Flawless Execution and High Engagement

I pulled together Part One Education and Economic Issues and Creative Tension-Desired Future For Education,  added a whole lot to it and published a 7-page pdf on the Flawless-Execution web site, on the Greater Good corner.  

See the link titled  Education: Current State, Desired Future.  This white paper examines the current state of education and the long-term economic effects, and presents one possible solution to just a portion of the issues we are facing. As there is a good deal to do, it is my hope that the thoughts presented here will prompt other like-minded people to get involved to address these issues. There is plenty to go around, and I just want to do my part.

As a reminder, the premise of the “Greater Good” is that business and industry tools and techniques, concepts and philosophies can be directly applied to other areas—community, society, education.

Take a close look at the issues and the opportunities. You will see that there is no choice but to get involved.

This is the continuation of defining my creative tension surrounding education and economic issues. Part One: overview and current reality. If you haven’t done so yet, read Part One first.

My mission: turn “my vision” into “our creative tension”. My vision for education, as best as I can briefly articulate it:

Academia and business collaborate to provide our young people with the best possible preparation for what awaits them in the real world, ensuring the success of the graduate, therefore impacting our global competitiveness and the long term viability of our quality of life.

Nothing too grandiose for me…if the following is intriguing to you or if you have questions or personal experience to relate, please join in!

Without getting into nuts and bolts, ACE-PONSI recommends college credits for non-academic organizations’ training and development. As ACE is the American Council of Education, the credits are accepted by most colleges. This opens a huge door of opportunity for forward thinking organizations and even communities, to offer a value-adding enhancement to traditional higher education. Just for kicks, call it “Real World Prep School” (RWPS). I’m working to upload a presentation that examines RWPS, and includes some of the ACE credit recommendation process. If youwant it, email me: craig@flawless-execution.com

Benefits to Employers. RWPS is a recruiting incentive to those who could not continue into higher education: earn and learn. Employers can expand their recruiting pool beyond degreed candidates, an increasingly endangered species. High potentials in the RWPS system can be identified and hire, then developed. Learning and growth opportunities are high on the list of why people stay with a company, making RWPS a factor for retention. The curriculum is determined by the company, therefore it precisely targets goals and needs much more than traditional education can. And application-intensive projects and assignments ensure targeted, value-adding results, not just course completion and a grade. Finally, as ACE requires a high level of academic rigor and discipline, RWPS validates the quality and integrity of company training programs.

Benefits for Learners. RWPS is a highly accessible, affordable learning opportunity to take part in high quality, accredited learning. As the coursework is based on real-world skills needed that students learn and apply, they develop an impressive portfolio of real-world tools. This means greater employability compared to an academic degree alone. With distance learning, any student anywhere can earn credits.

ACE notes these benefits for learners: enables faster attainment of educational and career goals, increases ability to complete postsecondary credentials, and improves workplace mobility as credits earned are portable.

Benefits for the Education System. RWPS is not in competition with academia, but is an enhancement of learning opportunities. As RWPS is accessible to more students, more learners are recruited into the learning process, which they are more likely to continue with traditional schools. When local B & I and community grows, student enrollments increase as well. Last, RWPS establishes a long-needed partnership between education and the business sector, with each taking care of what they do best.

Economic Impact Potential. The community that crafts an innovative, world-class approach to education will be a big winner. In business relocation or expansion decisions, a key criteria is the local education system as it impacts current and future workforce preparedness. Growing families certainly look at education systems in their decision-making process. More business and more families = larger tax base. Pretty basic stuff.

Benefits for the Community. In addition to the above economic impacts, RWPS provides easy access to lifelong learning opportunity for all citizens. And if the community is experiencing business and population growth we can expect more of our talented teens at home-no need to go to greener pastures!

The Big Question: In a direct comparison of workplace relevance and value between a standard academic degree and completion of RWPS coursework, which would provide more relevance and value to the learner and employer?

(It seems I get a query or two a day on this parable. Tells me there are a lot of rabbits who want to be allowed to run. STOP making them take swimming lessons!

What really gets me is that the education system is hell-bent on teaching rabbits to swim. I know, I know…we cannot allow anarchy to rule the schoolhouse. No way can kids be allowed to learn only what they like and what they are good at, just as we can’t permit them to avoid what they hate…I’m just sayin’.)

