Business as unusual: contrary to popular belief, being regarded as an omnipotent leader is not necessarily a compliment!

There seems to be a growing divide between what school leaders recognize as important and how they actually behave. Consider a recent survey in "Assessing Educational Leaders" (Reeves, 2004), which revealed that administrators have an intellectual understanding of the right things to do, yet lack the fundamental ability to act on this knowledge.

In the survey, 71 percent strongly agreed it was important to manage time to be an instructional leader, but only 45 percent said they did so. Three fourths of the respondents acknowledged the critical nature of using data to monitor student achievement and improve learning. Yet only 40 percent felt they performed this function. Seventy percent stated that educational leaders should "maintain a steady flow of two-way communication to keep the vision alive," but only 27 percent devoted time to this endeavor.

In fact, the single instance where the "knowing-doing" gap did not exist was in operations and discipline. Seventy-five percent of the respondents knew they should develop and distribute student handbooks outlining expectations and consequences, and 73 percent indeed did. If business as usual is reinforced over business as unusual, improvements will be slow and intermittent.

Closing the gap

To close this "knowing-doing" gap, principals, assistant principals and central office administrators have to organize themselves and their workplace in ways to meet increasing demands with greater efficiency. One's own style and degree of organization depend upon the level of on-the-job activity, the amount of public contact, the image you hope to project and how much effort is devoted to self-improvement.

Many administrators wonder what defines personal organization and question whether it is an innate quality or learned skilled. If your office is tidy and neat but you are always late for appointments, are you organized or not? If a subordinate responds to e-mails with lightening speed but never turns a report in on time, is this employee responsible or flaky?

To find answers, organization should be viewed as a continuum. On one end lies the utterly disheveled individual--someone with candy wrappers littering or her desk, piles of paper everywhere, and hundreds of unanswered emails illuminating his or her inbox. This co-worker could not meet a deadline if his or her life depended on it and returns phone calls at a speed akin to the Pony Express.

On the other side of the organizational spectrum rests the Type A fanatic. This individual sets lunch dates a year in advance, has every office file color-coded, and is able to find a document before you even ask for it. When a project is due, it is never less than a week early and you can bet he or she is the first to arrive at a meeting. The Type A organizer wears his or her Blackberry like an accessory and keeps a daily schedule that resembles a military boot camp.

Nine out of 10 people fall somewhere in between these two extremes (McCormack, 2000). So the first order of business as unusual is to decide where you are on the continuum and where you want to be. A variety of techniques and interventions can then be applied to progress along the matrix. The idea is to identify reasonable outcomes for yourself and be cognizant of your limitations. Without such knowledge, it's difficult to examine priorities and identify attainable goals for improvement.

Get into gear

What qualities define an organized school leader? Do principals in high achieving schools have similar or opposing work patterns to their less effective peers? Indeed, there are significant differences in the way successful leaders go about their day. Principals in high-performing schools, for instance, pay far more attention to learning-based activities. In fact, the interruption rate for the most efficient principals is only 2.5 percent, while their average counterparts are consumed by interruptions 5.2 percent of the time (Lezotte & Pepperl, 2004).

Studies conclude that effective principals are not consumed by operational requirements. Instead, they plan their day so that most of it centers on teaching and learning. What's particularly noteworthy is that these more successful school leaders are not better equipped than others or surrounded by an entourage of staff and resources. Instead, they are realistic about what can and can't be done in a 24-hour period, are time and space sensitive, and show discipline in sticking to their organizational agenda.

The welcome news is that personal organization is a craft that can be perfected through practice and commitment. Like any diet, exercise regime or life-altering program, better results cannot be expected until good habits drive away the bad. What better moment than the present to stop spinning your wheels and get into gear?

Building organizational fitness

Developing and maintaining organizational fitness over the long haul requires focused and sensible leadership. Choices have to be made about what is actually accomplished in the course of an hour, day, week or year. A leader's behavior and cognitive processes can be stabilized, modified or re-tooled by following a personalized intervention plan. The strategies below will strengthen organizational DNA and help busy administrators reach proficiency with greater ease.

Put first things first

Eighty percent of a reward comes from 20 percent of the effort. The trick is to isolate that valuable 20 percent. To master priorities, apply the 80/20 rule. This means devoting the majority of your time to those items that reap the biggest reward. Some administrators spend hours each week reviewing lesson plans or solving instructional dilemmas. However, findings on achievement-oriented leaders show that more indirect involvement, such as making sure the school runs efficiently, has a far greater impact on learning (Marzano, 2003).

Compartmentalize tasks by concentrating on one event without letting another encroach upon your time. If your secretary takes a call from an irate parent 10 minutes before a staff meeting, wait to phone the parent back. This gives the parent time to cool off, enables you to talk to the teacher and ascertain what might have prompted the call, and keeps your mind clear for the meeting.

