Thinking

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Thinking Planning Strategically

• Professor Brent Davies Cert Ed, BA, MSc, MPhil,
  PhD
• brent_at_leadership1.wanadoo.co.uk

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As I said to the Inspector

• Sorry we dont have a School Development Plan.
• That is reductionist 20th Century thinking.
• What we do have is an Holistic Strategic Framework

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• So the urgent drives out the important the
  future goes largely unexplored and the capacity
  to act, rather than the capacity to think and
  imagine becomes the sole measure for leadership.

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• We are all prisoners of our past.
• It is hard to think of things except in the way
  we have always thought of them.
• But that solves no problems and seldom changes
  anything.

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Futures Thinking
Futures Thinking
Strategy
Action Planning/Target Setting
Operational Target Setting
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THE SIGMOID CURVE
A
B
Handy, 1994 p51
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Rethinking Strategy
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• School Leadership must be
• futures orientated and
• strategically driven
• The focus of strategic leadership is sustainable
  educational development and the enduring success
  of the school.

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• What is Strategy?
• Direction setting
• Broader view
• Medium-to long-term
• Template
• Perspective strategic thinking

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• Strategic thinking requires
• synthesis as well as analysis
• is nonlinear as well as linear
• is visual as well as verbal
• is implicit as well as explicit
• engages the heart as well as the head

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• Strategic thinking involves
• scanning
• visioning
• reframing
• making sense
• systems thinking

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• What I find helps me is to have some key
  strategic direction points that I can keep
  referring to. It is very easy to get diverted by
  current challenges and forget about what is
  really important and what you are trying to
  achieve in the longer- term. What I need is a
  set of compass points that I can keep coming back
  to.

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• A strategically focused school is one that is
  educationally effective in the short-term but has
  a clear framework and processes to translate core
  moral purpose and vision into excellent
  educational provision that is challenging and
  sustainable in the medium- to long-term.

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• What is Sustainability
• the ability of individuals and schools to
  continue to improve to meet new challenges and
  complexity in a way that does not damage
  individuals or the
• wider community but builds capacity and
  capability for the benefit of all

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• What is Success?
• Success can be seen in how children achieve both
  academically, socially, spiritually, physically
  and emotionally, it is children being all they
  can be.

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• Success
• How do we judge long-term
• success in our school?

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Strategic Leadership
Strategically Focused School
Strategic Processes
Strategic Approaches
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• STRATEGIC PROCESSES

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Strategic Leadership
Strategically Focused School
Strategic Processes
Strategic Approaches
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• I am going to start again, because in many
  instances the process of developing the strategy
  is actually as important as the strategy itself

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• Strategic Processes
• 1) Conceptualisation processes
• 2) Engaging people processes
• 3) Articulation processes
• 4) Implementation processes

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• 1) Conceptualisation Processes
• Reflection
• Strategic thinking
• Analysis

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• Reflection
• Oxygen mask!

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• Thursday is my reflection and reading time. I
  have been a headteacher now for 12 years. The
  first two years I ran around like a headless
  chicken trying to do everything and then I
  realised I was no good to the staff or myself and
  I decided to give my self a timetable to think,
  to read and reflect and I try to do that on
  Thursday morning. To be realistic it doesnt
  happen every week because when you walk through
  that door you dont know what is going to hit
  you!

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• Strategic Thinking
• Is the process by which an organisations
  direction-givers can rise above the daily
  managerial processes and crises to gain different
  perspectivesSuch perspectives should be both
  future-oriented and historically understood.
  (Garratt 1995)

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Analysis BCG MATRIX
STAR
PROBLEM CHILD
CASH COW
DOG
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• 2) Engaging People
• Strategic Conversations
• Strategic Participation
• Strategic Motivation
• Strategic Capability

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Engaging People
Participation
Strategic Conversations
Strategic Capability
Motivation
The iterative nature of alignment and
capability.
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• 3) Articulation processes
• Oral
• Written
• Structural

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• 4) Implementation processes

• Translating strategy into action
• Alignment
• Sequential Parallel implementation
• approaches
• Strategic timing abandonment

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• Its not good enough just to do that thinking
  and reflecting ..people actually want to see
  results!