A parable from the book: Soar With Your Strengths, by Clifton and Nelson. This book is a classic!

 Imagine there is a meadow. In that meadow there is a duck, a fish, an eagle, an owl, a squirrel, and a rabbit. They decide they want to have a school so they can be smart, just like people.

With the help of some grown-up animals, they come up with a curriculum they believe will make a well-rounded animal: running, swimming, tree climbing, jumping, and flying.

On the first day of school, little rabbit combed his ears, and he went hopping off to his running class. There he was a star. He ran to the top of the hill and back as fast as he could go, and, oh, did it feel good. He said to himself, “I can’t believe it. At school, I get to do what I do best.”

The instructor said, “Rabbit, you really have talent for running. You have great muscles in your rear legs. With some training, you will get more out of every hop.”

The rabbit said, “I love school. I get to do what I like to do and get to learn to do it better.”

The next class was swimming. When the rabbit smelled the chlorine, he said, “Wait, wait! Rabbits don’t like to swim.”

The instructor said, “Well, you may not like it now, but five years from now you’ll know it was a good thing for you.”

In the tree-climbing class, a tree trunk was set at a 30-degree angle so all the animals had a chance to succeed. The little rabbit tried so hard he hurt his leg.

In jumping class, the rabbit got along just fine; in flying class, he had a problem. So the teacher gave him a test and discovered he belonged in remedial flying.

In remedial flying class, the rabbit had to practice jumping off a cliff. They told him if he’d just work hard enough, he could succeed.

The next morning, he went on to swimming class. The instructor said, “Today we jump in the water.”

“Wait, wait. I talked to my parents about swimming. They didn’t learn to swim. We don’t like to get wet. I’d like to drop this course.” The instructor said, “You can’t drop it. The drop-and-add period is over. At this point you have a choice: Either you jump in or you flunk.”

The rabbit jumped in. He panicked! He went down once. He went down twice. Bubbles came up. The instructor saw he was drowning and pulled him out. The other animals had never seen anything quite as funny as this wet rabbit who looked more like a rat without a tail, and so they chirped, and jumped, and barked, and laughed at the rabbit. The rabbit was more humiliated than he had ever been in his life. He wanted desperately to get out of class that day. He was glad when it was over.

He thought that he would head home, that his parents would understand and help him. When he arrived, he said to his parents, “I don’t like school. I just want to be free.”

“If the rabbits are going to get ahead, you have to get a diploma” replied his parents.

The rabbit said, “I don’t want a diploma!”

The parents said, “You’re going to get a diploma whether you want one or not!”

They argued, and finally the parents made the rabbit go to bed. In the morning the rabbit headed off to school with a slow hop. Then he remembered that the principal had said that any time he had a problem to remember that the counselor’s door is always open.

When he arrived at school, he hopped up in the chair by the counselor and said, “I don’t like school.”

And the counselor said, “Mmmm, tell me about it.”

And the rabbit did.

The counselor said, “Rabbit, I hear you. I hear you saying you don’t like school because you don’t like swimming. I think I have diagnosed that correctly.”

“Rabbit, I tell you what we’ll do. You’re doing just fine in running. I don’t know why you need to work on running. What you need to work on is swimming. I’ll arrange it so you don’t have to go to running anymore, and you can have two periods of swimming.”

When the rabbit heard that, he just threw up!

As the rabbit hopped out of the counselor’s office, he looked up and saw his old friend, the Wise Old Owl who, after listening to little rabbit’s sad tale, cocked his head and said, “Rabbit, life doesn’t have to be that way. We could have schools and businesses where people are allowed to concentrate on what they do well.”

Rabbit was inspired. He thought when he graduated, he would start a business where the rabbits would do nothing but run, the squirrels could just climb trees, and the fish could just swim. As he disappeared into the meadow, he sighed softly to himself and said…

“Oh, what a great place that would be.”

A great place, indeed. Weigh in:

• Was owl smoking something to plant those fool thoughts in rabbit’s head?
• Why would, or wouldn’t, rabbit’s utopian business work?
• How much of your work makes you feel like a rabbit running? And, how much of your work makes you feel like a rabbit in water?

