The 20 Mile March: defining 'great' work in schools

"...enterprises that prevail in turbulence self-impose a rigorous performance mark to hit with great consistency—like hiking across the United States by marching at least 20 miles a day, every day. The march imposes order amidst disorder, discipline amidst chaos, and consistency amidst uncertainty. The 20 Mile March works only if you actually hit your march year after year." [https://www.jimcollins.com/]

This blog is my 20 Mile March: by writing and reading every week I hope to find solutions to problems in my day-to-day work. In recent posts I have focused on Theory of Change, which led me to re-visit the work of business thinker and prolific writer Jim Collins - he of the quote above. It was opportune that the superb podcast interview of Collins by Tim Ferriss was re-posted this week, in which we learn how Collins integrates his concepts into his working routines and sheds more light on his body of research. It is not a short listen, at 2 hours, but well worth the time spent.  

So, let's embark on another 20 miles of blogging with Jim Collins at our shoulder -  blog post 1 of 5 on how his work can be related to education. 

1. Defining Great - measuring success without business metrics

Weighing in at a slim 36 pages, Jim Collins' monograph-style addition to 'Good to Great' designed for the Social Sectors punches well above its weight. It is packed with gems of evidence-based advice for leaders outside of the business world.

The original Good to Great book is the most accessible of business books and I have previously written of the importance of Collins' BHAG: The Big Hairy Audacious Goal in the context of Theory of Change: Collins identifies this as one of the key features of businesses that make the leap from Good to Great.

However, I had struggled to relate some of the other good-to-great concepts to my work in school leadership and management. This slim additional chapter addresses these lingering questions and tackles the differences and similarities between businesses and non-profits head-on. Collins writes convincingly that those in schools who dismiss learnings from business lack what he calls  'disciplined' thought. 

"...the good to great principles do indeed apply to the social sectors, perhaps even better than we expected."

It is striking how often Theory of Change language emerges from Collins' interviews and analyses of over 100 social sector leaders. The words inputs, outputs, impact and goals appear regularly.

"...what if your outputs are inherently not measurable? The basic idea is still the same, separate inputs from outputs, and hold yourself accountable for progress in outputs, even if those outputs defy measurement."

This is pure Theory of Change. Furthermore,

"It doesn't really matter whether you can quantify your results. What matters is that you rigorously assemble evidence - quantitative or qualitative - to track your progress. If the evidence is primarily qualitative, think like a trial lawyer assembling the combined body of evidence."

It is this 'assembling of evidence' that stuck with me from the first chapter of he book. The idea of Mixed Methods in educational research is not new, but is often over-looked in schools. It makes complete sense to me that any performance review of a teacher, department, or whole school should triangulate evidence from a wide range of sources. It makes little sense to look at class-level Value Added for a teacher if you are not going to provide a more holistic context - what do the students think of their progress? what is the broader pastoral context of the group? what were the curriculum goals and where was this period of teaching in the over-arching sequence of lessons? ... At a whole school level we may look at parental surveys, testimonials and more granular data analysis by sub-cohorts. 

One example of 'assembling the evidence' at Key Stage 5 may be including a measure of 'did the students get to their preferred University / Apprenticeship?, rather than a pure focus on A*-C etc. 

Perhaps a more ambitious question would be, 'did the student make progress across all aspects of character development?' There are some excellent examples of graduation diplomas based on hours of service in the community, hours representing the school in sports and arts alongside the more quantitative attainment data.

 In brief, 

"In the social sectors, performance is defined by efficiency on delivering on the social mission."

Perhaps we need to dream bigger, and this is something I'm looking forward to learning from Dr Phil Cummins in our upcoming conference in Newcastle next week.

In future posts I'll cover the next 4 levers for 'great' organisations as defined by Collins, but in a school context:

2. Level 5 Leadership - getting things done within a diffuse power structure

3. First Who then What - Getting the right people on the bus

4. The Hedgehog Concept - rethinking the economic engine without a profit motive

5. Turning the Flywheel - building momentum

Book

Collins, J. Good to Great and the Social Sectors. 2006. Random House

Podcast

Jim Collins on the Tim Ferriss podcast, 'a rare interview with a reclusive polymath':

https://tim.blog/2019/02/18/jim-collins/

Link

https://www.jimcollins.com/