpose for the students and others
• The schools Mission / purpose encourage a sense
  of collegiality
• Staff demonstrate a commitment to the Schools
  Mission / purpose
• I strongly believe in the Schools Mission /
  purpose
• I model the Schools Mission / purpose in all my
  dealings with students
• The Mission / purpose is very evident in the day
  to day operation of the school

Knowledge/understanding
Communication
Relational
Communication
Passion
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Engagement

• The measurement
• The person completing the questionnaire is asked
  to rate each Item on two seven point scales.
• On the first scale the rating refers to the level
  of importance the person places on the particular
  item.
• The second scale asks them to agree or disagree
  with the Item according to their personal
  position. The two scales approach provides a
  valuable measurement tool.

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Engagement

• If the person is asked, for example, just to
  agree or disagree with the statement, the
  inference is that they see all the items as of
  equal importance.
• Not all the items are of equal importance to
  everyone.
• To disagree strongly with a statement that you
  rate of little importance is of less consequence
  than strongly disagreeing with a statement about
  an issue you believe is really important.

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Engagement
High
Importsnce
Low
High
Personal Position
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Engagement

• The Gap score indicates the average difference
  between the two rankings of an item.
• If the Gap score is high, e.g. 25 to 50 (or
  higher) this indicates that this is a crucial
  item and worthy of further attention because the
  Gap obviously indicates a level of emotional
  concern by the people who have completed the
  questionnaire.

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Engagement

• Gives a snap-shot of the current situation
• Staff, parents and students
• Highlights areas of strength and concern
• Pin-points source of concern
• Raises the crucial issues

Where are we now?
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Where do we want to be?

• Creative think tank
• Consider everything
• From all the possibilities and the probabilities
  comes the preferred
• Mindful of the strengths and areas of concern

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The Future Focus

• The future of Australian society
• The future influence of religion, societal norms
  and values as we know them
• The future of education and schools
• What are the implications for your School?

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The Future

• The Future of Australian Society?
• What's happening to marriage and the family?
• 42 per cent of contemporary marriages will end in
  divorce
• Marriage rate the lowest for 100 years
• Shift in emphasis from institution to
  relationship'
• The Options generation - wait and see 'what else
  is there?'
• Birth rate lowest in our history ?
• Consequences for the age distribution of the
  population - the single-person household
• Most children have more parents than siblings

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The Future

• The need for a global focus
• The role of schools in preparing people for
  leadership
• Girls and boys education issues for the future
• The current and future demographic information
• The style and size of the school
• The need for financial sustainability
• The need for environmental sustainability
• The future of community influence e.g Religion,
  neighbourhood
• Graduates needing to be prepared for two or three
  career paths

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The Future

• The majority of graduates will remain single and
  in the workforce
• The influence of technology on information
• The amount of information available to students
  and their lack of capacity to make critical
  judgments about it
• The proliferation of drug use among the youngthe
  need for immediate gratification
• The lack of structure in families
• The lack of security in families

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The Future

• The need to employ teachers with a strong
  pastoral care ethic
• The need to employ teachers with a relevant
  pedagogical approach
• The place of sport/cocurriculum in a school
• The reputation of the school in the communityfor
  academic, social, and sporting achievement

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The Future

• The uncertainty of the world of the
  futureenvironmentally, politically, culturally
• The place of peers in the development of
  valuesthe concept of family for single child
  families
• The cost of educationthe cost of higher
  education
• The particular role of schools in values
  development
• The need for efficient, well maintained and safe
  infrastructure

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The four revolutionsBeare

• In the last 15 years we have all lived through
  four simultaneous revolutions
• Technologyrestructured our idea of knowledge
• Genderredefined the rights of half of the
  worlds population
• Culturechanged our view of what is important
  about cultureglobal movement loss of identity
• Economictotal victory of economic rationalism

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The four revolutions

• A child born in the last ten years
• She has a mindset fashioned by the four
  revolutions
• She is international in thinking
• She is unlikely to marry before she is 32 (if at
  all)
• She will most probably have one child (if any)
• She will have two or three career paths
• She will live well into her 80s
• She is facing transformations of life on earth
  that are beyond our imaginings

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The Planning

• Where are we now?
• Where do we want to be? (Preferred Futurethe
  Strategic Intent)
• How do we get from one to the other?
• (the Plan)

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Strategic Intent

• The Preferred Future
• Long term
• What do we want the school and its
  students/graduates to be like in 2020?
• - clarify the mission/purpose
• - create a new vision

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Strategic Intent

• Focus on big picture concepts
• the learning environment
• the learning experience
• the global citizen
• the enterprise
• environmental sustainability

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Strategic Planning

• short term (3 to 5 yrs)
• educational management plans
• master plan (buildings and facilities)
• business plan

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Strategic Planning

• Features
• Goalsfrom the strategic intent
• Strategieshow will the goals be achieved?
• Specific actionswhat needs to be done?
• Responsibilitieswhose job is it?
• Indicatorswhat will it look like when it is
  done?
• Timelinewhen will it be done? Achieved?

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Why?

• the best thing about the future is that we can
  change it
• Im all for progressits change that I dont
  like Mark Twain

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Why?

• Planning is a timetable for taking deliberate
  actions to maximise the chance of achieving your
  preferred futures, a road map to guide you to the
  future of your choice

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Why?

• Strategic thinking describes the process of
  constant inquiry and change which is essential if
  the organisation is to not only survive but to
  thrive.

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• Questions?
• creating pathways to a better future

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• creating pathways to a better future

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