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• Alignment
• Nomothetic
• Idiographic

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• Alignment
• Linking Strategy to Short-term
• Action Planning

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Individual
Strategy
Operational
Childrens achievements 1
School Improvement planning
Establish subject improvement files
Classroom observation
Quality of leaning teaching 2
Develop subject leadership skills
Monitoring standards
Shared Leadership
Develop understanding of Governors role
Work scrutiny
Monitoring evaluation
Leadership Management 3
Using data
Resources Buildings
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• Individual Staff Plans
• Strategic Conversations
• Phase One
• What contribution did you make to whole -school
  plans last year?
• 2. What contribution did you make to your area of
  responsibility ( subject, key stage, pupil group
  etc) last year?

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• Phase Two
• What contribution do you plan to make to whole-
  school plans next year?
• 2. What contribution do you plan to make to your
  area of responsibility ( subject, key stage,
  pupil group etc) next year?
• Phase Three
• What support do you need to maximise your
• contribution?

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Sequential and Parallel

• We worked on twin-track strategies. At one
  level measures to raise the expectations of the
  staff and the aspirations of the students. At the
  same time we were aware that we needed to create
  capacity and capability for significant change
  a strategic leap in performance

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THE SIGMOID CURVE
A
B
Handy, 1994 p51
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Elongating the S-curve Making the Strategic
Leap
Elongation Improving what we already do
Improvement
Strategic leap to a new type of operation
Time
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• Strategic Timing Abandonment

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Strategic Timing

• I think from my own point of view a lot of that
  goes on fairly intuitively - I know I cant go
  down that road because I am not ready or they are
  not ready. So timing is so critical.
• We are more proactive... if you waited for
  everything to come right it would never happen...
  get out and do it thats my view.

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Strategic Abandonment

• I see abandonment as being two different issues
  really. One is the abandonment of things that
  are not working and actually taking peoples time
  and energy. Thats easy to do. The other side
  of it which I did several times was to actually
  say OK this is working well and we are really
  comfortable but actually there is another
  strategy here that takes us on to the next stage
  but we cant run them both together.

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• What have you learnt about strategic processes?

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Strategic Approaches
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A model for strategy
High
Strategic intent
Devolved Strategy
Turbulence
Emergent strategy
Strategic planning
Low
Low
High
Understanding
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• Strategic Approaches
• Strategic Planning
• Emergent Strategy
• Decentralised or Distributed Strategy
• Strategic Intent

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Strategic Planning

• Rational
• Linear
• Predictable
• Definable
• Who does what, when and how.
• Map the stages and outcomes

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Emergent Strategy

• We are adapting as we go along and learning as
  we go along - emergent strategy is of course a
  learning process.
• I think so many strategic plans fall down
  because they are too prescriptive and an event or
  a personal change happens and the whole thing is
  scuppered. You need to build strategy as you go
  along.

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• Evaluate current practice the external
  environment.
• What lessons have been learnt?
• What principles could be implemented in the
  future?
• Incorporating successful ideas into more formal
  strategic frameworks.

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Strategic Intents

• Create a high expectation
• and success culture.

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Developing Strategic Intent

• Articulate
• Build
• Create
• Define

• 1 Strategic Intent
• 2 Images
• Metaphors
• Experiences
• 3 Dialogue
• Cognitive Map
• Shared Understanding
• Strategic Perspective
• Outcomes
• Formal Plans

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• What is really important about strategic intent
  is that it gives us an opportunity to say here
  are some areas that we are going to investigate
  we dont quite know yet how thats going to pan
  out. But, by identifying them now it give us some
  time to develop our thinking in these areas.
• I am attracted to the notion of strategic
  intent I think it liberates creativity.

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• What are the strategic
• intents for your school?

