Jim Collins, in his keynote at our 2013 NAIS Annual Conference in Philadelphia, citing findings in his most recent book Great by Choice, shared many useful insights, analogies, and case studies regarding how successful enterprises adopt strategies and disciplines that propel them to greatness:

1. Fanatic DISCIPLINE, as manifest in the “discipline of “the 20-mile march” adopted by Roald Amundsen in his successful quest to be the first to reach the South Pole (October 1911): i.e., setting achievable and repeatable goals.
2. Productive PARANOIA, as illustrated in Bill Gates and Microsoft’s attitude of maintaining hyper-vigilance in good times as well as bad, always entertaining the nightmare scenarios, always knowing that “there is a 100 percent certainty” that eventually conditions will unpredictably turn against one’s fortunes. (My version of the old adage of “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” I now recommend transmogrifying into “Create the conditions to achieve the best but scenario-plan for the worst.”)  
3. Empirical CREATIVITY, as documented by the many “small experiments” approach of the most successful enterprises, Collins’ analogy being “first shoot bullets, not missiles:” i.e., bullets being low cost, low risk, low distraction to the current business vs. missiles being high cost, high risk, with huge consequences for failure.

Independent school leaders and boards should read the Collins book to entertain adapting and adopting these same approaches as they innovate themselves into the 21st century “schools of the future” they must become. The next iteration of schools will deliver its mission promise as reliably in the future as it has in the past, but the delivery vehicles and the operational platforms will change dramatically, to become both more student-centric, real-world relevant, and technology-driven on the educational/programmatic side and more sustainable demographically, globally, environmentally, and financially on the operational side.

In a previous blog on charter schools, I noted the growth in competition we now face in some locales from public magnet schools and charter schools and that we’ll face in more locales when magnets and charters become more universally attractive (when “good and free” becomes more of a reality and more widely dispersed). The challenge then will be for more of us to answer this question: “What will the differentiator be for independent schools that will have to be ‘great though expensive’ to make people choose them over ‘good and free’ public sector schools?” Since the magnets and more of the charters may have more of the same independence that we have (independence in hiring and firing, in selective admissions, in curricular and assessment choices), the key to our success will be our differentiator under those circumstances. I believe those differentiators will be flexibility, personalization, connectedness, and innovation.

The analogy I’d share is using the DC Metro vs. driving one’s own automobile to work in Washington: The DC Metro is arguably the best public transportation in America: Clean, efficient, relatively safe, almost always on time, and relatively inexpensive (far less expensive, for example, than daily parking plus the $0.56 per mile cost the government calculates we spend on driving). And it serves the public good of reducing carbon emissions. So why do some of us drive instead of taking the Metro? Because the Metro doesn’t go to all the places we want to go; it only goes on its schedule, not ours; at rush hour it’s so crowded you can’t breathe, much less find a seat. And you only hear a disembodied voice of the conductor/engineer, and don’t see or interact with a caring human being. So, too, I believe, may be the case in the future in public vs. private “transportation,” or rather, “transformation” in schools. There will always be a market for private alternatives to public offerings, so long as they offer these four “premium” experiences of flexibility, personalization, connectedness, and innovation. I believe great schools and great teachers must increasingly offer these experiences.

In my last two columns for Independent School magazine, I shared my personal and professional observations on “greatness,” writing about “25 Factors Great Schools Have in Common” and about “25 Factors Great Teachers Have in Common,” based on my 42 years in the independent school world and my visits to hundreds of schools, public and private, around the country and world. I should note that in the former, what is implied but not directly stated in the “Great Schools” piece is that I am identifying operational factors that contribute to the success of schools, the fact of being mission-driven and mission-accountable an implied given of those factors. Similarly, in the “Great Teachers” piece what is implied but not directly stated is that I am focusing on attributes of great teachers that make them great, educational factors of student learning, growth, and success on multiple levels (Gardner’s multiple intelligences – intellectual, physical, aesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal), an implied given as a product of those teacher attributes. And I believe schools can be “great by choice” by adopting these operational factors and by hiring for these attributes.

In the last speaking tour of my NAIS tenure, I’ve been testing the "25 Factors" pieces in various venues around the country and world and have discovered how rich an experience it is for school leaders and educators to make their own lists and compare them to and contrast them with my lists. So here’s a suggestion: Perhaps do just that back at school with your board (Great Schools) and faculty (Great Teachers) for your end of school meetings this year or your back to school meetings next fall. When I did the “Great Teachers” exercise with 60 heads of schools, I framed the question this way: “Think of the teacher or professor who most influenced you at any level of your schooling, identify three or four attributes of that teacher that contributed most to his or her impact on you, then discuss those attributes with the small group at your table.” Then I asked each participant to stand up to share with the whole group his or her teacher’s name, grade level, and the one factor that was to them the most important differentiator of all. What was stunning is that no one mentioned directly the transfer of academic knowledge, but rather all mentioned personality and relationship factors: humor, passion, empathy, and most frequently “taking an interest in me” connectedness. Doesn’t this testimony have some significant implications on what we look for as we hire and train the next generation of teachers?

When I frame the exercise similarly on “Great Schools,” what I most frequently hear is some version of “delivering on the mission promise.” What our leaders are saying, obviously, is that articulating a mission and providing a menu of offerings that address it is not the same as achieving for all students the outcomes the mission defines. Doesn’t this insight have some significant implications on how we should evaluate our students while we have them and track their careers after they leave us? Doesn’t it also imply what should be important in the self-study and accreditation process – i.e., not what we offer (inputs), but what our students achieve (outcomes) in their next schools and in their lifetime?

So dear readers, what’s your take on greatness in schools and in teachers? How would you translate Collins’ principles into your leadership actions? If you do the “Great Schools” or “Great Teachers” exercises described above, what insights do you take away from your colleagues on the board and on the faculty? And if Collins is right that organizations can become “great by choice,” have you used any of his strategies to do just that?