A Learning Organization is a Leading Organization

Where do you work, and what is your organization's core mission?  

Perhaps the core mission is to increase shareholders' value?  Maybe you work for an organization whose core misson is to provide quality healthcare or entertainment?  

Core missions can vary depending on the area.  As the leader of a school and an employee of a school district, our core mission is learning.  We are designed to help young people learn and to reach for more academic and social/emotional growth than they thought possible.  At the end of the day, all we do in our district - from Board members and superintendents to groundskeepers, teachers, and bus drivers - is focused on increasing learning for students.

One strategy our district embraces to reach our core mission is to invest in learning opportunities for their staff members.  Our district has a long history of providing and encouraging quality professional development for their staff.  I am aware of training for all levels of our oranization.  Some of this training is from our own local experts.  Sometimes we bring in nationally renowned speakers.  We regularly partner with our county-wide intermediate school district.  Many of us are members of state and national organizations who offer many learning opportunities.  Our staffs also host book studies - usually on their own time - for specific topics of interest.  Adult learning is part of our culture, and I believe this has made a distinct, positive impact for our students.

I just returned from a week at Harvard University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education where two other colleagues and I participated in a week-long workshop entitled The Art of Leadership.  We were joined by more than 130 educators and school leaders from 8 different countries and 22 other states and the District of Columbia.

Over six, very full days we were challenged, inspired, pushed,  praised, and provided time to reflect on our leadership practices.  All we learned was coordinated around our core mission -learning for our students.

The daily themes were led by internationally respected researchers, lecturers, and practitioners, and each day was engaging and filled with active learning.

• Sunday, June 25: Taking an adaptive leadership stance
• Monday, June 26: Building capacity through experiential learning
• Tuesday, June 27: Evaluating personal and organizational strategy
• Wednesday, June 28: Examining expectations for student success
• Thursday, June 29: Leading data driven instruction
• Friday, June 30: Collaborating for effective leadership

The week was rich, thought provoking, and occassionally overwhelming.  I have a binder filled with notes and reflections.  My inbox has links to new friends, colleagues, and resources from around the world.  I have already ordered and read three books from this experience.   I was reminded of the importance to be intentional about change, to operationalize a plan, and to be deliberate around equity and tolerance.  We experienced why learning should be fun and different ways to tell and interpret our stories.  I have new protocols to help me see challenges as opportunities.  We practiced the case-study method to see other perspectives, and we were passionately reminded that schools have a moral obligation to help all students learn.  The week left me with practical applications that I can use immediatley as well as a collection of thoughts that will require me to think and reflect with my colleagues even more.

In many ways I was affirmed that what our school and district are doing is correct, and I now see more clearly ways that we can improve...improve the learning for our students.  I am grateful to work for an organization that expects, respects, invests in, is committed to, and encourages learning for all.  We are a learning and leading organization!

PS:  As you can imagine, the week was filled with quotes.  This final quote of the week spoke to me, and  it puts into words better than what I can say for why schools must ensure learning remains as our core mission.  Ironcially it does not even use the word, "learning," but hope for a better future has always been the natural outgrowth of learning for me.  This quote seems to best encapsulate the "why" of my entire week at Harvard.

“Hope is the presentiment that the imagination is more real, and reality less real, than we had thought. It is the sensation that the last word does not belong to the brutality of facts with their oppression and repression. It is the suspicion that reality is far more complex than realism would have us believe, that the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the present, and that miraculously and surprisingly, life is readying the creative event that will open the way to freedom and resurrection.” --Ruben Alves