Pay attention to your biological clock. If you are a morning person, then focus your priorities during the earlier parts of the day. If your energy wanes in the afternoon, use this time to accomplish things that require less concentration, such as reading e-mail or cleaning out files. Finding your "prime time" allows you to put first things first.

Conquering overload

Manage interruptions by responding to voice mail and e-mail at select times. Do not become glued to your computer waiting for the next missive to arrive. And give yourself permission to close your door. Although many school leaders have been taught to maintain an open-door policy, this is unproductive. If people know when interruptions are and are not okay, they will learn to respect your time. Hang a clipboard outside your office so that when someone stops by, they have an outlet to communicate their issue. Then be sure to get back to the person before the end of the day.

Simplify assignments so that the endless stream of activity isn't overwhelming. The best advice comes from NBA star Michael Jordan. When asked how he managed to consistently rack up 32 points a game for over a decade, Jordan told reporters he broke down his scoring into quarters. Figuring he could get 8 points a quarter in one fashion or another, Jordan concentrated on this smaller feat rather than thinking about an entire 32-point spread (McCormack, 2000).

This is an excellent technique for central office administrators to use when scheduling school visitations. Attempting to travel to more than two or three sites a day is fruitless. Instead, stagger visitations so as not to be away from the office more than once in any given week. Otherwise, cancellations are inevitable, making it impossible to get to every campus before the year is over.

According to Doug Reeves (2004), anyone who says that disruptions need to be eliminated during the day probably hasn't ever worked in a school. Reeves ponders when this might occur: "In the summer? At midnight? In a cemetery? In a school without children?"

A more realistic approach is to allow for interruptions by implementing a 50/50 schedule. If only 50 percent of your day is structured around appointments, meetings and planned events, you have the flexibility to handle unanticipated situations that invariably arise. For instance, it's ridiculous to arrange three formal teacher observations on the same day you are tied up in assemblies and an afternoon IEP meeting. By leaving plenty of white space on your calendar, you can avoid becoming overscheduled.

Mind over matter

Form a mental picture of your destination, then arrive there by identifying goals that are few in number, specific, measurable, attainable and time-bound. Optimal goals are those that cause people to stretch but not break as they strive to achieve them (Prochaska-Cue, 1995). If your school has an Academic Performance Index of 750 and has averaged 10-point annual gains, setting a target to reach 800 is not realistic. But perhaps 765 is doable.

When worry becomes a distraction, do something about it. If you don't, it will creep into other tasks and intrude upon your performance. If a situation consumes you with worry, rearrange your schedule so that you can act on it and then move on.

Believe it or not, the ready-fire-aim approach has merit. Sometimes it is necessary to take action, see what happens, make adjustments, and then re-execute a plan. Intuition can be used for smaller decisions and analysis for larger ones. When school leaders dare to be more decisive, it boosts their confidence and prevents the formation of codependent relationships.

Committing to change

Becoming organizationally fit requires truthful self-evaluation and a commitment to change. By abandoning or altering routines, a leader can tackle familiar activities in new ways, making it possible to become more productive.

The most sensible way to meet the escalating demands for improvement with less fiscal and human support is to:

* re-examine your priorities to make the most of what you have;

* conquer overload by expunging what you don't need;

* exercise Zen-like discipline to work smarter, not faster or harder; and

* practice self-control to achieve more of the things you want out of life.

To build organizational fitness and get into gear, administrators have to stop catching the ball every time it's thrown. Contrary to popular belief, being regarded as the official problem solver or omnipotent leader is not a compliment. Involvement in every decision, personal problem or crisis creates a permission-based culture.

Heading over to the cafeteria to see why the oven isn't working is catching the ball. Unless you are an electrician, you won't be able to fix it. Answering your own telephone in the midst of four other projects is catching the ball. That's why you have a secretary.

Telling yourself that your superintendent expects this of you is foolish. There isn't a superintendent in the land who does not want to see employees function more efficiently, feel less stressed, or cut corners to get a bigger bang for their buck. Business as unusual means minding your own business once in awhile.

References

Covey, S. (1994). First things first. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Lezotte, L. & Pepperl, J. (2004). What effective schools research says: Instructional leadership. Okemos, MI: Effective Schools Products, Ltd.

Marzano, R. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

McCormack, M. (2000). Getting results for dummies. Foster City, CA: IDG Books.

Prochaska-Cue, K. (1995, July). Thirteen timely tips for more effective personal time management. NebFacts, University of Nebraska. [Online]. Available: http:// www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/homemgt/ nf172.htm

Reeves, D. (2004). Assessing educational leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press and NAESP joint publication.

Suzette Lovely is deputy superintendent, personnel services, for Capistrano Unified School District. This article is excerpted from her forthcoming book, "Setting Leadership Priorities: What's Necessary, What's Nice and What's Got to Go," being published by Corwin Press this October.