The whole “Strengths” genre is fascinating. Plan on seeing much more about this soon.

I found educator Blair Peterson’s Creative Tension blog while surfing to see what has been written lately on creative tension. The home post led me to define my own creative tension relative to education…thank you, Blair.

Per the pundits (cool word for “people smarter and more famous than me”) managing creative tension requires clearly defining current reality, then painting a compelling picture of the desired future. It is simpler for an individual than it is organizationally, as personal relevance is easier to establish. And that’s where most organizations fail—they don’t reach Everyman with a compelling message for either the current reality or the desired future. No reason to change.

My current reality: occupation (what I get paid for) and avocation (what I would do if money were no object) are two different things. If our priorities were straight and teachers were paid what they were worth I’d be an educator, not a company man. So I have to go with the second-best alternative: working school-to-career issues from the private sector side of the fence.

The gap and resulting creative tension is what drives me to continue to find a way to get involved and influence education, even though there is often is too much distance between the two…my rubber band is stretched to the limit. But simply understanding the nature of creative tension helps me to manage the resulting distress when it gets too great, and this is an essential part of managing the gap.

Education issues cannot be resolved solely from within academia and certainly cannot be impacted by a small handful of individuals. Senge (most definitely a pundit by the above definition) talks about shared vision. Creative tension must also be “shared”. The gap must be defined in a way that is relevant and compelling for others. If I can get enough people to understand the current reality (set the platform on fire with accurate, relevant information) and buy into the desired future (shared vision), it will help get others involved.

Current Reality. As a US citizen in a small community rocked by plant closures, and as a grandparent, I am deeply concerned about tomorrow and the longer-term future. The economy is tanked, our education system is floundering, social structure is unraveling and our quality of life is in danger of being irreparably relegated to second rate. Overwhelming altogether, so focus is narrowed to academics: Education and Economic Issues spells out some of the challenges.

Desired Future, Briefly. Beyond family I’d like to think I’ve impacted young peoples’ lives. I’ve coached pre-high schoolers in everything except chess and debate, and I’ve been a high school substitute and adjunct college instructor. As someone who has spent much of their career in training and development positions, the potential future of the knowledge industry is tantalizing. As an entrepreneur, I see an untapped market with unlimited potential. Why can’t that potential be targeted at workforce preparation a.k.a. helping school kids get ready for the real world while strengthening the talent pool and our competitiveness?

Coming soon to a post near you…a possibly compelling picture of one desired future. The mission: turn “my vision” into “our creative tension”.

The broad topic: effective goals and managing through periods of change. Sub-topics: creative tension (Senge); burning platform (Schein); lead / lag; stretch goals. Purpose: what are the relevant applications in business and industry, government, community, education, family?

This post got too long for a blog. Below are excerpts, go to the full version here and come back to comment if so inclined. The full version will be expanded as appropriate.

Creative Tension, Burning Platform, Greater Good

I wanted to revisit Peter Senge’s creative tension model as it is an effective and simple illustration of goal-setting and change management that I’ve pulled out of my classroom hat real-time many times. So I looked around to see what has been done already.

Blair Peterson is an educator who maintains a blog titled Creative Tension. I stumbled across it by accident and, as the target of his creative tension is education, props up-front to Blair!

And, after the following was pretty much written, I came across a great analysis of creative tension by Cath Duncan at Productive Flourishing Rather than throw out what I had already done or re-create wheels already designed by others, here’s the whole shooting match.

The diagram is fuzzy but I couldn’t find better. And, I cannot find the source to give credit. At least you get the picture.  Creative tension illustrates effectively managing the gap between vision and reality. From 5th Discipline author Peter Senge:

The gap between vision and current reality is also a source of energy. If there were no gap, there would be no need for any action to move towards the vision. We call this gap creative tension.

My contribution to the creative tension dialogue is to highlight the connection to Edgar Schein’s burning platform theory of motivation and change management, and to goal-setting generally. The Schein and Senge models target the same basic concept: closing the gap between current reality and desired future. Schein’s theory is examined in the link above but briefly: for people to make a leap from today’s platform to the relative unknown, it must be more uncomfortable for them to stay on today’s platform than the perceived anxiety created by the change to tomorrow’s desired future.

