Beating "This Too Shall Pass"

In Goals, Priorities, and Strategies (Part 1), I mentioned that goal setting should start with a plan several years down the road. I've seen it referred to as a "Someday Goal" by The One Thing authors, I mentioned looking 5 years down the road. In my career, I've had two superintendents create a 5 year strategic plan. One was done with only the administrative team, one was done with community involvement, teachers, students and staff.

One year into the first one, a more veteran colleague of mine said, "This 5 year plan just means that the Sup will leave in 4." True enough, that is exactly what happened. And then the district had to restart as the new hire wanted to make their own mark. The second time around, when the 5 year Strategic Plan started, I was the more veteran colleague and said the same thing. And sure enough, the superintendent retired at the end of year 4. And the new superintendent will be starting a new strategic plan when we never really did much with the old one.

Most principals are on the job for 5 years, and superintendents shorter. Each new one wants to make their own mark. This generally means that any initiative from leadership never becomes a way of doing business, and teachers soon learn that the new idea will pass soon, so there is no real reason to buy in. 

This is where known your Core Values, creating your Purpose and Priorities, and working towards these are critical. Then, when the inevitable time comes to hire new leadership, you can hire someone that fits your values and can enhance them, rather than hire someone and have new values, purpose, and priorities put in place. If you don't know how you are as an organization, you will constantly be jumping from one initiative to the next and never being truly Productive.