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Devolved Strategy

• I mean I know in broad strategic terms what I
  want from IT I dont have a clue about the
  depth of how to do it- I delegate the detail to
  the team.
• It was interesting for me to stand back and
  watch how other people managed it and I found it
  frustrating at times because I could see a way in
  which, with a minor alteration, I could make it
  work. But I didnt do that I sat back and let
  them get there themselves.

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• Discuss whether as a leader you deploy any or all
  of the strategic approaches used?

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Core Competencies

• Core organisational competencies are the key
  abilities that underpin all of the schools
  activities.
• They are like the roots of a tree that
• Anchor a schools activities. The activities, in
  turn, can be seen as the
• trunk and branches.

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• Fundamental understanding of learning and
• differentiation
• 2. Ability to work as a team in problem solving
• 3. Using performance data as a means of process
• improvement not final assessment
• 4. Respecting and valuing students and staff

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• What core competencies
• Would you want to develop in
• your school?
• Which strategic
• approaches would you
• use to develop them?

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Strategic Leadership

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• Strategic Leadership1
• The focus of strategic leadership
• is to deliver sustainable educational
  development and the enduring success of the
  school.

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Strategic Leadership2

• Strategic Leadership is broad in scope
• The impact of strategic leadership is
• felt over long periods of time
• Strategic leadership often involves
• significant organisational change

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Building Strategic Influence

• Look at yourself others must trust you, have
  confidence in you, understand your motivations
  and style.
• Be clear about your own passion
• Examine and build your credibility base

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• Influence others by involving them in the process
  and value them
• Create a common understanding
• Connect to the heart as well as the head
• Be mindful of the political landscape

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Political Animals

• AWARE
• FOX OWL
• (Clever)
  (Wise)
• CLOSED OPEN
• DONKEY SHEEP
• (Inept) (Naïve)
• UNAWARE

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• Create and sustain energy momentum
• Meet minimising crisis
• Set appropriate expectations and be consistent
• Chart improvement and celebrate success

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What Strategic Leadership Do

• Direction Setting
• Translating Strategy into Action
• Aligning the people and the organisation
• to the strategy
• 4. Determining effective intervention points
• 5. Developing strategic capabilities

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Characteristics Strategic Leaders Display
1. They challenge and question they have a
dissatisfaction or restlessness with the
present 2. They prioritise their own strategic
thinking learning build new mental
models 3. They display strategic wisdom based on
a clear value system 4. They have powerful
personal and professional networks 5. They
have high quality personal and interpersonal
skills (EQ)
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Jim Collins Good to Great

• Strategic Sustainable Leaders
• Personal humility and professional will

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• Jim Collins Built to Last Successful Companies
• put purpose before short term results
• start slowly advance persistently
• do not depend on a single visionary leader
• grow their own leadership instead of
• importing stars
• learn from diverse experimentation.

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• Conclusion

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• Outcomes not just Outputs
• The importance of deep learning outcomes and not
  just short term test outcomes
• Balancing Short and Long Term Objectives
• Linking operational and strategic perspectives
  to build holistic planning frameworks.
• Processes not just Plans
• How the whole staff team is involved is critical
  for long term success, what is written is of less
  importance than what staff believe.

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• Passion
• Passion for social justice, passion for
  learning, passion to make a difference.
• Personal Humility Professional Will
• Jim Collins level 5 leaders key
  characteristics.
• 6. Strategic Timing and Strategic Abandonment
• When to make changes and what to give up.

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• Building Capacity Creating Involvement
• Getting the right team and energising it.
• Developing Strategic Measure of success
• How do you know you have been successful in five
  years time?
• 9. Building in Sustainable Strategic Leadership
• Creating an achievement culture that lasts.

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Weve been working on the basics because,
basically, weve been having trouble with the
basics. (Bob Ojeda L A Dodgers) I
skate to where the puck is going to be, not
where it has been. (Wayne Gretskey)
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• Leading the Strategically Focused School.
• by Brent Davies
• ISBN 1-4129-1191-5
• Sage Publications