The creative tension diagram shows a rubber band stretched between two hands. The lower hand represents today’s reality, and the upper hand is the desired future. When the rubber band stretches, the resulting tension forces one hand or the other to move or the rubber band will break.

The million dollar question: will the lower hand or the upper hand win the battle? Current reality can exert resisting pressure on the desired future to the point that expectations must be lowered or the gap becomes too great…the rubber band breaks. Or, the upper hand is a relatively safe distance above the lower hand, and the pressure exerted by the desired future is ample enough to pull the current reality up.

The full version here includes a few thoughts on managing creative tension and change.

Creative Tension vs Stretch Goals

Which came first, creative tension or stretch goals? I recall the 5^th Discipline coming out before stretch goals caught on, so I’ll assume that the rubber band hands inspired what was a nightmare for many. I hope some management theory historian verifies that because I didn’t dig back to find the answer.

What Gets Measured Gets Done

“Lead” and “lag” applies to goals as well as metrics. Lag goals like increase market share and profit are not good real-time motivators for performance for the first line. See What Gets Measured.

Applications for Leadership and the Greater Good

These concepts are critical for leaders to understand and apply toward managing their constituents’ journey toward the desired future. There are certainly applications for the Greater Good: the scope of operations matters little—business and industry, government, community, education, even family.

After defining the current reality and desired future and identifying intelligent goals to close the gap, how can we apply these models in education and community to effectively manage the gap?

The premise of the Greater Good is that business and industry tools and techniques, concepts and philosophies can be directly applied to other areas—community, society, education. The first private sector concepts to really make a connection were engagement and alignment.

My personal vision and mission includes making an impact by helping others….leave the campground in better shape than you found it. I feel the greatest potential for lasting impact is through youth via education, school-to-career specifically.

My career is in the private sector, people and process improvement. I’ve been marginally involved in education, as a high school substitute and adjunct college instructor. If our priorities were straight and educators were paid what they were worth, I’d be an educator not a company man. My second best alternative to educational immersion is to impact youth by working the school-to-career issues from the private sector side of the fence.

Education and business / industry have perceptions of each other that are anchored in reality to a large degree. The private sector feels that education is not preparing students for the real world, the system is out of touch with real needs, and is inflexible and / or slow to change. The view from the other side: business and industry refuses to get involved in education, much less seriously commit to making it better. B & I doesn’t know what it needs, has academic education and job skills training confused, and is expecting too much from an overtaxed system.

These perceptions are correct for the most part and that is the arena into which I’ve chosen to attempt to make an impact.

There’s no politically correct way to say this, so may as well be blunt: educators do not much appreciate outsiders messing with their stuff. And B & I typically operates best in reactionary mode: complain about the issues rather than commit to being part of the solution. But thankfully there is a potential marriage of necessity on the horizon (shotgun wedding?) between education and business and industry. I hope to sneak into the wedding party, or at least crash the reception.

I have started a web page for ongoing collection of Greater Good-related thoughts.  Future posts may link into that information.

The Big Hairy Issue. The US is in a fight to maintain our standard of living. We’ve lost our competitive edge, and the gap is widening. At the core: workforce and education issues. It started long before the economic blip we’re experiencing and will continue well after economic recovery, as there are systemic and social issues to address. Some of the forces behind the issues follow. These will be looked at more closely in future posts.

Activity vs Progress. In process is a post that sums up all the stuff that is going on out there. The issues are not being ignored, there is a good deal of activity from many sources. But there is no focus, no priority targets or central coordination. Lots of activity but little systemic progress.

Talent Pool. Let’s assume the economy will pick back up. When it does, will we have the talent pool we need to sustain recovery and growth? Prior to this downturn, the black and white demographics showed a significant shortage in number of workers. Skills and capabilities is a whole ‘nother issue.

Academic Achievement. We are in a global economy (psst-don’t tell anyone…). Many of the new players, and most of the old, are collectively kicking our US tails. We have lost our education advantage and along with it our edge in innovation and productivity.

Meeting in the Middle. Among the many initiatives, efforts are nearly exclusively on providing for at-risk, disadvantaged, underperformers…evening the playing field out which is socially right and we do need it. The concern is that we are only furthering mediocrity, as there is no comparable effort toward educational excellence. We need balance. See “Acceptable Level of Competency”.

Attainment Levels and Accessibility. The high school drop out rate is increasing, and the proportion of high school grads continuing into secondary education is dropping. One reason for the latter: the cost of higher education has increased at 4x the CPI. Many students are forced to find what work they can without a college degree, then somehow get back into the education groove and complete college classes while working. Not easy.

Disengagement. The economic, environmental and execution-related impact of disengagement in the workplace has been well-documented (The Business Case for Engagement). But what about students, teachers, parents who are not fully engaged in the education process? Engagement: fully buying into the importance and relevance of education for the future; exerting exemplary effort to achieve.

Disconnect. Are students getting what they need from the education system to hit the ground running after high school, whether in post-secondary education or the workplace? Are employers getting the raw human resources they need to be competitive? Is education getting input and support from the private sector, and from students and their families? What are the needs that are not being met? Who should provide them?

Economic Impact Potential. Thinking locally rather than globally…this is not an issue unless it continues to be ignored, then it is a wasted opportunity. In business relocation or expansion decisions a key criteria is the local education system as it impacts future workforce preparedness. Growing families certainly look at education systems in their decision-making process. More business, more families = larger tax base. Pretty basic stuff.

The communities that craft an innovative, world-class approach to education will be big winners.

Any one of these alone can be a book. And they are interrelated. More to come.

 (whew…I wore myself out thinking about that title)

If this post is of interest to you and you haven’t already discovered David Zinger’s Employee Engagement Network, do so! This post was originally added there, modified to be posted here.

Father Jim Roselli is a fellow member of the EEN. His background and interests were intriguing to me, and I noted him: I am looking forward to a dialogue on religion and engagement, and the potential power of engagement as it relates to society and social groups (tribes!).

Copied from a note Fr. Jim sent me: My interest in Sociology/Social Anthropology goes back (‘way back) to when I was in my twenties and read a book entitled “Hunting Bands.” It was an examination of tribal behavior in modern corporations, and it really affected my outlook. The six basic human needs are air, water, food, clothing, shelter and companionship. These are best delivered by, and balanced human beings are best produced and nurtured in, the basic human social group: the nuclear family, consisting of a lifetime-committed husband and wife and their children. The fundamental post-basic social unit is the tribe, or clan: an efficient and effective way for families to share their knowledge, skills and abilities with each other.

Father Jim’s note hit a bit of a button for me.

First, is it a fair statement that the basic social unit (nuclear family) has diminished in stature and importance? Single parent households and dual-income, multiple job households as well. More emphasis on careers and making money than on basic parenting, which is the traditional primary means to “socialize” our children.

These are broad generalizations, but I believe statistics and an army of “experts” have mad it quite clear that the family unit is in trouble, even in “normal” and outwardly successful two-parent households. Nuclear is melting down. Ultra-busy parents abdicating their socializing duties to the outside—schools, youth clubs, soccer coaches (I have been in that role! I am a COACH, not a surrogate parent! Blood boiling at the memory as I type….)

At the same time, the other institution critical to socializing our young is sadly diminishing in stature and importance as well—organized religion. There is a giant void in too many young peoples’ lives where these two powerful influences used to be. And I feel that this is one of the key root causes to all the social problems in the world—seriously! We have lost our ability to instill strong values and social / behavioral expectations in the younger generations, and it is beginning to bite us in the behind big time.

The post-basic social unit for too many youth is gangs, which provide all the basic needs noted by Father Jim. Not to say that gangs are an acceptable alternative, but what happens where there is a void? Something will rush in to fill it. And let’s not be ostriches…this is not just a poverty / inner city issue.

There is an unacceptably high level of social disengagement-we do not have a strong set of shared values or social expectations. Not to mention that too many people simply are not at a high level of “satisfaction” societally.

I have stated elsewhere that…

1. Engagement is contagious. You can catch it from others just as you can “infect” others.

2. Engagement ripples the surface of the pond…it spreads by association. If I am an engaged person at work / in my position, I am probably engaged elsewhere. And it will show, and will trigger #1.

Is engagement important? YES, on many levels—personal, professional, societal.

Other posts you may find of interest, related to the greater good that engagement can help bring about:

America’s Promise, Crisis in Education. From America’s Alliance: “Many students who ultimately drop out of school say they become disengaged during the middle-school years. The choices young people make at this age could set them on a course for active citizenship and engaged learning – or down a path of risky behavior and potential failure.”

Education Goes to School?  …high school kids are disengaged in both their education and in thinking about their future. This hypothesis is well-founded: try Googling “National Survey of Student Engagement.” For many students, education is perceived to be irrelevant to their future. The underlying issue: students are not engaged in any kind of “future thinking” to even know what is, and isn’t relevant to them. An even deeper issue…teachers, and parents too, are also disengaged. Just wanted to throw that in to cause trouble. And it IS a generalization, there are exceptions. So please don’t beat me up too much.

(UPDATE for readers-there is the beginning of a good conversation here. Be sure to visit the related links, check out the comments to this post and add your thoughts!)

While I do have an Education category I don’t post nearly as much about education issues as I’d like. But this caught my eye. You business and industry leaders who frequent this blog, take note if you want to pay more than lip service to Corporate Social Responsibility. Get involved in Education….this is our future workforce that is at risk, and I at least want to do my part to raise the awareness level of the business community. Don’t let the downturn and high unemployment lull you to sleep. There is a real and significant near-term workforce shortage looming ahead. And what there is in the labor pool is woefully unprepared. We need to get serious!

Gen. Colin Powell was just in the news lamenting our poor (US) graduation rate. As this is right up my alley, I dug a little deeper. Powell and his wife are both involved in America’s Promise Alliance. The organization’s statement of purpose:

We are an alliance born of the recognition that when too many children are at risk, we are a nation at risk. With less than one-third of America’s young people receiving the essential resources they need for success, we’re witnessing today an increased risk of substance abuse, crime and school drop outs. We can’t afford this loss of human potential and reversing this tide must be a national priority.

One of the Alliance’s National Action Strategies is Ready for the Real World… Engage every middle school student in service-learning and career exploration by designing “real-world” experiences relevant to them.

Why is this important? From America’s Alliance: “Many students who ultimately drop out of school say they become disengaged during the middle-school years. The choices young people make at this age could set them on a course for active citizenship and engaged learning – or down a path of risky behavior and potential failure.”

The Alliance has partnered with Gallup, which conducted the Gallup Student Poll. See the Gallup Student Poll Report. Gallup is a leading proponent of engagement in the workplace, and the design of the study and content of this report shows it.  I’ve posted elsewhere that a key issue in education is disengagement, of both students and teachers. (see Engagement Goes to School) We’re simply not hitting the right student hot buttons.

The issues facing education, and especially pertaining to engagement, are something I can really sink my teeth into as a business person, parent, grandparent, educator and camper who wants to leave this campground in better shape than I found it.

How about you?

Exploring the wonderful world of competency-based employee development, the model of preference in the business world. Possibly scarier yet…this is how our education system thinks and operates too.

This is a segue into strengths-based leadership–be looking for more.

Each position normally has a list of competencies–skills needed to perform the job. Every individual has a distribution of how well they demonstrate these competencies.  The performance appraisal process will assess how well a person models the competencies of their position. Common levels: Exceeds, Acceptable, Needs Improvement.

As it is important to be able to perform the job to which a person is assigned, focus is typically on beefing up any areas where a person “Needs Improvement”. Target: an “Acceptable Level of Competency”. With all that attention devoted to fixing what’s broken, what happens to those competencies where a person “Exceeds Expectations”?

Use-it-or-lose-it applies here. While the competencies needing to be improved are being tended to, the person’s unique strengths and talents are slipping. Strengths are strengths for good reason. A person’s strengths are normally a manifestation of their core drivers or motivators. These skills can lead a person to high engagement when they have a chance to fully use them on the job.

In the world of health care, what does “flatline” mean? (HINT: it ain’t good!)

Moral of the story…Let the Rabbits Run.

 (apologies for any funky layout issues…working on it, but not one of my “strengths”….definitely “needs improvement”.)